U.S.-Israel Relationship Will Survive Brickbats : Diplomacy: Despite tensions at the top, both countries are profiting from a durable partnership on many levels.

The tenor of the U.S.-Israel relationship these days is one of high-pitched tension, reflecting the opposing positions held by the Bush Administration and the Shamir government on Israeli settlements and the course of the peace process. But the historically close relations between the United States and Israel will survive both President Bush and Prime Minister Yitzhak Shamir. For now, election season in both countries, the best course would be to tone down the rhetoric.

Bush has gone further than any President since Dwight Eisenhower to distance the United States from Israel’s policies. His single-minded effort to halt Israeli settlements in the West Bank and Gaza peaked earlier this month in the rejection of Israel’s request for $10 billion in loan guarantees to absorb Jewish immigrants from the former Soviet Union.

Though changing strategic realities may underlie these developments, much of the tension between the two leaders seems to be rooted in personal animosity. Bush’s disaffection goes back at least to March, 1990, when Shamir rejected a U.S. plan for Israeli-Palestinian negotiations and stepped up settlement activity. Bush subsequently refused to even speak with Shamir, until Saddam Hussein’s invasion of Kuwait forced the United States and Israel to coordinate their positions.

Last fall, for the first time in the history of American-Israeli relations, an American President threatened to veto pro-Israel legislation, when Congress sought to include the loan guarantees in the foreign-aid bill. Indeed, the President not only criticized Israel; by implication, he also impugned the loyalty of the American Jewish community. Then, as now, President Bush avowed his support for humanitarian assistance for refugee resettlement in Israel. But he knew that if Shamir were able to obtain the guarantees, he would claim a victory for his Likud Party’s housing, settlement and economic development agenda. And the President did not want to reward the prime minister for policies that the Administration considers counterproductive to the peace process.

President Bush’s denial of the loan guarantees is seen in Jerusalem as part of an American strategy to unseat Shamir in national elections this June.

With such a rift at the top, the relationship between the United States and Israel appears headed for further deterioration in the months ahead. The atmosphere of distrust provides fertile ground for sensationalist stories like the reports of unauthorized Israeli transfers of U.S. arms and technology--accounts that the White House has done nothing to dispel.

But, despite the rift between American and Israeli leaders, the overall relationship of the United States and Israel continues to flourish. The United States furnishes Israel with more than $3 billion in annual assistance. Israel and the United States have a free-trade agreement, the only one the United States has with any country, apart from Canada. The United States and Israel have joint projects in fields ranging from agriculture and forestry to the environment and counterterrorism.

Aside from the disputed arms-transfer reports, which some have blamed on anti-Israeli parties in the Pentagon, security cooperation between the United States and Israel may be stronger today than ever. During Operation Desert Storm, Israel provided the United States with a variety of important equipment, including Pioneer unmanned aircraft and mine-clearing plows. The United States, of course, sent Patriot missiles to Israel. Both countries cooperate on a number of military research and development programs, including the Arrow anti-tactical ballistic missile. The U.S. armed forces increasingly use Israeli training facilities and have about $1 billion under contract to Israeli industry for high-tech equipment and services. Israel hosts about 60 U.S. ship visits per year, more than any other Mediterranean country.

Tensions between President Bush and Prime Minister Shamir can certainly hurt U.S.-Israel relations, but they are unlikely to destroy the basic fabric of the association between the two countries. Israel and the United States see themselves as modern pioneer nations built on ancient values, perhaps epitomized best by willingness to provide a haven for victims of persecution. In this regard, U.S.-Israel cooperation to rescue Soviet and Ethiopian Jewry stands as a symbol of the ethical approach these nations take to international politics.

Looking to the future, it is reasonable to assume that if the Labor Party’s Yitzhak Rabin succeeds in unseating Shamir, a good measure of warmth will return to U.S.-Israel relations. If Yitzhak Shamir and George Bush are both reelected, they will have to set personal rancor aside for the sake of building a solid U.S.-Israel relationship for the post-Cold War era.