Israelis Agree on Envoy to U.S. : End Political Impasse, Name Arad to Vacant Key Post

JERUSALEM — The Israeli government ended months of political bickering Sunday by appointing a veteran career diplomat as its new ambassador to the United States.

The choice of Moshe Arad, outgoing ambassador to Mexico, to represent Israel in Washington at a time when U.S.-Israeli relations are strained over the Jonathan Jay Pollard spy affair ended an embarrassing political impasse over who should head Israel’s most important foreign diplomatic mission.

The impasse, which reflected deep foreign policy differences between Prime Minister Yitzhak Shamir and Foreign Minister Shimon Peres, had left the Washington job vacant for the first time since the founding of the Jewish state.

Shamir had rejected more than 10 candidates put forward for the post by Peres since last November. Their failure to agree on a mutually acceptable nominee resulted in the Israeli Embassy in Washington being represented by its charge d’affaires since May 31, when outgoing Ambassador Meir Rosenne returned home after completing a four-year assignment.

The embarrassingly long delay in choosing a new envoy was seen here as a symptom of the “national unity” government’s inability to formulate a cohesive foreign policy because of irreconcilable differences between Shamir’s right-wing Likud Bloc and Peres’ centrist Labor Alignment over the best way to pursue the Middle East peace process.

Peres has sought to win U.S. backing for a U.N.-sponsored peace conference favored by Jordan and Egypt, but Shamir contends that such an international forum would force Israel to make territorial concessions opposed by the Likud.

The stalemate over Rosenne’s replacement was broken only after his departure from Washington triggered a torrent of public criticism over the squabbling government’s inability to fill such a key post at a particularly sensitive time in U.S.-Israeli relations.

The newspaper Haaretz called it a “miserable situation” that caused grave harm to Israel’s image in Washington, while the newspaper Maariv accused the government of placing, “the U.S. on the same level as Zimbabwe.”

Government sources said both sides in the dispute, Labor and Likud, agreed that the vacancy in Washington had become “intolerable” and thus compromised on Arad, whose term as ambassador to Mexico was just ending.

The Cabinet, at its regular weekly meeting, approved the nomination with only one dissenting vote. Science Minister Gideon Patt voted against it to protest what he saw as an unseemly last-minute scramble to find a suitable candidate.

“It’s a good thing the consul in Nicosia (Cyprus) has not just ended his tour of duty,” Patt said, suggesting that Arad was chosen only because of his convenient availability.

Arad’s choice was lauded by other officials who noted that the 53-year-old lawyer has both considerable diplomatic experience and a strong legal background that should prove valuable in dealing with the still unfolding Pollard and Iran arms affairs.

Differences over the latter are especially irritating to U.S.-Israeli relations right now as U.S. investigators seek to determine the extent of Israel’s involvement in the covert sale of American arms to Iran.

Four Israelis, including David Kimche, former Foreign Ministry director general, have been subpoenaed by independent counsel Lawrence E. Walsh to appear before a federal grand jury investigating the Iran arms sales.

Israel, however, has refused to allow them to appear and is fighting the subpoenas in court.

The Pollard affair also remains an irritant, with U.S. officials continuing to demand that Israel make good on its promises to punish the Israeli officials involved in recruiting the former U.S. Navy intelligence analyst to spy against the United States.

Pollard was convicted and sentenced last March to life imprisonment for passing hundreds of top-secret documents to Israel in 1984 and 1985.

Two Israeli commissions of inquiry recently absolved top government officials of prior knowledge of the Pollard affair, but the Jerusalem Post quoted Atty. Gen. Edwin Meese III as saying in an interview in Washington that the Justice Department will still take legal steps against the lower-ranking Israeli officials involved.

The appointment of Arad, who served as information officer of the Israeli Embassy in Washington in the 1970s, must be approved by the United States before he assumes his new post. This is considered a formality, however, and government sources said they expect him to go to Washington before the end of the month.

In other business, the Cabinet also debated but reached no decision on calls to scrap plans to build the controversial and expensive Lavi jet fighter plane.

It was the Cabinet’s third such debate on the Lavi, on which more than $1 billion in mostly U.S.-funded research has been spent despite efforts by senior Israeli military officials to scrap the project.

Critics of the Lavi, who include Chief of Staff Gen. Dan Shomron, argue that the plane is a luxury Israel cannot afford and that its project funds would be better spent on other weapons systems. The issue has become more political than military, however, with several thousand jobs due to be phased out if the Lavi project is scrapped.

Israeli television said most ministers were leaning toward proceeding with the project despite objections voiced Sunday by Treasury Ministry officials, who said that no additional money could be made available to fund the Lavi.