Superpowers Urge Israel to Bar Soviet Emigres From West Bank

U.S. and Soviet officials pressed Israel on Friday to guarantee that Soviet Jewish immigrants will not be settled in the Israeli-occupied West Bank.

The statements marked the first time that the two superpowers have acted in apparent concert on the question, although each was already on the record as opposing settlement of Soviet Jews in Israeli-occupied territories.

After meeting with President Bush at the White House, Soviet Foreign Minister Eduard A. Shevardnadze told reporters that the Soviet Union is prepared to operate direct flights from Moscow to Tel Aviv if Israel will “give us assurances that people will not settle in occupied territories.”

Asked a few minutes later if the Administration also believes that Israel should give such assurances, White House spokesman Marlin Fitzwater said, “Of course.” He added: “We oppose settlements in the occupied territories.”

The United States has long insisted that the Soviets allow free emigration of Jews, and officials said Bush raised that issue with Shevardnadze again during their 2-hour, 20-minute meeting. But in recent months, the emigration issue has been complicated by the plans of the current Israeli government to allow immigrants to swell the population of West Bank settlements.

Although the Soviets had made plans for direct flights to Israel, those plans were canceled in February after Arab groups protested that the steady increase in Soviet emigration was leading to a major expansion in the Jewish population of the West Bank.

Other nations have offered flights that would bring Soviet Jews to Israel, but terrorist groups have threatened to bomb airplanes carrying the emigres.

The U.S. government would like to see direct Moscow-Tel Aviv flights. At the same time, American policy holds that to reach a final peace settlement, Israel eventually will have to give up at least some of the land captured from its Arab neighbors in the 1967 Arab-Israeli war.

American officials who oppose the settlements and Israeli leaders who build them agree that the more the settlements grow, the more difficult it will be for Israel to give them up.

Last month, Secretary of State James A. Baker III set off a controversy by suggesting that the United States might withhold some aid to Israel unless the Israeli government could guarantee that the money would not be used for settlements in the occupied lands. Although Baker later appeared to back off that position, the issue remains a contentious one.

Speaking to the American Society of Newspaper Editors on Friday, Bush said “I have no intention of tying aid” to Israeli policy decisions.

Bush also denied that the Administration is pressing Israel to open talks with members of the Palestine Liberation Organization.

“One of Israel’s fears was that they would be compelled to talk to the PLO,” Bush said. “We have made very clear to them, in detailed negotiations, that that was not the case.”

Bush also denied that former President Jimmy Carter was carrying any message from the White House when he met earlier this week with PLO chief Yasser Arafat in Paris.

“He was not acting with the blessing of or the disapproval of or anything else of the Administration,” Bush said. “A former President should be free to do his own thing, and that’s exactly what he’s doing.”