The Bush administration has denied an Israeli Cabinet minister’s claim that it blocked Vice President Dan Quayle from meeting with him.
Health Minister Ehud Olmert, a close Likud ally of Prime Minister Yitzhak Shamir, tried unsuccessfully to arrange a meeting Wednesday with Quayle.
Olmert then claimed that the State Department thwarted the meeting as part of a practice of barring contacts between U.S. officials and Israelis who do not hold the same rank in government.
Jeff Nesbit, Quayle’s communications director, denied that the State Department exerted any pressure over Quayle not to meet with Olmert.
The vice president “meets with (Israeli) Cabinet ministers all the time,” said Nesbit. He added that had Quayle’s schedule permitted, “he would have been delighted to meet” with Olmert. “So there’s not much to this,” he said.
Olmert’s claim was also called “not true” by State Department spokeswoman Margaret Tutwiler. As to the existence of “some kind of directive from the State Department” barring such contacts, “it just doesn’t exist,” she said.
The vice president “meets with Israeli officials all the time,” she said, adding: “This was nothing more than a scheduling matter.”
A pro-Israel lobbyist here also rejected Olmert’s claim, citing the fact that Quayle was out of town campaigning part of Wednesday, all day Thursday and likely all day Friday.
Secretary of State James Baker was accused last year of trying to block any meeting between Israeli Housing Minister Ariel Sharon and his pro-Israeli counterpart, Jack Kemp, who is secretary of housing and urban Development.
Unlike Olmert and Quayle, Sharon and Kemp did meet, but at the Israeli Embassy, rather than at Kemp’s office.
Whether or not Olmert’s allegation is true, the episode is a clear reflection of the current high state of tension in U.S.-Israeli relations.
The climate between the two countries has grown chilly since the Bush administration balked at providing Israel with loan guarantees and accused it of transferring U.S. military technology to other countries.
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