Israel Defense Minister Yitzhak Rabin expressed confidence Thursday that the United States will continue to provide Israel with the $3 billion in economic and military aid it has received annually since 1986.
The aid budget for the current year has already been approved, Rabin said. As for the 1991 fiscal year, “I have the reason to believe that there will be no reduction,” he said.
Rabin’s remarks were made to reporters after a one-hour meeting with Secretary of State James Baker, which ended his two-day visit to Washington.
The defense minister said he discussed Israel’s economic and military needs with Baker and with a number of other Bush administration officials on Wednesday. They included Vice President Dan Quayle, National Security Adviser Brent Scowcroft, Defense Secretary Dick Cheney and the secretaries of the Army, Navy and Air Force.
State Department spokeswoman Margaret Tutwiler said Baker did not make any comment on the specific aid level. He only said that “the United States has always supported Israel, and we will continue to support Israel,” she reported.
Rabin always makes the case for continuing the current level of U.S. aid to Israel when he visits Washington.
But the issue took on more urgency this time because of a suggestion this week by Senate Minority Leader Robert Dole (R-Kan.) that aid to Israel and four other top recipients be cut 5 percent to meet the needs of the emerging democracies in Eastern Europe and Panama.
DOLE PROPOSAL CRITICIZED
The Bush administration has said that it supports Dole’s argument that President Bush needs more flexibility in providing foreign aid, rather than the present situation, where two-thirds of the $14.6 billion aid budget is earmarked for five countries.
But the administration has shied away from naming any country that should be cut.
Dole has not received much public support from his colleagues for his views. One of them, Sen. Connie Mack (R-Fla.), has sent a letter to Baker, arguing that “we should not be in the business of pitting embattled democracies against each other.”
He said if inflation is taken into account, U.S. aid has already been reduced to each of the five countries mentioned by Dole: Israel, Egypt, Philippines, Turkey and Pakistan.
“U.S. aid to Israel, for example, dropped by almost 15 percent if inflation is taken into account,” Mack said.
Rabin said Thursday that Israel still needs the $1.8 billion in military aid it receives from Washington, because the lessening threat from the USSR in Europe has not benefited the Mideast.
Cheney reportedly reassured Rabin that Israel will continue to get the $1.8 billion in military aid.
But sources reported that Rabin was warned at the Pentagon that there is no way that Israel could not be affected by the massive cuts planned for the U.S. military budget in the coming years.
This would mean that Israel could sell fewer arms to the U.S. Defense Department, there would be fewer arms available for purchase and there would be a reduction in joint U.S.-Israeli projects.
Rabin also stressed that Israel continues to need the full $1.2 billion in economic aid it receives, especially now that the number of emigrants from the USSR is rapidly increasing.
But according to a report Thursday in the Washington Times, the U.S. Embassy has submitted a report to the State Department suggesting that Israel does not need the full $1.2 billion in economic aid.
NO MEETING WITH EGYPTIAN
Tutwiler appeared to confirm the report during her State Department briefing. She said all U.S. ambassadors are routinely required to submit assessments of the needs in the countries to which they are assigned.
“It is an assessment, not a recommendation,” and “many assessments are not acted on,” she said.
Meanwhile, Rabin’s visit apparently did not result in any breakthroughs on the peace process, though it was discussed in all of his meetings.
Tutwiler said there is still no date for the meeting Baker is scheduled to host in Washington with Israeli Foreign Minister Moshe Arens and Egyptian Foreign Minister Esmat Abdel Meguid.
She said that they were still working on the assurances sought by Egypt and Israel on accepting Baker’s five-point proposal for Israeli-Palestinian talks in Cairo.
Rabin may have been reluctant to discuss the peace process publicly because of charges by Shamir and his Likud colleagues that Labor is trying to undermine Likud’s responsibility for foreign affairs in the coalition government.
Shamir has already made such a charge against Vice Premier Shimon Peres for agreeing to meet next week with Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak, who has so far refused to meet with the Likud prime minister.
Rabin did not meet here with Meguid, who was also in Washington and met with Baker on Tuesday. The Egyptian official was scheduled to see the secretary of state again on Friday.
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