Chill Is Gone, Loan Deal Near for Bush, Rabin

Even the sun followed the script Monday as President Bush and Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin patched up the once-troubled U.S.-Israeli relationship, pushing aside any remaining causes of friction.

Both Israeli and U.S. officials used words like warm, constructive and friendly to describe the meeting at Bush’s seaside vacation home, the first U.S.-Israeli summit meeting since Rabin ousted Yitzhak Shamir in a June election. No one even wanted to recall the chilly atmosphere that had marked Shamir’s relationship with Washington.

Bush and Rabin are expected to announce at a press conference today an agreement on conditions for U.S. loan guarantees that Israel needs to provide jobs and housing for an influx of Jewish immigrants from the former Soviet Union. Although both sides insisted that a few loose ends remain for Bush and Rabin to chew over at a working breakfast, there was no doubt that the deal was done.

At the same time, Bush announced officially that Arab-Israeli peace talks will resume in Washington on Aug. 24. The date had been widely reported, but Monday’s announcement was the first confirmation that all parties had accepted the U.S. invitation.

“I think there is a real basis for hope that the sixth round of negotiations can lead to real, substantive negotiations and push this process forward in a very meaningful way,” a senior Administration official said.

The U.S.-brokered talks, which began in Madrid last October, were deadlocked. U.S. officials complained that the primary cause of the impasse was Shamir’s hard-line policy.

But for both Bush and Rabin, the primary objective for this meeting was to demonstrate a warm personal relationship. And that they did with a vengeance.

After a rain-swept Sunday and Monday morning, the sun broke through the clouds just after Rabin arrived at Bush’s home on the Maine coast. Electric power--disrupted during the night--was restored soon after Rabin’s arrival.

In the day’s only discordant note, a small band of disciples of the assassinated Israeli right-wing leader Meir Kahane rented a sailboat to picket the Bush-Rabin talks from the sea, protesting that the new Israeli prime minister is too ready to make peace with the Arabs. The demonstration might have gone unnoticed except that Bush spotted the boat as he was escorting Rabin on a walk along the waterfront during a break in the formal talks.

According to a senior Israeli official, Bush burst into the living room of the house where U.S. and Israeli aides were at work on details while their bosses were enjoying the air. The Israeli said Bush exclaimed that the demonstrators were flying a banner with the message “Kahane Chai, “ Hebrew for “Kahane lives.”

“I thought this guy was kind of dead,” Bush said in reference to the militantly anti-Arab former member of the Israeli Parliament who was assassinated in New York in November, 1990.

The boat was promptly escorted away from the President’s compound by the Coast Guard.

U.S. officials had expected Bush and Rabin to finish their day on the tennis courts, but Israeli officials said Rabin declined because he “thought it was important to finish business first.”

Both the senior American and the senior Israeli who briefed reporters after the meeting hinted strongly that the United States will grant Israel’s appeal for about $10 billion in loan guarantees during the next five years. But both, careful not to upstage the Bush-Rabin press conference, refused to provide details.

Asked if the agreement was sealed, the U.S. official said: “I said these have been very good, constructive and productive talks. I’ll let you draw your own conclusions.”

The Israeli official said that Rabin emphasized the importance of the loans to settle Jewish immigrants.

“In the Soviet Union, or what used to be the Soviet Union, there is a potential of over 1 million Jews who have expressed interest in going to Israel,” the official said. “They are sitting on their suitcases, waiting to hear that there are jobs and houses for them” in Israel.

The official said Rabin expects to discuss new military cooperation between Israel and the United States when he meets in Washington today with Defense Secretary Dick Cheney. The new agreement is expected to include access to Israeli ship-repair facilities for U.S. naval vessels.

Rabin also plans to confer with Arkansas Gov. Bill Clinton, the Democratic presidential nominee.

“When a prime minister comes to the United States and meets with the President, he also meets with the leader of the other party,” the Israeli official said. “The prime minister is sensitive that there is an election in this country. He is doing all he can not to get involved in the political game.”

Even before they began their talks, Bush and Rabin were pledging friendship.

“We are looking forward to strengthening a relationship that is strong and will be even stronger,” Bush said.

Rabin replied, “We would like to make sure that there is a better and more intimate relationship between our two countries.”