Publicly attacking Israel’s American friends is risky political business. But Bush comes from an East Coast foreign-policy establishment whose members have often felt that U.S. interests in the Middle East were being sacrificed to domestic polities. He also resents suggestions that people who disagree with Israel are somehow guilty of anti-Semitism. When he took over the Oval Office, according to his friends, he decided on a tougher line. The atmospheric change was evident from the outset. Bush is famous for his warm chats with heads of state, but his meetings with Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Shamir have all been icily formal. During the Persian Gulf War, the Israelis felt that Bush was trying to muzzle them; Bush felt that Israel was insufficiently grateful for the U.S.-led rout of Saddam Hussein.
Bush is particularly angered by Israel’s insistence on building new settlements on the West Bank, according to senior aides. The president believes he has a historic opening to make peace in the region. But he’s afraid that the Arabs will not negotiate seriously as long as Israel is appropriating Palestinian homelands. His display of anger last week was a signal to Shamir to curb his territorial ambitions.
Bush is calculating that the American people share his frustration with Israel. “In the past, " says a senior administration aide, “the Israeli lobby could always argue that the Arabs would run them into the sea. With a peace conference in the offing, that argument no longer works.” In fact, the White House is mulling over some kind of bridge loan for Israel until Congress takes up the issue of the full $10 billion. Secretary of State James Baker may be able to repair the damage when he visits Israel this week, but any compromise acceptable to Bush will require more flexibility than Shamir is accustomed to. In any case, by saying aloud what other presidents merely thought, Bush may have fundamentally changed the course of U.S.-Israeli relations.
