Citing a lack of progress in resolving the Arab-Israeli conflict, the United States and other Western countries have rejected an Israeli appeal for aid to rehabilitate Palestinian refugee camps.
The U.S. refusal came this week in a letter from President Bush to Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Shamir. The Israeli newspaper Ma’ariv quoted Bush as saying that the camps had to be part of a “comprehensive plan to resolve the conflict.”
Canada, France, Great Britain, Japan and West Germany also have rejected the Israeli request, an Israeli Embassy official here said Wednesday.
The State Department said Wednesday that “the question of the refugees cannot be separated from the search for an overall solution to the Arab-Israeli conflict.”
Department spokeswoman Margaret Tutwiler added that “the United States is fully engaged in trying to move the (peace) process forward and will continue those efforts.”
She said the United States has “long been deeply concerned about the refugee situation” in the administered territories. She said that is why the Bush administration supports the efforts of the U.N. Relief and Works Agency, which received $65.3 million from the United States this fiscal year.
Reacting to the Bush letter, the Israeli Embassy official argued that the U.S. rejection was not based on the merit of such a project, but on a different priority list.
An international effort to improve the life of Palestinian refugees in the West Bank and Gaza Strip was part of Shamir’s four-point peace initiative announced in Washington in April. Other points of the plan include elections in the West Bank and Gaza Strip to select Palestinian representatives who would negotiate with Israel on an interim autonomy plan for the territories and, eventually, their final status.
The Israeli official said he understood the U.S. position that “elections should be worked out” before dealing with other topics.
He added that Israel has previously proposed rebuilding Palestinian refugee camps as part of an Israeli “Marshall Plan” for the territories, a reference to the massive U.S. assistance extended to ravaged Western Europe after World War II.
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