American Jewish leaders now appear to feel reassured that Israel will be able to meet U.S. conditions for receiving $400 million in loan guarantees that will be used to build housing for Soviet immigrants.
But there is lingering concern over statements made by senior officials of the Bush administration this, week about U.S. policy on East Jerusalem, which Israel annexed in 1967 and regards as an integral part of the capital.
Last weekend, President Bush appeared to imply that the United States opposes the settlement of Jews in East Jerusalem to the same degree that it opposes such settlement in the West Bank and Gaza Strip.
On Monday evening, after President Bush telephoned an American Jewish leader to clarify U.S. policy, the White House issued a statement saying Jews have a right to live in East Jerusalem, “in the context of a negotiated settlement.”
The following day, Vice President Dan Quayle and White House Chief of Staff John Sununu assured separate American Jewish audiences that the United States has no problem with Jews or others living in East Jerusalem.
‘VERY DISQUIETING’ REMARKS
But on Wednesday afternoon, an official of the National Security Council told the Simon Wiesenthal Center’s National Leadership Conference here that the United States has been concerned for many years about Israeli settlement activity in East Jerusalem.
“The concern about settlement activity in that area, as in the rest of the West Bank and Gaza, has also been there since 1967,” said David Welch, director of Near East and South Asia affairs on the National Security Council.
Welch said that beginning in 1967 at the United Nations, U.S. Ambassadors Arthur Goldberg, Charles Yost, Bush and William Scranton, as well as Secretary of State Henry Kissinger, all raised that concern.
Dr. Adam Garfinkle, coordinator of the political studies program at the Foreign Policy Research Institute in Philadelphia, confirmed in a telephone interview Wednesday that those U.S. officials had made statements expressing U.S. concern about Jewish settlement of East Jerusalem, as well as the West Bank and Gaza Strip.
But Garfinkle said that no other U.S. president has taken a public stand on the issue. The fact that Bush chose a sensitive point in the peace process to do so, he said, “makes all the difference in the world.”
Welsh disagreed. “To say that President Bush made it an issue is just not right. Sorry, I disagree,” he told the Wiesenthal Center group.
At the same time, Welch said the Bush administration is not now challenging the right of Jews to live in East Jerusalem.
“We don’t want to make East Jerusalem an issue,” he said. “We have merely said that we want to avoid unilateral acts that prejudge the (peace) negotiations.”
In New York, Malcolm Hoenlein, executive director of the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations, said Wednesday he found Welsh’s comments “very disquieting.”
He said the NSC staffer’s remarks were “an apparent contradiction” to assurances Quayle gave the Conference of Presidents Tuesday afternoon.
NO MORATORIUM ON SETTLEMENTS
Hoenlein said that despite Bush administration statements that there is no new policy on East Jerusalem, “there docs appear to be a change in policy,” and the American Jewish leadership is “very concerned” about it.
“To recognize a Green Line through Jerusalem” on settlement activity “is to divide the city,” he said, adding that there is “no issue that more unites the Jewish community and Israel.”
He said the Conference of Presidents would seek new clarifications from the administration.
At the same time, Hoenlein appeared to be satisfied with the U.S. position on the housing loan guarantees.
Secretary of State James Baker reiterated Wednesday morning in testimony to a House Appropriations subcommittee that the Bush administration would support the loan guarantees, provided that the United States and Israel “are able to work out assurances that satisfy us on settlement activity.”
Hoenlein explained that the basic assurance the United States has been seeking from Israel is that U.S. funds will be spent only within Israel’s pre-1967 borders. That excludes East Jerusalem, as well as the West Bank and Gaza Strip.
“The expectation is that the Israeli assurances will be sufficient to allow the housing guarantees to be given,” said Hoenlein.
He said Quayle had assured the Conference of Presidents that the United States would not require a moratorium on Jewish settlement across the Green Line as a condition for receiving the $400 million in guarantees.
That matter “has been put to rest,” he said.
He said the administration also has indicated it will not balk at the $400 million request if Israel spends money of its own on settling Soviet Jews in the territories.
Congressional action on the $400 million loan guarantee is not expected until late April.
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