Bush says he would move U.S. embassy to Jerusalem

Gore tells union members of his China trade stance

May 22, 2000
Web posted at: 6:20 p.m. EDT (2220 GMT)

WASHINGTON (CNN) -- In an address Monday to a group dedicated to maintaining close, cordial relations between the United States and Israel, Republican presidential hopeful George W. Bush said Monday his administration would pull up U.S. diplomatic stakes in Tel Aviv and establish a new embassy in Jerusalem.

Speaking Monday afternoon, the Texas governor said should he be elected president, he would shift U.S. diplomatic operations in Israel to Jerusalem -- or, "the city Israel has chosen as its capital." His declaration was met by a round of applause.

The pledge was delivered to a gathering of the Washington-based American-Israel Public Affairs Committee. The group bills itself as "America's pro-Israeli lobby."

While the Republican-controlled Congress has been a vocal proponent of moving the U.S. embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem, administration officials have been hesitant to do so, saying it could seriously undermine the Israeli-Palestinian peace process.

Jerusalem is claimed as its new capital by Israel, while the Palestinians have vowed to make the city the capital of any potential Palestinian state.

The city is also central the Jewish, Muslim and Christian faiths, making any claim to ownership and administration difficult to maintain without contention.

Bush also warned Israel's potential adversaries that should the peace process fail, the United States' resolve to continue its close diplomatic, military and economic ties with the tiny nation would remain unbowed.

"My support for Israel is not conditional on the outcome of the peace process," he said.

"America's special relationship with Israel precedes the peace process. And Israel's adversaries should know that in my administration, the special relationship will continue even if they cannot bring themselves to make true peace with the Jewish state," Bush said.

Bush said he was keeping a close eye on developments in the Palestinian-administered areas of the West Bank, where Israeli soldiers clashed with Palestinian Authority police last week; and on the southern border shared by Israel and Lebanon.

Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak has authorized the withdrawal of Israel's occupation force from Southern Lebanon, thereby abandoning the so-called security zone it has maintained in the region since it first invaded Lebanon in the early 1980s.

As Israel has made moves to deliberately pull its forces back from the area and members of its proxy South Lebanon Army have sought refuge, Lebanese civilians began Monday to flood into the once-occupied villages, many of them returning for the first time in years.

Those civilians -- who had been warned by Israel not to attempt to return to the area -- where accompanied by members of the Muslim Hezbollah guerilla group, which has rained shoulder-launched rockets upon northern Israel for years from areas just north of the security zone.

"I am deeply disturbed by the violence that continues in the West Bank and in South Lebanon," Bush told the group, "especially by reports of Palestinian police opening fire on Israeli soldiers last week. This is no way to make peace a reality."

Standing just in front of a photograph of the late Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin shaking the hand of Palestinian Liberation Organization leader Yasser Arafat on the White House lawn -- prompted by President Bill Clinton -- Bush continued: "We have seen Israel's desire for peace.

"We saw how the Camp David accords ended the state of war with Egypt -- with Israel sacrificing land and oil for peace, and Egypt taking great risks as well... We have seen Israel's turn toward the Palestinians -- sacrificing land in hopes of a better future for both peoples."

For all of the aid the U.S. has provided to the ongoing peace process -- including the opening of Israeli-Jordanian relations, and the contacts between Israel and Syria, Bush blasted the Clinton Administration for what he said were meddlesome tactics in Israel's most recent elections, when former conservative Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was displaced by Barak.

"In recent times, Washington has tried to make Israel conform to its own plans and timetables," he said. "This is not the path to peace."

"A clear and bad example was the administration's attempt to take sides in the most recent Israeli election," Bush continued. "America should not interfere in Israel's Democratic process, and America will not interfere in Israeli elections when I am president."

Bush also pledged that Israel would benefit from any technological advances which would allow the U.S. to fend off ballistic missile attacks, and warned Iran that the fate of 13 Iranian Jews arrested on espionage charges would be watched with interest.

"The leaders of Iran should know that America will judge them by their conduct and treatment of those 13," he said.

Gore comes clean on China trade

Elsewhere in Washington, the campaign machine of Vice President Al Gore worked to thwart a Bush campaign assault on Gore's China-trade position, in advance of a vote on open trade with China scheduled for Wednesday in the House of Representatives.

The Bush campaign tried to cast Gore's position on the House's China trade bill, which would grant the People's Republic permanent normal trade status, as ambiguous, saying in a statement that when Gore speaks to members of trade unions, his support for the trade pact "disappears."

Shortly after the Bush statement was released, the vice president appeared before members of the United Food and Commercial Workers Union in Washington, and asked them for their support, despite their divide over the issue of open trade with China.

"I know one of your legislative priorities is to urge members of Congress not to support permanent normal trade relations with China," he said. "You know I don't share that view. I strongly support normal trade relations with China because I believe it is right for the cause of reform in China."

Still, Gore said, Republicans are intent on taking back the White House, and, he argued, the China issue should not dim their support of the Democratic ticket.

"I need your help," Gore said, jabbing his finger into his chest. "There's a second factor that is often more important in determining the outcome of elections than where people stand on the issues. You can call it commitment, you can call it intensity."

"But what it all has to do with is how strongly you fell about the decision our country is going to make in November."

The Associated Press contributed to this report, which was written by Ian Christopher McCaleb.