Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin says he is confident President-elect Bill Clinton will back the Middle East peace process launched last year by the Bush administration.
During a meeting in Washington last August, the Arkansas governor assured Rabin of continued support for Israel and said he would honor the loan guarantees promised to Israel by President Bush, Rabin told reporters.
The prime minister said he asked Clinton whether his focus on domestic issues would bring about a reduced American commitment to international affairs.
“He replied that it was the other way around: The stronger the U.S. is from within, the stronger it be on the outside.”
Foreign Minister Shimon Peres said Clinton would pursue the peace process because a stable Middle East is in the U.S. interest. But he cautioned that Israel too must vigorously pursue peace.
“If the United States feels that Israel is not interested in peace, we shall lose its respect,” Peres told Israel Television.
Meanwhile, the coordinator of government affairs in the administered territories has complained the Palestinian delegation to the peace talks has no influence in the territories.
Maj. Gen. Danny Rothschild said the delegates do not represent the urban inhabitants of the territories and that even Faisal Husseini, the most prominent personality in the Palestinian community, exerts little influence there.
He said that Jordan, which cut its official links with the territories in the mid-1980s, is now renewing ties there and moving to fill the vacuum left by the Palestinian leadership.
Rothschild outlined his analysis to the Knesset Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee on Wednesday, five days before the bilateral peace talks were scheduled to resume in Washington.
He also said the Moslem fundamentalist Hamas movement is growing in strength with the help of liberal funding from Saudi Arabia and Iran, which it is channeling to Palestinians in the territories in the form of aid and student grants.
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