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U.S. May Give Israel Spy Data, Anti-Terror Tools

New York Times

President Clinton’s top advisers will recommend that the United States provide Israel with more intelligence and anti-terrorism technology and take further action to isolate Iran because of its history of sponsoring terrorism, American officials said Monday night.

The recommendations came during a special White House meeting that was called by Clinton, who was in Michigan on a political fund-raising trip. The president condemned the latest bombings in Israel and vowed that the United States would help Israel “stop the killings, to bring the killers to justice.”

Officials said on Monday night that the president’s national security adviser, Anthony Lake, will take the recommendations to Clinton today. The idea is to provide direct assistance to Israel to fight terrorists who want to derail the Middle East peace talks with a concentration on “good intelligence,” which Defense Secretary William J. Perry called the “key to success” in fighting terrorism.

But the administration will also “use this as an example of the results of Iran-sponsored terrorism” and “try to further isolate Iran,” a White House official said.

The United States has urged countries like China and Russia to stop selling arms and nuclear technology to Iran, which Washington regards as the main sponsor of Middle East terrorism.

The administration has an “ongoing conversation” with the Syrians about terrorism, the officials said, including a letter Clinton wrote to the President Hafez al-Assad on Sunday.

And the officials said they hoped that American-mediated peace talks between Israel and Syria, which were suspended by Israel on Monday, could resume in good time.