The Tribune makes a serious error in the Jan. 20 editorial ”Slowing the Mideast peace train” when it supports the Bush administration`s ill-conceived effort to link Israel`s request for loan guarantees with the freezing of new settlements in the administered territories (West Bank).
The resettling of unlimited numbers of Jews from Ethiopia and the Soviet Union is totally a humanitarian act no other country is willing to undertake. To make it possible for Israel to absorb 1 million new citizens, it should be made clear that Israel does not seek American government loans. It only asks the U.S. government to facilitate commercial bank loans by guaranteeing them. Unlike other nations, Israel has never asked for nor been granted loan
”forgiveness.”
When President Bush puts pressure on Israel to stop the settlements as a precondition to humanitarian loan guarantees, the administration puts in question its ”honest broker” status and becomes suspect as to its impartiality.
