President Bush still believes Israel should not build new neighborhoods in parts of Jerusalem that Jordan held from 1949 to 1967.
“The problem of settlements is a problem where we have had a difference with the Israeli government,” Bush said Thursday during a “roundtable interview” at the White House with 16 journalists from religious media organizations.
“We are not going to change our policy, and our policy is that beyond the so-called ‘Green Line,’ settlements should not be expanded,” he said.
The disagreement is not only about whether the Israeli government has the right to build and expand Jewish settlements in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip. It also centers on the status of parts of Jerusalem that lie beyond the Green Line, including East Jerusalem, as well as newer neighborhoods on the north and south sides of the city.
The Bush administration regards these areas as part of the West Bank and therefore “occupied territory.” Israel, which annexed East Jerusalem shortly after capturing it in 1967, considers the burgeoning united city as its capital.
“I would like to hope that it will never be divided again,” Bush said. “The fate of Jerusalem, the final status of Jerusalem should be handled in a negotiated manner, and certainly there will not be any dictation to the people of Israel on how that’s handled.”
But until that time, he said, Israel should not build in the disputed areas.
The president was responding to a question from the Jewish Telegraphic Agency, the only Jewish organization represented at the White House meeting. But he did not directly answer the question, which was whether the administration believes Soviet Jewish immigrants have a right to live in Jerusalem.
PROUD OF SOVIET JEWRY RECORD
“The right of Soviet Jews to live in Israel is a given,” Bush said. He added that he takes “great pride in the fact that our administration has probably done more for the immigration of Soviet Jews than anybody.
“The Reagan administration, of which I was a part, did pretty darn well,” the president said. “But because of our relationship with the Soviet Union and because of our zeal in bringing this question to the fore, you have seen immigration in enormous numbers.”
The question of Soviet Jews settling in East Jerusalem became a source of contention last year, when it became one of the reasons given for holding up U.S. guarantees for $400 million in loans Israel sought to build housing for Soviet immigrants.
The guarantees were finally provided in February, when the Israeli government convinced the United States that it was not government policy to send Soviet Jews to the territories, even though it apparently made no such commitment about Jerusalem. Moreover, the Israeli government has maintained that Jews are free to live anywhere they desire.
Malcolm Hoenlein, executive director of the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations, pointed out in a telephone interview Thursday that in March 1990, Bush sent a letter to then Sen. Rudy Boschwitz (R-Minn.), saying that Jews have a right to live anywhere in Jerusalem.
A similar letter was sent by Secretary of State James Baker to Rep. Mel Levine (D-Calif.), Hoenlein said.
Bush also stressed Thursday that he wants “to see peace in the Middle East, and I want to see peace for Israel.” He said the basis for peace is U.N. Security Council Resolutions 242 and 338, and “we’ll press for that.”
The resolutions call for the Israeli return of land in exchange for Arab recognition of the Jewish state’s right to exist within secure boundaries.
FAVORS VOLUNTARY PRAYER IN SCHOOLS
Bush said that an Arab-Israeli peace is part of what he considers a new world order after the defeat of Iraq.
“I am hopeful that our credibility in the Arab world, in the Israeli context, will enable us to bring this new world order, which is peace and respect for the other guy’s territorial integrity, to Israel and to the Palestinians,” the president said.
But he made clear that the new order will not include Saddam Hussein. “We will not, as long as I am president, have normal relations with Iraq as long as Saddam Hussein is there,” he stressed.
On domestic issues, Bush said that while he supports the separation of church and state, he believes that voluntary prayer should be allowed in the public schools.
He said that is why his administration urged the U.S. Supreme Court to consider the appeal of the Providence, R.I., school board against lower-court rulings that prayers mentioning God cannot be recited at public school graduations.
The court agreed to hear the case, Lee vs. Weisman, next fall.
“I hope that entry of the Justice Department means we will be able to have invocations and prayers at graduations,” Bush said. “I do not agree that religion has no place at graduations.”
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The Archive of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency includes articles published from 1923 to 2008. Archive stories reflect the journalistic standards and practices of the time they were published.
