U.S. Welcomes Israel Pledge but Wants More

The Bush Administration said Monday that Israel’s pledge not to make a special effort to settle Soviet Jewish immigrants in the disputed West Bank and Gaza Strip is “a hopeful development” but one stopping well short of the steps required to free $400 million in U.S. support for immigrant housing programs.

More than 24 hours after Ariel Sharon, the hard-line housing minister in Prime Minister Yitzhak Shamir’s new government, delivered the seemingly conciliatory message, U.S. officials said they had not yet seen the full text and were not quite sure how to evaluate the promise.

Nevertheless, State Department spokeswoman Margaret Tutwiler called Sharon’s comments to the quasi-governmental Jewish Agency “a step in the right direction.” She said they do not constitute the assurance that Washington is demanding--that U.S. aid not be used for settlement of the West Bank and Gaza Strip, which Israel has occupied since the 1967 Middle East War.

Congress has approved $400 million in loan guarantees to help finance housing for the flood of Soviet Jews who began pouring into Israel after Soviet President Mikhail S. Gorbachev eased emigration requirements. However, the Administration has said that it will not release the money unless Israel provides guarantees that the funds will not be spent in the occupied territories.

“The Administration will still seek the assurances that Secretary (of State James A.) Baker (III) had discussed,” Tutwiler said. But she added: “We have not laid out the specifics of how those assurances will be sought.”

Baker told Congress on March 1 that the United States would seek assurance that Israel would stop all settlement activity beyond the pre-1967 borders. He said it would not be enough to promise that no U.S. money would be used to build housing in the occupied territories because that would permit Jerusalem to use the U.S. aid for houses in Israel proper--freeing other funds for construction in the territories.

The U.S. official noted that Baker sought to fuzz that statement the next day and has avoided being as specific since. He said there is little doubt that the Administration will accept something short of a total ban on settlements but that it wants far more than Sharon offered.

Sharon said that the government will not direct Soviet immigrants to the territories. But he said that Soviet Jews who choose to live there will receive the same financial aid as other settlers.