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Has Bush Been Fair to Israel?
| Article
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20486 |
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Section : |
CURRENT ISSUES
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| Issue
Date : |
5 / 1992 |
2,518 Words |
| Author
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Adam M. Garfinkle
Adam M. Garfinkle is adjunct professor of political science at
the University of Pennsylvania and research associate at the
Foreign Policy Research Institute in Philadelphia. He is also
a contributing editor of Orbis. |
There is much hard feeling these days between the Bush administration and the Israeli government, and both the leaders and the rank and file of the U.S. Jewish community are stuck uncomfortably in the middle. How has this happened to what, until recently, were close and cordial ties? Who, if anyone, has a legitimate gripe?
Complaints about the Bush administration's Israel policy dwell at two levels: overtly political complaints about administration policies, and more subtle problems evoked by the tone of disagreements over the past three years. The complaints vary from critic to critic, but a cumulative list is easily assembled.
The first gripe is that the administration has been generally unsympathetic to Israel's concerns. This attitude predates the Kuwait crisis and the post-Madrid peace process, critics say, and can be seen in the pressures brought against the Israeli National Unity government in 1989 and the first half of 1990. It is not just accumulated policy disagreements that irritate but also the perception that administration principals have exhibited no warmth toward Israel.
The president's background and predilections, it is argued, have led him to have more cordial personal relations with Arab leaders than with Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Shamir. Washington's rhetoric has consequently been one-sidedly anti-Israel. U.S. policymakers issue ultimatums and speak to Israel in ways they never do to other democratic allies with whom they disagree, while they wine and dine Syrian intelligence officials in Washington, fail to censure Jordan for violating the embargo against Iraq, and have urged the sale of 721 F-15 fighters to Saudi Arabia despite Riyadh's mixed support for the peace process.
Criticisms of the Bush administration on this point are mostly on target. Juxtaposing President Reagan's and Secretary of State George Shultz's attitudes makes the Bush administration's coldness toward Israel all the more striking. This does not, however, address discrete policy matters and does not mean, as some Israelis and U.S. Jew assume, that the administration is generically anti-Israel or anti-Semitic. In personal life, it would be considered neurotic to assume that just because someone is not a dear friend he therefore hates you. Likewise Bush's bitter disagreements with Shamir and bad relations with his government do not translate into antipathy for either Israeli society or Jews in general.
Second, there is a widespread
...
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