← Autodidact Archive · Original Dissent · Centinel
Thread ID: 11273 | Posts: 2 | Started: 2003-11-26
2003-11-26 17:05 | User Profile
[url]http://www.prolog.net/webnews/wed/ax/Aus-mideast.RpRj_DNP.html[/url]
**White House Reduces Guarantees to Israel **
BARRY SCHWEID, AP Diplomatic Writer November 25, 2003
WASHINGTON (AP) -- The Bush administration decided Tuesday to reduce U.S. loan guarantees to Israel by $289.5 million as a way of registering its disapproval of Israeli actions on the West Bank.
The cut will be made from $1.4 billion in U.S. guarantees due this year, the Israeli Embassy said. Overall, Israel has been due to receive $9 billion in guarantees over three years.
The guarantees are designed to help the battered Israeli economy by making it easier for Israel to acquire loans at favorable rates.
No specific reason was given, but the cut was believed to reflect the administration's displeasure with settlement activity and construction of a security barrier designed to screen out Palestinian terrorists.
The amount was fixed Tuesday by the two sides in a White House meeting presided over by Condoleezza Rice, President Bush's national security assistant.
The State Department notified Congress last month that the guarantees would be reduced for "activities inconsistent" with understandings reached with the United States, but no amount was mentioned.
A letter then to Rep. Henry J. Hyde, R-Ill., chairman of the House International Relations Committee, did not specify whether the reductions would be punishment for expanding settlements on the West Bank, building a security fence or both.
Daniel Ayalon, the Israeli ambassador, told The Associated Press on Tuesday he was satisfied that an agreement had been reached and "this will enable Israel to go ahead and raise the rest of the loan guarantees." He said the resolution "proves again the closeness of the relationship and the mechanism of close dialogue."
National Security Council spokesman Sean McCormack said the agreement "acknowledges U.S. policy concerns and U.S. law regarding activities in the West Bank and Gaza and is a reflection of close and continuing consultations between our two governments."
Meanwhile, with violence down and a new Palestinian prime minister in place, the Bush administration is renewing its drive for a Mideast accord, using America's staunchest supporters of Israel -- both inside and outside the U.S. government -- as leverage with Prime Minister Ariel Sharon.
It is a mixture of traditional and creative diplomacy with the goal of fulfilling President Bush's promise of establishing a Palestinian state in 2005.
On the traditional side, Assistant Secretary of State William Burns will go to the region on Friday to talk to Israeli, Palestinian and Egyptian officials, then report to Secretary of State Colin Powell during Powell's trip to North Africa next week.
Sharon, meanwhile, sent his chief of staff, Dov Weisglass, to Washington for a meeting Tuesday at the White House with Rice.
The White House wants to encourage Israel to implement a plan to alleviate hardships for the Palestinians, including a pullback of Israeli troops on the West Bank and an easing of roadblocks to Palestinian travel.
Also on the agenda are Israeli settlements on the West Bank and a security barrier Israel is building to keep out Palestinian extremists. Rice publicly has criticized Israel on both issues.
Among the more unusual moves undertaken by the administration was sending Elliott Abrams, who heads the Near East desk at the White House's National Security Council, to meet with Sharon last week while the prime minister was visiting Rome.
Also, in an effort to prod Sharon into making concessions, Deputy Secretary of Defense Paul Wolfowitz met with Israeli Adm. Ami Ayalon and Palestinian professor Sari Nusseibeh and publicly praised a private peace petition campaign they are spearheading.
The petition calls on Israel to yield all the territory the Arabs lost in the 1967 Middle East war and turn over the land to the Palestinians for a state.
Both Abrams and Wolfowitz are considered among the Bush administration's strongest supporters of Israel.
Powell, meanwhile, recently went out of his way to encourage former Israeli Justice Minister Yossi Beilin and former Palestinian Information Minister Yasser Abed Rabbo to make plans for a Palestinian state and the ending of most Jewish settlements in the Palestinian territories.
Beilin was a big player in Israeli Labor governments, but philosophically is far removed from the more hardline Sharon.
"Projects such as yours are important in helping sustain an atmosphere of hope," Powell wrote.
His spokesman, Richard Boucher, said the Bush administration is not engaged in "some kind of end run around leaders in the region."
Still, the Beilin-Rabbo enterprise seemed designed to influence both Sharon and the U.S. government. In encouraging the project, the Bush administration is "trying to send a message to Sharon without saying so explicitly," says former U.S. mediator Dennis Ross.
Beilin and Rabbo intend to lobby for more support in a visit to Washington next week.
The Bush administration is keying on an expected summit meeting between Qureia and Sharon to pump new life into the moribund U.S.-backed road map for a Palestinian state.
Qureia said Tuesday that Israel must halt construction of its security barrier and show movement on other issues if it wants a summit meeting, while Sharon said Monday he would not accept preconditions.
2003-11-26 19:12 | User Profile
Pathetic!!! There isn't one person in DC with a spine.