Israel can be confident it will be treated well by the new American administration and U.S. Congress elected two weeks ago, according to one of the most respected Jewish political lobbyists on Capitol Hill.
“We expect the 101st Congress to be the most pro-Israel ever,” Thomas Dine told thousands of delegates attending the General Assembly of the Council of Jewish Federations here.
Dine, who directs the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, spoke at a forum Wednesday night on the implications of the U.S. and Israeli elections for Middle East peace.
He shared the platform with Moshe Arad, Israel’s ambassador to Washington, who concentrated his remarks on the goals of the next Israeli government and on Israel’s response to the Palestine National Council’s declaration in Algiers.
Dine noted that President-elect George Bush pledged during his election campaign that he would “build upon the pro-Israel legacy” of the Reagan administration.
“We look forward to working with the Bush administration,” he said.
The AIPAC official was cautious in his appraisal of Bush’s selection of former Treasury Secretary James Baker to be secretary of state.
He said that while Baker had supported the 1981 sale of AWACS surveillance planes to Saudi Arabia, the former treasury secretary also had pressed to retain current levels of foreign aid to Israel, at a time of fiscal austerity and deep national concern over the budget deficit.
On the subject of the PNC declaration in Algiers, Ambassador Arad said he was gratified that the U.S. administration had viewed it with skepticism.
He expressed his government’s view that the declaration is little more than a ploy “aimed at driving a wedge between Israel and the United States.”
Arad said the PNC’s call for self-determination is “a euphemism for the establishment of a Palestinian state.”
Noting that the Palestinian body had linked its acceptance of a U.N. resolution recognizing Israel to all other U.N. resolutions, the ambassador said, “One cannot expect Israel to negotiate” with the Palestinians when one of those resolutions equates Zionism with racism.
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