Recent statements by the Bush administration on Israeli settlement of the West Bank and East Jerusalem have given the impression that U.S. support for Israel is diminishing, a U.S. congressman and an Israeli diplomat charged Monday.
The statements have given other countries and groups like the Palestine Liberation Organiza- tion the perception that “this administration is nowhere as committed to Israel as the last one,” said Rep. Lawrence Smith (D-Fla.).
Oded Eran, the No. 2 official at the Israeli Embassy here, said that the U.S.-Israeli alliance has “deteriorated, from Israel’s point of view.”
The two and Dennis Ross, the State Department’s director of policy planning, participated in a panel discussion called “The U.S. and Israel: Still an Unshakable Alliance?” at the United Jewish Appeal’s seventh National Young Leadership Conference here.
Ross maintained that while allies have differences, the U.S.-Israel alliance is “unshakable” because of the two nations’ shared values.
Smith and Eran said they agreed with criticism of the Bush administration voiced the night before by Tom Dine, executive director of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee.
“Suddenly there is rejoicing at PLO headquarters in Tunis and dismay in Israel” at what is seen as a “new American tilt” away from Israel, Dine told the 2,500 delegates participating in the UJA conference.
‘A SERIES OF MISTAKES AND MISSTEPS’
“Unfortunately the administration has, in the past 10 days, made a series of mistakes and missteps that, taken together, suggest that something new and different and very unwelcome is going on,” said Dine.
He criticized President Bush for raising a divisive new issue March 3 when he said at a news conference in California that the United States opposed Jewish settlements in East Jerusalem as well as the West Bank.
Before Bush, no U.S. president had raised concerns about such settlements, “certainly not publicly,” Dine said.
He added that Bush received extensive briefings on East Jerusalem last week from the National Security Council, “which were presented to him in a manner highly critical of the policies of both Labor and Likud governments toward the eastern half of Israel’s capital.”
Eran said Labor and Likud had been very close to making a decision on a U.S. proposal for Israeli-Palestinian talks. He indicated that Bush’s statement had a damaging effect on the two parties’ dispute, which centered over whether Arab residents of East Jerusalem could be part of the Palestinian negotiating delegation.
He said the U.S. statement about East Jerusalem settlements combined with the administration’s push for inclusion of East Jerusalem Arabs had created “a deep suspicion about Jerusalem’s future.”
‘SENSITIVE NERVES’ DAMAGED
Eran said that “sensitive nerves have been damaged” because the statements have involved two critical issues for Israel immigration, the raison d’etre for the Jewish state, and the status of Jerusalem, which Israel regards as its eternal capital.
“It is an insult to any Israeli to see the U.S. ambassador riding every day to Jerusalem” from the U.S. Embassy in Tel Aviv, Eran said. “Jerusalem is my capital.”
Speaking at a conference luncheon Monday, Simcha Dinitz, chairman of the Executives of the Jewish Agency for Israel and the World Zionist Organization, said people seem to have forgotten that Jerusalem is not now occupied territory, but was occupied territory between 1948 and 1967.
“Jerusalem has been the capital of Israel since King David,” he said. “Jerusalem has been the capital of Israel, where every group is free to follow its own religion and for the first time is protected by law and will be until time immemorial.”
Ross said the U.S. policy toward Jerusalem has remained unchanged since 1967. He said the city must never be divided again, but that its final status must be decided by negotiations.
He said the Bush administration’s remarks that U.S. funds cannot be used to aid Soviet immigrants in the West Bank were aimed at convincing Moscow to expedite the emigration of Soviet Jews, including initiating direct flights from Moscow to Israel.
Rep. Smith said the Arab states should be told to “stop this nonsense” of opposing Jewish immigration to Israel. He said the United States should continue encouraging Soviet emigration and tell the Arabs, “We don’t want to hear about it anymore.”
On the peace process, Smith argued that Israel has continually moved forward, “and no one else has moved an inch.”
He said the administration statements have been sending a message to the Arabs: “Don’t worry about a thing. If the process stalls, we’ll just beat up on Israel a little more and you don’t have to do a blessed thing.”
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