Just How Important Is Aid To Israel?—A Congressman's View

By George Moses

Congressman Don Sundquist (R-TN) has taken issue with some points raised in my column in the September 1989 Washington Report comparing the cost of aid to Israel with the cost of other taxpayer-financed programs.

For much of his letter Congressman Sundquist, a member of the Ways and Means Committee with jurisdiction over trade and taxation, misses my point, which was to let the reader compare the benefits of aid to Israel with other programs requiring public funding. Instead, he chooses to defend aid to Israel. Since the congressman's response is longer than either my original column or the space my otherwise generous editor has allowed for this one, I will address only some of the points he raises.

A Question of Values

"First, the United States receives direct benefits from the [military] aid program to Israel, " the congressman informs me. Perhaps, although that hardly distinguishes aid to Israel from, for example, aid to cancer research, upon which the US spends only half as much money. The real question is, which is more valuable to American taxpayers? The congressman goes on to praise the contributions of Israeli R&D to the American defense effort, without explaining, why those dollars shouldn't go to some of our own funding-starved research institutions.

"Second, aid to Israel provides political benefits, " the congressman says. "It assists the Camp David peace process. " Given the failure of the Camp David process, acknowledged by its creator, former President Jimmy Carter, to address the root cause of instability and major threats to US interests in the Middle East, one wonders if the benefit is worth the very healthy price tag Israel puts on its cooperation. Congressman Sundquist also fails to mention the political difficulties which go with the benefits he describes, as our government tries to maintain mutually beneficial political and economic relationships with Arab governments who stand facing US-financed Israeli guns.

"Third, aid to Israel supports the vital, democratic ally which votes with the US at the UN more often than any other country in the world, including our NATO allies." I suspect that Americans realize by now that the reason Israel and the US often vote together at the UN is because only the US still votes against resolutions by the other members condemning Israeli violations of Palestinian human rights, the Geneva conventions and international law in Jerusalem and the occupied West Bank and Gaza.

"Fourth, aid to Israel advances US strategic and defense interests in the region ... Close military cooperation with the [1DF1 provides the United States with an effective-and cost-effective-deterrent to radical expansionism in the Middle East. " This observation unfortunately does not address the difficulties created for the United States when Israel uses its military muscle in irresponsible ways, such as attacking civilians in Lebanon, bombing Tunisia and Iraq, and shooting down Palestinians in the streets in front of their own homes. It is the reaction to such outrages rather than any vaguely defined "radical expansionism" that is at the heart of American problems in the area.

When our genuinely critical interests in the region have needed to be addressed, such as the 1987 decision to send American Navy ships to the Persian Gulf to ensure that our trading partners there could continue to sell us oil, it was friendly Arab governments who provided the necessary political and military muscle. In such circumstances, Israel's anti-Arab policies, sadly, make it more a hindrance to the US than a help.

A Matter of Choice

Congressman Sundquist complains that my column implied that "programs suffer from inadequate funding because the United States provides aid to Israel or that if aid to Israel were reduced, somehow these other programs might be funded at a higher level. " In reality, he says, "the budget process simply does not operate in such a manner"

In fact, the budget process works in precisely such a manner. Those who have worked in the congressional budget process, as I have, are aware that each year programs must compete on their own merits for scarce public resources.

The congressman seems to suggest that taxpayer dollars granted to Israel come from nowhere because he informs me, "Cutting aid to Israel would not free up any additional funds for the programs" I mentioned in my column, such as the Drug Enforcement Administration, National Park Service, Food and Drug Administration, Peace Corps, Center for Disease Control, National Institute of Aging, Aid to Sub-Saharan Africa and Consumer Product Safety Commission, all of which together cost the taxpayer less than the US government's aid to Israel.

Nor is it the case that, since the administration requests such spending, Congress is powerless to reduce it. Such a notion is neither fair nor flattering to members of Congress. If taxpayers believed it, however, it would avoid the need to explain why Israel's aid goes through Congress untouched while the national debt increases and numerous other programs face reductions, decisions to which each and every congressional representative is a party.

Serious debate on US Middle East policy would be better served if congressional supporters of Israel's hard-line, anti-Arab policies were to stand up and say "Yes, we think aid to Israel is more important to US taxpayers than these other programs," rather than to obfuscate congressional decision making to the point where they accept no responsibility for their actions.

A Final Challenge

Finally, Congressman Sundquist challenges me, if I am "truly serious about reducing aid to Israel," to address my article to "the leaders of those Arab states that continue in their refusal to make peace with Israel—or even to begin negotiations with Israel."

The congressman's letter is dated Nov. 9. For months the Palestinians have had on the table an open-ended offer to negotiate with Israel with no preconditions and within the framework of longstanding (22 years) US policy in support of land for peace. So far, the government of Israel has declined this offer. Prime Minister Yitzhak Shamir has vowed never to negotiate land for peace, despite Secretary of State James Baker's plea last May that he abandon "once and for all the unrealistic vision of a 'greater Israel.'"

It is important for Congressman Sundquist and all of his colleagues who are victimized by the all-too-familiar a... ' -ib propaganda his remarks reflect, to understand that the US has a role to play in the peace process beyond writing blank checks for military adventurism by one side. American interests will best be served by a peace with justice for all parties to the dispute. That outcome, not Israeli military hegemony, must be the object of USpolicy.

George Moses, a former president of the National Association of Arab Americans, is a legislative consultant based in Washington, DC