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Tension May Enter U.S.
Israel Relationship

WOLF BLITZER

Special to The Jewish News

I

n recent months, the
State Department has
been busy preparing
lengthy position papers for
the next administration.
By all accounts, career
foreign policy bureaucrats
have been gearing up for ma-
jor diplomatic activity next
year — irrespective of the
shape of the U.S. and Israeli
governments. They want the
next president and his
secretary of state to begin
with a running start.
First years of new ad-
ministrations in Washington
have often witnessed new U.S.
peace initiatives in the Mid-
dle East. State Department
experts can be expected to
recommend that the United
States take the lead in resolv-
ing the Arab-Israeli conflict—
even if that means leaning
heavily on Israel.
U.S. observers pointed out
that this kind of American
pressure on Israel will pro-
bably be easier if Prime
Minister Yitzhak Shamir
forms a narrow Likud-led
coalition with the extreme
right-wing nationalist and
religious parties. This kind of
Israeli government will
presumably have less of a
domestic American political
power base than a Labor
government.
Even many of Israel's tradi-
tional supporters in the
Jewish community, the
reasoning goes, will be reluc-
tant to overly defend the
presumably hard-line policies
of such a narrow government.
The mainstream of the Jew-
ish community will be further
alienated if the Likud agrees
to ultra-Orthodox demands
that the Law of Return be
revised to bar Jewish im-
migrants converted abroad by
Reform and Conservative rab-
bis from receiving automatic
Israeli citizenship.
As it is, even "moderate"
Israeli governments have had
a record of tensions with
Washington during the first
years of new American ad-
ministrations.

In 1969, for example,
Secretary of State William
Rogers undertook a major
peace initiative in the Middle
East. The Rogers Plan called
on Israel to withdraw to its
pre-1967 lines with only
minor modifications. The
plan did not get far because of
sharp Israeli opposition.
(Arab states also rejected it -

because it required them to
accept Israel.)
In 1977, President Jimmy
Carter spoke of the need for
a Palestinian homeland on
the West Bank and Gaza and
called for Israel to return to
its 1967 boundaries. And in
October of that year, the U.S.
and the Soviet Union signed
a surprise memorandum of
agreement on how to move
ahead jointly in the peace pro-
cess. Ironically, it was only
after Egyptian President An-
war Sadat journeyed to
Jerusalem the following
month that the Carter
scenario crumbled.
Aware of this history,
veteran Israeli officials are
already bracing for some
serious problems with the
United States next year.
Despite the very pro-Israeli
rhetoric during the presiden-
tial campaign, Israeli officials
are nervous that the next ad-
ministration will pressure
Israel to make painful conces-
sions.
They recognize that fun-
damental, long-standing dif-
ferences exist between
Washington and Jerusalem
about the future of the West
Bank and Gaza. These dif-
ferences, which have existed
since Israel captured thoSe
territories during the 1967
Six-Day War, transcend
Democratic and Republican
administrations in the
United States.
The fact is that the U.S. and
Israel's Labor Party — let
alone Likud — are far apart
on many key territorial
issues. As long as the peace
process is stalemated, the two
countries have been able to
paper over their differences.
U.S. officials suspect that
the Arabs, perhaps even
Yassir Arafat and his PLO,
may soon propose some tangi-
ble offers for peace. If this
should occur, it would almost
certainly add to the strain
between the U.S. and Israel.
Most Israeli officials were
publicly neutral in the U.S.
election. Both Yitzhak
Shamir and Shimon Peres
avoided stating which can-
didate would be better for
Israel. In turn, they welcom-
ed support from both George
Bush and Michael Dukakis.
But privately, these officials
were quite worried.
Now that both the Israeli
and U.S. elections are over,
there is deep concern, shared
by Israel's most active
political supporters in
Washington, that there may
be some rough moments in
the relationship.

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