Harsh Words in Israeli Cabinet Aimed at Bush

A session of Israel’s Cabinet held Sunday to discuss the deep divisions between the Bush Administration and the government of Prime Minister Yitzhak Shamir quickly gave way to unrestrained ill will, with one minister branding Bush an anti-Semite.

The outbursts highlighted the political passions aroused by Bush’s vow to delay U.S. guarantees for $10 billion in loans to house and provide jobs for Soviet immigrants flooding into Israel. Bush wants the guarantees held up until Israeli-Arab peace talks are well under way. Shamir says the guarantees have nothing to do with the proposed talks.

The disputes over guarantees and over conditions for a U.S.-Soviet-sponsored Middle East peace conference are expected to dominate the visit of Secretary of State James A. Baker III, who arrives here today to begin his seventh diplomatic shuttle through the Middle East this year.

In the Cabinet, the pre-visit atmosphere was acrimonious, according to Israeli officials and the government radio’s account of the meeting.

“President Bush is an anti-Semite and a liar,” said Rehavam Zeevi, a minister without portfolio named by Shamir to the Cabinet earlier this year.

Health Minister Ehud Olmert criticized suggestions from Bush that the United States defended Israel during the Persian Gulf War. “Contemptible,” he said.

Housing Minister Ariel Sharon ridiculed Foreign Minister David Levy for asserting that Israel and Washington see eye-to-eye on peace issues. “How much is left of all that?” Sharon asked.

Levy shot back that Sharon helped create problems with the United States. “Then you say, ‘I told you so,’ ” Levy continued, in reference to Sharon’s hasty efforts to dot the West Bank and Gaza Strip with settlements in defiance of Bush’s often-stated objections to Israeli settlement activity in the occupied territories.

Shamir, who presided at the Cabinet meeting, offered a characteristic solution: an end to debate. “Nothing is to be gained by talking too much,” he declared.

But Shamir made no move to discipline Zeevi, whose two-member faction in Parliament favors expulsion of all Arabs from Gaza and the West Bank. Later, Zeevi slightly modified his remark and told reporters that Bush is “very close” to being an anti-Semite.

Zeevi pressed Shamir to refuse to sit at peace talks until the issue of the loan guarantees is resolved. The Cabinet made no decision. Shamir has said he will attend talks even if the guarantees are delayed.

Israeli officials worked quickly to undo the day’s public relations damage. On American television, Defense Minister Moshe Arens said that Zeevi’s comment “does not reflect major opinion within the Israeli government or for that matter within Israel itself.”

In Washington, Bush’s national security adviser, Brent Scowcroft, said he believes that Bush will accept Arens’ repudiation of the remark as not representing “the views of the Israeli Cabinet.”

Questioned on ABC’s “This Week With David Brinkley,” Scowcroft attempted to deflect suggestions that Bush is angry that the Israeli government continues to press the issue of the loan guarantees in the face of the President’s request to delay them.

“I’m not saying the President is pleased, but the President is not angry,” Scowcroft said. “ . . . He believes that the Israeli government should have acquiesced in his request that it be postponed.”

Separately, two influential Democratic senators criticized Bush for tying the issue of loan guarantees to the peace process.

Sen. Sam Nunn (D-Ga.) noted: “We’ve had a policy for some 20 years to encourage Jewish emigration out of the Soviet Union. That is now taking place, and Israel does need help.”

At the same time, however, Nunn said on NBC’s “Meet the Press” that the United States has the right to insist that the aid not be used for West Bank settlements.

Sen. Bill Bradley (D-N.J.), speaking on CBS’ “Face the Nation,” said that making the loans a part of the peace process violates “a fundamental moral principle.”

“We should stand at this moment with Israel, that is absorbing, as its nation’s purpose was constituted to do, those who are fleeing oppression,” Bradley said.

Papering over the policy disputes between Washington and Jerusalem may be difficult. Focusing on the President’s threat to veto any move by Congress to make the loan guarantees effective earlier than Bush believes that should be done, newspaper columnist Yoel Marcus remarked: “Bush . . . showed us his fists.”

Problems between Washington and Israel surfaced in the first months of Bush’s term and have erupted periodically since.

First, Shamir, without informing Bush, authorized the abduction of a Lebanese Muslim clergyman and guerrilla organizer to trade for Israeli servicemen missing in Lebanon. From Washington’s point of view, the abduction complicated delicate maneuvers to free Western hostages and put Israel on the same plane with Arab kidnapers.

Then Baker embarked on a yearlong effort to bring Israeli and Palestinian delegates together for peace talks. Shamir barred any talks with Palestinian residents of Jerusalem and Palestinians living in exile, and the effort collapsed.

After Iraq’s invasion of Kuwait, Bush kept Shamir at arm’s length, declining requests from Israel to coordinate its military plans with those of the Persian Gulf allies in the event Israel were attacked during the crisis.

After Iraqi Scud missiles hit Tel Aviv, Bush provided anti-missile cover to the Israelis, but that gesture, along with Israel’s willingness not to try to retaliate directly against Iraq, failed to mend relations. Bush’s behind-the-scenes role in easing the passage of thousands of Ethiopian Jews from Addis Ababa to Israel didn’t improve things either.

Israeli officials, accustomed to almost uncritical support from the Reagan Administration, are aghast at the coolness they perceive from the Bush Administration.

Some observers attribute the lack of warmth to a personality clash between Bush and Shamir. Others view the friction as stemming from irreconcilable differences over how to end the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

Shamir is ideologically committed to keeping all the West Bank and Gaza Strip, conquered by Israel during the Six-Day War of 1967. Bush has put compromise on the territorial issue at the center of a formula for peace. Continuing settlement activity and land confiscations in the territories by Israel have miffed the Administration.

In explaining his quest to delay new loan guarantees, Bush noted that Israel receives far more U.S. assistance than any other country. Shamir responded that the real reason for any delay is political and that a humanitarian program should not be delayed for political reasons.

Last week, after Bush called again for a delay in the loan guarantees, Shamir stuck to his position. “We will remain faithful to our ideals, to Zionism, Jerusalem, and the Land of Israel,” he told supporters during a visit to Paris. By the term “Land of Israel,” Shamir means not only that inside this country’s official boundaries, but also the occupied territories.

“Even if Bush and Shamir were to go out to a pub together,” wrote columnist Marcus, “It wouldn’t change the Shamir government policy of not returning territory.”

Israeli newspapers published hints of a possible compromise on aid, with Israel agreeing to some sort of delay. But government spokesman Yossi Olmert said that “we are not going to pull back.”

Olmert noted that Israel had agreed in the spring to put off its request for loan guarantees until September and sees no reason for putting it off further.

Times staff writer Karen Tumulty, in Washington, contributed to this story.