Lobby Activities

By George F. Smalley

For Arabs:

On January 30, the National Association of Arab Americans (NAAA) launched a 52-week media campaign to alert Americans to the consequences of granting Israel's pending requests for dramatic increases in U.S. aid. Israel has asked the Reagan Administration for $4.05 billion in fiscal year 1986, as well as for $800 million in additional funds for this year, which would bring the current (FY 1985) total to $3.4 billion.

NAAA is planning to place at least one newspaper advertisement per week in either a national, weekday edition of The Christian Science Monitor, or a national, Sunday edition of The New York Times. Spokesman Ronald Cathell said NAAA probably will alternate regularly between the two papers, so that the one-eighth-page ads will appear in each paper about twice a month.

The first ad appeared in the Monitor on the 30th of last month. In it, NAAA appealed to veterans, who stand to lose benefits as a result of the Administration's efforts to reduce the federal budget. "Ninety percent of American veterans who are 65 years old and over would face reduced medical assistance while Israel gets billions more," according to the ad. It then asks: "Is this fair to American veterans?"

The second ad NAAA plans to use questions the fairness of spending American tax dollars to help Israel build its own fighter plane, the Lavi. Previous U.S. assistance to Israel already has cost thousands of lost jobs for Americans, the ad says, and additional Israeli aid could result in the loss of still more, since the Lavi is expected to become a direct competitor of U.S.-made planes.

NAAA is placing the ads in the hope that they will generate letters to Congress opposing any aid increase for Israel.

Meanwhile, the Palestine Human Rights Campaign (PHRC) is distributing a report published by the International Commission of Jurists documenting alleged Israeli abuses of Palestinians in the al-Fara'a prison camp in the Israeli-occupied West Bank. According to the report, the camp was established in 1982 by a "policy document"—issued by the office of the Israeli military chief of staff, Rafael Eitan—which stated: "It is necessary to act with force against the agitator and to imprison them at every opportunity." The bulk of the Commission's report consists of sworn affidavits by former prisoners describing the conditions they faced. PHRC national director Donald Wagner said his group is making the report available to members of Congress and to persons in the media, among others.

For Israel:

A delegation representing 38 Jewish American organizations has urged the Reagan Administration to grant Israel's request for substantially increased military aid.

Twelve Jewish leaders, representing the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations, made their appeal in a meeting January 15 with Secretary of Defense Caspar Weinberger, according to the Jewish Telegraphic Agency. Last December, Israel asked the U.S. for a total of $4.05 billion in FY 1986, including $1.85 billion in economic aid and $2.2 billion in military assistance. While the Administration is planning, according to press reports, to boost military aid to Israel from the current level of $1.4 billion to $1.8 billion in FY 1986, it has appeared unwilling thus far to grant more economic aid until Israel takes additional steps to put its economy in order.

Kenneth Bialkin, chairman of the President's Conference, said the delegation also argued that Egypt has not cooperated with the U.S. to the extent Israel has, and therefore "cannot be equated in the same strategic and tactical fashion." Thus, Mr. Bialkin said, "parity is not and should not be a rule" in deciding whether to keep U.S. aid to Egypt roughly equivalent to Israel's, as has been the case since 1979.

Mr. Bialkin said the Jewish leaders also voiced their opposition to the sale of any sophisticated weapons to Arab countries because such a sale "would increase the risk of upsetting the balance of Israel's qualitative edge" in military hardware.

George F. Smalley is managing editor of The Washington Report on Middle East Affairs.