Texas Jewish Post (Fort Worth, Tex.), Vol. 46, No. 7, Ed. 1 Thursday, February 13, 1992 Page: 4 of 24
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Opinion 4
TEXAS JEWISH POST, THURSDAY, FEBRUARY 13, 1992-IN OUR 45TH YEAR!
Arms Sale Fight May
Signal New Pro-
Israel Tactics
The Bush administration
is quietly getting ready to
present Congress with a
new sale of advanced F-15
jets to Saudi Arabia.
Aside from the military
significance of the sale,
observers here suggest that
the resulting face-off could
provide important clues
about how the pro-Israel
community is changing its
approach to the Bush
administration.
According to congres-
sional sources, officers of
the American-Israel Public
Affairs Committee
(AIPAC) signaled a
tougher line with the
administration during a
round of Capitol Hill visits
last week.
In the past, AIPAC has
officially opposed all sales
to Arab countries-but in
the interests of pragmatic
politics, the group has
sometimes declined to
support resolutions of
disapproval.
But this time around, the
big pro-Israel group is
edging towards active
support for such a resolu-
tion.
The impending decision
to fight the arms sale is part
of a pattern taking shape:
AIPAC, the master of
pragmatic politics, is
shifting in the direction of a
tougher posture towards the
Bush administration.
"I think they've made a
calculation that we could
be in for four more years of
Bush and Baker-and that
the next four could be even
harder for the pro-Israel
community than the last
four," said one Capitol Hill
source familiar with the
pro-Israel effort. "That
seems like a reasonable
calculation; what they seem
to be saying is that this is
not an administration we're
going to be able to cozy up
to-so it's time to begin
firming up the barricades
for a fight."
That shift seems to be
affecting AIPAC's position
on the $10 billion in loan
WASHINGTON WATCH
guarantees requested by
Israel, as well.
Last year, some AIPAC
officials were quietly
warning against an all-out
confrontation over the loan
guarantees; now, according
to sources here, AIPAC is
taking the lead in getting
ready for the possibility of
some serious trench
warfare in Congress over
the guarantees.
Close Encounter for
Shoval
For a moment, it looked
like a Close Encounter of a
Strange Kind.
On Thursday, Israel's
ambassador to Washington,
Zalman Shoval, appeared
on a nationwide satellite
linkup with Jewish
Federations around the
country.
The top item on Shoval's
agenda was Israel's request
for $10 billion in loan
guarantee, and the
administration's determina-
tion to link a decision on
the important guarantees to
Israel's settlements policies.
When Shoval and his
staff entered the downtown
Washington television
studio for the high-tech
town meeting, they were
confronted by a wall of
television monitors-and the
image of presidential
candidate Pat Buchanan
being dabbed at by make-
up artists.
One of the Israelis
joked-a bit nervously-
about the possibility of a
Buchanan-Shoval face-off
before a live audience
But it was not to be:
Buchanan's image was the
result of a satellite feed.
The conservative colum-
nist, who has blasted aid to
Israel, was nowhere in the
vicinity, and the program to
Jewish groups went off
without a hitch.
In the televised discus-
sion with Maynard
Wishner, chair of the
National Jewish Commu-
nity Relations Advisory
Council (NJCRAC),
Shoval again stressed the
importance of the loan
guarantees to Israel's
BY JAMES DAVID BESSER
TJP WASHINGTON CORRESPONDENT
Zalman Shoval
faltering economy-and
emphasized that both sides
in the loan guarantee fracas
are showing a new willing-
ness to compromise.
"Israel's attitude is
pragmatic," he said. "It
certainly is not dogmatic."
Shoval also referred to a
theme that has emerged
recently in the loan
guarantee push-the idea
that the guarantees will
actually help a battered
U.S. economy by boosting
Israeli purchases of
American goods and
services. Almost half of a
previous $400 million in
government-backed loan
money was spent in this
country, he said.
Shoval revealed a
possible hitch in the
upcoming round of Middle
East bi-lateral negotiations,
now tentatively scheduled
to resume at the end of the
month in Washington.
"We want to be very
clear that this is the last
meeting that will not be in
the Middle East-or in the
vicinity of the Middle
East," he said.
Shoval made it clear that
the new round of meetings
in Washington will take
place only if the Arab
nations are willing to agree
on a change of venue for
subsequent sessions.
Shoval also indicated
disappointment with the
lack of contact between the
delegations since the end of
the last round of negotia-
tions.
At the conclusion of the
satellite session, Wishner
urged listeners to convey
their "wall to wall support"
for the loan guarantees to
officials in Washington.
"We care very much
about the people involved,"
he said. "It ought to be kept
very clear that the Ameri-
can Jewish community,
from right to left, are out
there in support of the loan
guarantee process."
"Moody's Jews" in
Wisconsin Race
The contestants are off
and running in the critical
senate race in Wisconsin,
where pro-Israel stalwart
Sen. Robert Kasten, a
Republican, is facing a
backlash from some Jewish
activists who are tired of
single-issue politics.
Kasten's chief competi-
tor is Rep. Jim Moody, a
Democrat who also has an
escellent pro-lsrael record.
Kasten has long been a
favorite of the pro-Israel
political action committees,
which dole out money
strictly according to a
candidate's position on
Israel.
But he is a hardline
conservative on domestic
issues; a group of Jews in
Wisconsin-'Moody's
Jews," according to some-
are waging a vigorous
campaign to depose the
incumbent.
"The fact is that an
overwhelming majority of
Jews are liberal Democrats,
concerned about the
domestic agenda as well as
Israel's security," said
Esther Leah Ritz, a
longtime Jewish activist in
Milwaukee and an outspo-
ken critic of the single-
issue PACs. "And on those
issues, Kasten is a disas-
ter."
Pro-Israel groups, she
charged, have been
"twisting arms" to line up
support for Kasten.
"They're using the line
that Kasten is so great on
Israel that everything else
has to be forgotten," she
said. "Well, 1 don't think
that Jews can afford to give
in on critical issues like
church-state separation and
civil rights."
Moody's Jews, she said,
are convinced that the
challenger's strong pro-
Israel record, combined
with his more liberal
position on domestic
issues, make him the
natural choice for the
state's Jewish community.
Kerrey and the Jews
The recent decision of
the United Nations General
Assembly to repeal the
much-hated "Zionism as
Racism" resolution may
become a benchmark for
future U.S. relations with
other countries-at least if
pro-Israei legislators have
their way.
Last week, Sen. Joe
Lieberman (D-Conn.) and
Sen. Orrin Hatch (R-Utah)
sent a letter to Bangladesh's
ambassador to Washington,
expressing sharp disap-
pointment that the impov-
erished nation-which has
been on the receiving end
of large amounts of U.S.
aid-disregarded adminis-
tration pleas and voted
agaimst rescinding the
resolution.
The senators letter made
it clear that Bangladesh’s
status as a recipient of U.S.
aid could be endangered if
the government there
continues to ignore the
strong wishes of officials in
Washington.
But one question
remains: will Congress get
as tough with countries like
Saudi Arabia-a U.S. ally
that also voted against the
repeal?
see WASH. WATCH page 14
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Wisch, J. A. & Wisch, Rene. Texas Jewish Post (Fort Worth, Tex.), Vol. 46, No. 7, Ed. 1 Thursday, February 13, 1992, newspaper, February 13, 1992; Fort Worth, Texas. (https://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth753973/m1/4/?q=%22%22~1: accessed July 17, 2024), University of North Texas Libraries, The Portal to Texas History, https://texashistory.unt.edu.; .