Both men have roots and attitudes that make Israelis squirm. Their Texas oil connections fuel fears that they’ll favor the Arab states. Baker, the consummate pragmatist, never comes to a bargaining table burdened by sentiment of any kind. He and Bush believe that Ronald Reagan and George Shultz coddled Israel, never forcing Jerusalem to get serious about peace. Nor do they like the way Israel’s friends muscle congressional support. Administration colleagues say the two men use the same political calculus they would with any ally. In Israel, however, “they strike people as the sort of WASP types who don’t really wish us well,” says Susan Hattis Rolef, a Labor Party activist. “Some average people here also suspect they are anti-Semitic, not virulently but as part of the background from which they emerge.” But even Israel’s boosters in the administration dispute such charges. “Just because they don’t roll over and play dead doesn’t mean they are anti-Semitic,” one says. “That’s a cheap shot.”
Bush and Baker’s recent experience has done little to warm their feelings toward Israel. Bush feels betrayed by Yitzhak Shamir. He thinks the prime minister has repeatedly misled him about plans for settling the occupied territories. Baker blames Shamir for the fruitless year he spent trying to get Israel to negotiate with Palestinians in the territories. Since he began his latest peace effort, Baker has been angered by the ostentatious building of new settlements in the territories on the eve of his visits to Jerusalem.
During the gulf war, the leaders seemed to forge new bonds. Bush appreciated Israel’s agreement not to respond to Iraq’s Scud attacks, and Shamir appreciated the loan of Patriot missile batteries. But postwar tensions over new settlements soured the mood. Shamir was rattled after Baker’s visit last week by reports from Syria that Bush had promised Israeli withdrawal from disputed lands as part of any accord. The reports were wrong, but the incident was revealing. “Despite all of Baker’s assurances, Shamir immediately believed the worst,” says an Israeli official. Shamir may yearn for the solicitude of past U.S. administrations. The irony is that Baker and Bush could help him win at the table the kind of security Israel has never won at war. That would be worth far more than years of U.S. cheerleading.
