Photo/Illutration Prime Minister Kiichi Miyazawa, left, meets George H.W. Bush at the State Guest House in Tokyo’s Moto-Akasaka district during the U.S. president’s visit to Japan in January 1992. (Provided by the Foreign Ministry)

Visiting U.S. President George H.W. Bush expressed concerns to Prime Minister Kiichi Miyazawa in 1992 over dealing with the powerful pro-Israel lobby of Jewish Americans ahead of his re-election bid, according to newly released diplomatic documents. 

The documents, released Dec. 20 by the Foreign Ministry, contain proceedings of the January 1992 Japan-U.S. summit, labeled “top secret for an indefinite period,” which reveal how Miyazawa fished for information on the U.S.-brokered Israeli-Palestinian Middle East peace talks.

Israel at the time was calling on the United States to provide $10 billion in loan guarantees so that it could accept Jewish emigrants from the former Soviet Union, which had disintegrated in 1991.

The documents quoted Bush as referring to a “tense” relationship between the United States and Israel and saying the equivalent of the following, which has been translated for this article from the original Japanese:

“We cannot approve (the loan guarantees) as long as Israel continues with settlements in the occupied territories (of the West Bank and the Gaza Strip, both inhabited by Palestinians). We confronted Israel last year. We defeated the U.S. pro-Israel lobby for the first time since under (Dwight D.) Eisenhower” (who served as U.S. president from 1953 to 1961).

Bush explained the following: “The pro-Israel lobby has major clout in the United States, particularly regarding elections. It even sometimes blocks your election by funding your opponents if you stand in its way.”

Bush also pointed out that Israel’s rightist administration of Prime Minister Yitzhak Shamir was taking an aggressive stance toward Washington partly because it believed the United States owed Israel for how it restrained itself during the Persian Gulf War of 1991.

The remark likely refers to how the U.S.-led coalition forces liberated Kuwait from Iraqi forces, which had invaded Kuwait and had attacked Israel with missiles. However, Israel remained on the sidelines of the conflict. 

Bush is quoted as saying that Washington believed, for its part, that it had disposed of Israel’s biggest enemy.

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U.S. President George H.W. Bush’s remarks on the pro-Israel lobby appear in the proceedings of the 1992 Japan-U.S. summit, which are contained in the diplomatic documents declassified by the Foreign Ministry in December 2023. (Naotaka Fujita)

Following the Japan-U.S. summit, the leftist Israeli administration of Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin, which was more supportive of Middle East peace talks, took power after a general election in June 1992.

Bush met Rabin, who showed a willingness to curtail Israeli settlements in the occupied territories, in August 1992 and agreed to provide the $10 billion in loan guarantees.

Bush lost the November 1992 presidential race, when the lagging U.S. economy became the primary campaign issue. 

Immediately prior to the election, an Asahi Shimbun article with a Washington dateline offered the view that entanglements over the loan guarantees issue partly accounted for a major drop in Bush’s approval ratings.

“Different surveys have shown the approval ratings for Bush among the 4.3 million Jewish-American voters, who have a traditional strength of organization, have declined sharply from the time of the last presidential election in 1988,” the Asahi article said.

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