Maybe it is just a slap on the wrist, but the reduction in the amount of loan guarantees Israel will receive from the United States at least sends a message: The United States won’t help pay for policies it disagrees with.

The Bush administration announced the reduction – about $290 million – before Thanksgiving. The money comes out of a three-year, $9 billion guarantee program.

By backing loans, the United States makes it cheaper for Israel to borrow money. By reducing the amount of the guarantees, even by a relatively small amount, the United States shows, in a concrete way, its displeasure over Israel’s policies in Palestinian territories. The change will cost Israel about $4 million a year in interest payments.

Specifically, the Bush administration doesn’t like a security fence being built by Israel. The fence cuts Palestinians off from jobs and neighbors, and annexes new territory around disputed settlements.

The penalty shouldn’t be overplayed. It is unlikely to affect Israeli actions, and U.S. foreign policy still heavily favors Israel. But at least President Bush is tipping his hat toward fairness and putting a price, however small, on a bad decision by Ariel Sharon’s government.


Generosity


Gov. John Baldacci spent part of Thanksgiving at the Augusta Mental Health Institute, visiting with patients and their families and talking with members of the staff.

AMHI is under intense scrutiny because a judge has ruled that the state has not met the conditions of a consent decree concerning patient treatment. The hospital has been a flash point in ongoing disputes over the care Maine residents suffering from mental illness receive.

While a holiday visit won’t solve the problems at AMHI, it does show the governor’s concern about mental health issues. While most of us were at home with our families, the governor joined the ranks of the dedicated volunteers and staff who share their holiday time and energy with others at dozens of shelters, community centers, churches and hospitals around our community and state.

It’s impossible to separate the personal from the political for the state’s chief executive, but the visit to AMHI strikes us as a genuine example of generosity and the continuation of a tradition Baldacci began years ago with holiday visits to Bangor Mental Health Institute.


Good decision


A federal judge Monday ruled that two World War II fighter planes that crashed into Sebago Lake should not be salvaged by a company hoping to cash in on the find. The judge made the correct decision.

The Corsairs crashed during a training exercise in 1944. Two British pilots from the Royal Navy, Vaughan Reginald Gill and Raymond Laurence Knott, were killed.

The planes and the remains of the pilots will stay at the bottom of the lake, undisturbed by those who would profit from wartime death.


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