Reagan was not the only president willing to put daylight between the United States and Israel. His successor, George H.W. Bush, made waves at a 1990 news conference when he
said, “My position is that the foreign policy of the United States says we do not believe there should be new settlements in the West Bank or in East Jerusalem.” It was a statement that could just as easily have been made by President Obama. But unlike Obama, Bush took this controversial position a step further,
conditioning $10 billion of loan guarantees to Israel on a total cessation of settlement building. He later compromised and allowed the loans to go forward, but with deductions commensurate with Israel’s construction in the occupied territories.
His son George W. Bush is often held up as a model of unwavering support of Israel. But he took after his father when it came to settlement policy. As the
New York Times reported in November 2003, the Bush Administration rescinded $289.5 million of loan guarantees to Israel as “punishment for illegal construction activities in the West Bank.” These sentiments were also expressed in international forums. Bush’s hawkish ambassador to the United Nations, John Bolton, serving as the president of the Security Council in 2006, issued a
statement on its behalf declaring: “The Security Council underlines the need for the Palestinian Authority to prevent terrorist attacks and dismantle the infrastructure of terror. It reiterates its view that settlement expansion must stop and its concern regarding the route of the [Israeli security] barrier.”