A bipartisan group of members of the U.S. House of Representatives is urging President Bush to seize the Labor Party victory in Israel as an opportunity to take quick action on Israel’s longstanding request for $10 billion in U.S.-guaranteed loans.
Meanwhile, 28 senators have sent a letter to the administration asking for a clarification of its position on U.N. General Assembly Resolution 194. The controversial 1948 measure includes calls for the repatriation of Palestinians to Israel and the internationalization of Jerusalem.
Edward Djerejian, U.S. assistant secretary of state for Near Eastern and South Asian affairs, stated plainly in testimony before a congressional committee last week that the administration is taking no position on “specific issues until the new Israeli government is formed, the new prime minister enunciates his policies” and the two governments begin formal contacts.
Labor Party leader Yitzhak Rabin has said he hopes to assemble his government by the time the new Knesset convenes for the first time Monday.
But the congressional letters appear to be meant more to register concern than to elicit substantive policy responses.
In fact, it is widely expected that at least some part of the loan package will be granted before the U.S. elections in November. Such a deal could be announced after a visit here by Rabin, whose election victory Bush has warmly welcomed.
The Bush administration had conditioned the loan guarantees on a freeze in the construction of Jewish settlements in the administered territories. But outgoing Likud Prime Minister Yitzhak Sha- mir’s refusal to yield on the issue led to a collapse in the talks aimed at forging a deal.
Rabin is notably more flexible on the question of settlements.
Still, the House members wanted to go on record in support of the guarantees, which Israel would use to obtain commercial loans for immigrant absorption.
‘SHOT IN THE ARM’ FOR ISRAEL
“Rabin won a mandate for change and for progress,” said Rep. Wayne Owens (D-Utah), one of the original sponsors of the letter. Providing loan guarantees quickly would “help turn around Israel’s economic situation and give a shot in the arm to U.S.-Israel relations, which will in turn boost Israel’s confidence with regard to taking risks in the peace process.”
“As more time passes without American guarantees for these loans, immigrants who have sought new lives in Israel suffer from the shortage of jobs and housing,” the letter said.
“Having played so important a role in freeing Soviet Jews, the United States ought to follow through by guaranteeing these loans.”
The missive from the Senate side, initiated by Sen. Joseph Lieberman (D-Conn.), was drafted in response to an apparent misstep in May by State Department spokeswoman Margaret Tutwiler.
Tutwiler set off a firestorm of protest from pro-Israel quarters when she said the United States stands by the 1948 U.N. resolution.
She later retrenched, saying that issues such as Jerusalem’s final status and the repatriation of Palestinians “can only be resolved through a process of direct negotiations among the parties themselves.”
But the senators argued in their letter that ambiguity persists. “The issue of the Palestinian ‘right of return’ goes to the very heart of Israel’s existence,” they wrote. Ambiguity on this question, in particular, “only heightens fear in Israel and emboldens Arab radicals, thereby undercutting the peace process.”
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