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March 27, 1992 - Image 33

Resource type:
Text
Publication:
The Detroit Jewish News, 1992-03-27

Disclaimer: Computer generated plain text may have errors. Read more about this.

BACKGROUND

Breaking Up
Is Hard To Do

American Jewish groups are angry with the
White House, but aware that Mr. Bush may be
in power four more years.

JAMES BESSER

Washington Correspondent

L

ike the prolonged dete-
rioration of a marriage,
the continuing slide in
U.S.-Israel relations is pro-
ducing anxiety, confusion
and a degree of paralysis
among Israel's friends in
Washington.
In particular, Jewish
leaders are finding it
difficult to make one critical
judgment: at exactly what
point does the community
decide to abandon efforts to
patch up the relationship
and file for divorce from the
Bush administration?
The symptoms of a fun-
damental breach between
the two countries are in-
creasingly difficult to ignore,
from the White House rejec-
tion of a last-ditch Senate
compromise designed to
salvage part of the $10
billion in loan guarantees
requested by Israel to the
high- level leaks suggesting
Israeli improprieties in
reselling American military
technology.
This week, President Bush
continued to put off a prom-
ised meeting with Jewish
leaders to discuss these
events — one more sign, ac-

cording to some observers,
that the Jewish community
no longer figures promi-
nently in the administra-
tion's political calculations.
But Jewish leaders are
reluctant to cut off all ties to
a president who may have
four more years with his
hands on the levers of U.S.
Middle East policy.
Officially, Jewish groups
are trying to walk a thin line
between expressing their
outrage about the ad-
ministration's seeming
abandonment of the "special
relationship" between the
U.S. and Israel — and
avoiding words and actions
that might precipitate a
more open breach.
Some of that ambivalence
surfaced during a news con-
ference last Thursday by
leaders of the Conference of
Presidents of Major Ameri-
can Jewish Organizations.
Shoshana Cardin, chair of
the Conference, read a deli-
cately worded statement
designed to express the
dismay of Jewish leaders
over the developments of the
past ten days, without ex-
pressing the underlying
anger that many are ex-
pressing privately.
"The president's

unyielding position leaves in
question Israel's ability to
rely on its chief ally, under-
mines the peace process and
encourages further Arab in-
transigence in the peace
talks," said Mrs. Cardin.
She went on to accuse the
administration of incon-
sistency in its approach to
the loan guarantee issue and
argued that the administra-
tion's focus on settlements
was counterproductive to the

Jewish groups are
trying to walk a
precarious line
between
expressing outrage
and precipitating a
more open breach.

peace process that President
Bush insists is his top Mid-
dle East priority.
But Ms. Cardin
scrupulously stopped short
of challenging the ad-
ministration's underlying
commitment to the
U.S.-Israeli relationship.
Repeatedly, she responded to
questions by affirming that
the basic relationship bet-

ween the two countries re-
mains strong.
"I am willing to take (the
president's) word on his
commitment to the strategic
relationship," she said.
That position represented
an official strategic consen-
sus developed during a
series of conference calls
among Presidents' Con-
ference leaders.
During those calls, a
number of Jewish leaders
ventilated varying degrees
of rage and frustration over
the administration's recent
actions.
But the time has not yet
come, most agreed, to
declare war on the ad-
ministration.
The question of exactly
when to declare war on the
administration and just how
far to go in pursuing that
war is the one producing
sleepless nights for Jewish
activists here in the capital.
"I think that there is a
feeling that we're close to a
point of no return — that the
administration has just
totally turned its back on the
Jewish community and on
the special nature of the
Israel relationship," said
Stuart Eizenstat, former
domestic policy advisor to

President Jimmy Carter and
a longtime Jewish activist.
"It may not quite be there
yet — but it is as close to
that point as we've seen."
But it is important not to
make that judgment too ear-
ly, he argued.
"Nobody wants to reach
that point," he said.
"There are still other
critical issues like arms
sales, and there's still the
possibility of loan guar-
antees later on. A complete
breach would be a way of
saying to the administration
that they have a totally free
hand in dealing with Israel."
The result, he said, is a
mood of extreme uncertainty
as the Jewish community
tries to evaluate its next
moves in the deteriorating
relationship with the ad-
ministration amidst a grow-
ing concern over whether
Washington's annual $3
billion aid package to Israel
will be jeopardized in the
coming weeks.
"Are we just dealing with
a president who is unsym-
pathetic?" asked Mr.
Eizenstat, "or or we dealing
with some much more fun-
damental changes in the re-
lationship? That's the
difficult question to face." ❑

THE DETROIT JEWISH NEWS

33

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