May 6, 2003	Tuesday	Rabi-ul-Awwal 3, 1424

WASHINGTON: Israel may have never had a better friend in the White House than George W. Bush. But suddenly, that friendship is becoming uncomfortable for the lawmakers and lobbyists who push for Israel’s interests in Washington.

With the unveiling last week of the much-anticipated “roadmap” for Mideast peace, the Bush administration has begun an intensive effort to reach a settlement between Israel and the Palestinians. The plan offers elements long resisted by successive Israeli governments, and normally, Israel’s formidable allies would be expected to deploy in strength in Congress and inside the administration itself to defuse pressure for tough concessions.

But the pro-Israel lobby finds itself hanging back these days, reluctant to confront Israel’s benefactor as he emerges victorious from the war in Iraq.

“There’s very little desire to take him on right now, at the period of his greatest strength,” said Marshall Breger, a professor at Catholic University’s Columbus School of Law who was President Reagan’s liaison with the American Jewish community. “The organized community just doesn’t want to go at him head on.”

After all, President Bush has delivered Israel from its greatest military threat. His administration has proposed a massive new financial aid package and committed itself to doing even more in the years ahead to make Israel’s tough neighbourhood a little safer. What’s more, Bush’s friendship is treasured by Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, who has asserted that no American president has been as supportive of Israel’s interests.

So when the administration’s plan for an Israeli-Palestinian settlement was released last week and Israel politely welcomed it — with reservations — so did its allies in Washington.

“This initiative presents a real opportunity for the Palestinians to once and for all cut their ties to terrorism and pursue peace with their Israeli neighbours,” the powerful pro- Israel lobbying group the American Israel Political Action Committee, or AIPAC, said in a statement.

The deferential tone may not last as the two sides get down to hard bargaining in the months ahead. Yet it shows how much leverage Bush has, at least in the opening rounds of the process.

Successive Israeli governments have resisted key aspects of the plan, including the freezing of settlements and the imposition of a solution by an international group.

Sharon, for his part, has said that he’s in favour of the plan “in principle,” though he has pushed for specific changes.

All through the winter, pro-Israel lawmakers and advocacy groups met with top administration officials, including Secretary of State Colin L. Powell and National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice, to argue that the plan should be altered before it was released.

Convinced that the Europeans and United Nations are pro- Palestinian, they urged the administration to minimize the role of other quartet members in mediating between the sides. They prodded administration officials to follow the terms Bush set out in a speech last June 24, when he insisted that the Palestinians would have to change their leaders, renounce violence and adopt institutional reforms before a state could be established.

Pro-Israel lawmakers and advocates, including some evangelical Christian groups, carried on a public campaign as well.

House Majority Leader Tom DeLay, R-Texas. called the proposal the “roadmap to destruction.”

When AIPAC held its annual policy conference in Washington in March, the atmosphere was hostile to the plan. References by speakers to the roadmap were met with boos, according to attendees.

But when the White House made it clear recently that it would not rewrite the plan before its release — rejecting the 14 points a Sharon envoy presented last month — the tone shifted.

Although some Jewish groups, such as the Anti-Defamation League and the conservative Zionist Organization of America, have continued to stress their opposition to features of the plan, others, such as AIPAC and the Republican Jewish Coalition, have stressed their support for Bush’s effort.

Meanwhile, some more dovish Jewish American groups and prominent individuals have stepped forward to voice support for the roadmap.

Two groups, Americans for Peace Now and the Israel Policy Forum, have begun lobbying Capitol Hill, and representatives of the two have written op-ed articles in major newspapers. A group of 14 major Jewish philanthropists, including Edgar F. Bronfman of the World Jewish Congress, came out for the effort, saying it “provides Israel with a distinct opportunity to escape the bloody status quo” of the past two-and-half years.

Steven L. Spiegel, a University of California, Los Angeles political science professor associated with the Israel Policy Forum, says it has been awkward for more hawkish segments of the Jewish American community to challenge the roadmap when they have been fervently supporting Bush’s tough approach to the Middle East.—Dawn/LAT-WP News Service (c) Los Angeles Times.