Clinton, Rabin See Urgency in Palestinian Aid

With a clearly concerned Israeli prime minister at his side, President Clinton promised Monday to press the world community to pay up quickly on commitments of aid to the beleaguered Palestinian self-rule authority in hopes of quelling the violence in the strife-torn Gaza Strip.

Although Clinton did not offer to add to the $100 million the United States has already given to the Palestinians this year, he told Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin that he will urge other donors to deliver about $125 million in pledges before the end of the year in an effort to quiet the unrest that spawned a deadly confrontation Friday between Gaza demonstrators and the fledgling Palestinian police force.

In a dramatic reversal of roles, Rabin came to Washington to appeal for funds for the Palestine Liberation Organization-run government, which faces a severe test of power with Islamic militants of the Hamas and Islamic Jihad movements.

At the same time, Clinton and Rabin sought to prepare U.S. public opinion and the incoming Republican-controlled Congress for an Israel-Syria peace agreement that might depend on U.S. troops to monitor the strategic Golan Heights.

Clinton also agreed in principle to continue U.S. financial support for Israel’s Arrow tactical missile-defense system, and he promised to ship two sophisticated supercomputers to the Israeli Defense Ministry. The President pledged to maintain the overall level of U.S. aid to Israel at $3 billion a year, the highest of any country receiving American aid. Republicans have called for cuts in foreign aid, but most have indicated that they would not reduce the Israeli allocation.

The Arrow project is nearing the end of the research and development phase. U.S. officials said that the extent of U.S. financial support must be negotiated between the Pentagon and the Israeli Defense Ministry.

Although officials said that the meeting covered all elements of the U.S. relationship with Israel, much attention was focused on the recent rioting in the Gaza Strip and the new Palestinian Authority’s pressing need for cash.

“When you bring peace to a place, you need to work hard to make sure that the benefits of peace become apparent to people who are the targets of the enemies of peace,” Clinton said. “And the poor in Gaza are clearly the targets of the enemies of peace. So we have to work harder and more aggressively . . . to try to make the benefits more apparent.”

In the heady days after Rabin and PLO Chairman Yasser Arafat signed a peace agreement on the White House Lawn in September, 1993, dozens of wealthy nations and international financial institutions pledged almost $2 billion over five years to help pay the cost of Palestinian self-government. For this year, total pledges were about $700 million, of which at least $500 million still has not been delivered.

A senior Administration official declined to name the countries that have failed to keep their promises but said they include nations in the Persian Gulf region, Europe and East Asia. The United States plans to prod the donor countries when they meet in Brussels next week. Although Washington will urge the donors to make good on the entire $500 million in outstanding pledges, Clinton’s vow to “try to move about $125 million out in a hurry” indicates that the Administration’s goal is actually more modest.

The official said that the PLO must shoulder some of the blame for the slow pace of aid because Arafat and his supporters failed for months to establish adequate accounting provisions to assure the donors that their money will be properly spent.

The meeting was the first between Clinton and Rabin since the Republican sweep in the Nov. 8 elections. They pledged to maintain all of the elements of the current U.S.-Israeli relationship and sought to persuade Congress to let them do it.

“I’m sure that without the United States’ involvement, support under the leadership of both President Clinton through Secretary (of State Warren) Christopher, it would be much more difficult . . . to achieve this progress in the peace process that we all witnessed,” Rabin said in reference to Israel’s agreement with the PLO and its peace treaty with Jordan.

For his part, Clinton said, “I have reaffirmed my support for the current aid level to Israel, as well as for certain security assistance, including the Arrow missile program, in the years ahead so that we can continue to support the security conditions that in my judgment are the precondition for Israel being able to make a just peace with all their neighbors in the Middle East.”

But both men were clearly haunted by the specter of Sen. Jesse Helms (R-N.C.), the incoming chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, who denounced the Israel-Syria peace talks as a “fraud,” and of other Republican leaders who have expressed opposition to stationing U.S. troops in the Golan Heights to monitor an Israel-Syria peace.

Israeli officials have said that only the presence of U.S. monitors in the Golan would give the Israeli government the confidence needed to agree to return the strategic plateau to Syria as part of a peace settlement.

Clinton maintained that no U.S. troop commitment has been requested.

Rabin sought to reassure U.S. public opinion by recalling that American troops have monitored the Israel-Egypt peace in the Sinai Peninsula for 15 1/2 years and that other international troops have been stationed along the Golan for 19 years without ever coming under attack.