IPFS News Link • Past Presidents
The Bowdlerized Bush Obituaries
• https://www.lewrockwell.com By Philip GiraldiThe obit by The Times and that by The Post differed little in substance but they had one curious omission, i.e. President G.H.W. Bush's eighteen month confrontation with Israel and its powerful domestic lobby.
In 1991-1992 President Bush engaged in a series of sharp exchanges with Israel and its American lobby over the issue of $10 billion in loan guarantees to the Jewish state to pay for the resettlement of Russian Jews, who were beginning to arrive in both Israel and the West in large numbers. Bush correctly assumed that the loans would in fact also subsidize the expansions of illegal settlements on the West Bank and in Gaza, which the U.S. government opposed, so he said "no" to the loans. After a series of increasingly acrimonious exchanges back and forth, Bush, facing election, withdrew his objections and the loans were approved, but he was the only U.S. president since John F. Kennedy to confront the Israel Lobby in any serious way. Kennedy was, of course, assassinated and Bush was defeated for reelection.