Indyk Nomination a Puzzler for Helms

By Lucille Barnes

One of the first orders of business for Sen. Jesse Helms, the new Republican chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, will be to hold confirmation hearings on President Clinton's nominee for U.S. ambassador to Israel, Martin Indyk. Helms often holds up the State Department's ambassadorial nominees—any nominees—for weeks or even months to show the folks down home in North Carolina that he can make "the striped-pants boys" and "cookie pushers" jump through hoops. (Before he finally confirms a nominee, who may have been waiting around Washington doing nothing for months at taxpayer expense while awaiting a hearing date, Helms may also extract a federal goodie or two for boys and girls back home as quid pro quo for his "cooperation.")

But the unpredictable solon's normal obstructionist proclivities clashed, in this case, with his apparent determination never again to get on the wrong side of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC), which nearly did him in in 1984 by directing its network of pro-Israel PACs to donate more than $200,000 in campaign funds to his opponent that year, North Carolina Democratic Governor Jim Hunt.

So, a Helms senior aide told the Jewish Telegraphic Agency, the Indyk nomination is "not expected to draw opposition...but we're withholding judgment until we see his papers." What Helms found there was eye-popping proof of the power of AIPAC to get anyone of its choice into the most sensitive U.S. government positions.

Indyk, who once served as a consultant on the Western media to Israeli Likud leaders Menachem Begin and Yitzhak Shamir, had an extremely sensitive position in his native Australia. He was deputy director of current intelligence for the Office of National Assessments, the Australian equivalent of the CIA. When he arrived in the U.S. he worked two years for AIPAC and then, funded by a member of the AIPAC board of directors, set up the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, a pro-Israel think tank where Dennis Ross, now the State Department's politically appointed Middle East policy czar, held a fellowship.

When the Clinton administration chose Indyk to be its chief White House adviser on Middle East policy, the job did not require Senate confirmation. However, the incoming Clinton administration had to do some serious string pulling to speed up naturalization proceedings for Indyk. The future occupant of its most sensitive Middle East position was not yet an American citizen!

Ordinarily this would have been grist for the Helms' mill, but not this time. The senator's only problem in rushing to confirmation was one that increasingly plagues all congressional friends of Israel. Despite Indyk's former association with Israel's hard-line Likud, now Indyk is identified with the policies of Israel's Labor Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin. Therefore, although the White House contacted national Jewish leaders last August about Clinton's plan to nominate what the administration is calling "the first Jewish U.S. ambassador in Tel Aviv," not all national Jewish leaders were supportive.

Chairman Herbert Zweibon of Americans for a Safe Israel, which echoes Israeli Likud opposition to any land-for-peace agreements with the Palestinians or with Israel's Arab neighbors, hoped to testify at the hearings because, he said, his group is "not happy about Indyk, about his connections with the Washington Institute, which has produced people like Dennis Ross."

Echoing mainstream Jewish organization opinion, however, President Seymour Reich of the American Zionist Movement called Zweibon's criticism of Indyk "sheer madness." At the confirmation hearing, Helms was absent and no other committee member expressed any opposition.

Gingrich Gets AIPAC Transfusion

The pro-Israel community should not be too concerned about the new Republican majority in Congress and its attitude toward Israel, according to AIPAC legislative director Arne Christenson. Christenson, who has served in his AIPAC position for the past two years, told the Washington Jewish Week he is "100 percent convinced" of new House Speaker Newt Gingrich's "pro-Israel commitment." Christenson should know. He has been hired away from AIPAC to serve as one of four legislative aides to Gingrich, concentrating specifically on budget and appropriations matters.

Dole Introduces Bosnia Legislation

Senate Majority Leader Robert Dole (R-KS) introduced legislation on Jan. 4, the first day of the new Congress, to force the U.S. government to end by May 1 U.S. participation in the arms embargo on all parties to the Bosnian conflict when the four-month truce between the Bosnian government and Bosnian Serbs comes to an end. The embargo prevents the Muslim-led government from acquiring heavy arms to defend itself against the heavy arms of the Serb-controlled former Yugoslav army.

The measure is likely to pass the Senate, despite a statement by Clinton administration spokesman Michael McCurry that it is "the wrong thing to do" at this time and would deepen U.S. involvement in Bosnia.

"That would include, in our view as a moral responsibility, the arming, training and equipping of the Bosnian Muslims, who would have to defend themselves... against the Bosnian Serb military force," said McCurry, who was speaking from the State Department pending his transfer to the position of White House spokesman.

Dole said a U.S. decision to arm the Bosnians "would reduce the potential influence and role of radical extremist states like Iran...[because] our policy toward Bosnia has fueled anti-Western extremism in the Middle East." He said that lifting the arms embargo would not lead to the deployment of U.S. ground forces because "the Bosnians have an advantage in manpower. What they need are weapons."

After Dole introduced his legislation, Adm. Leighton W. Smith, Jr., commander of NATO forces in southern Europe, warned that exempting the Bosnian government from the U.N.-sanctioned embargo would aggravate the Bosnian conflict and split NATO. Responding in a Senate floor speech, Dole said he was "not surprised that a four-star admiral would not oppose his commander-in-chief."

In previous debate, Dole has pointed out that his position reflects that of Bill Clinton when he was a candidate for president in 1992 and criticized the inaction of the administration of President George Bush. Clinton's policy changed only after Secretary of State Warren Christopher was unable in 1993 and again in 1994 to enlist the cooperation of Britain and France in an activist pro-Bosnian government policy. Subsequently, the U.S. adopted the British and French policy.

Balanced Budget a Nightmare for Friends of Israel

Although, according to Queens (NY) Jewish Week columnist James D. Besser, "the passage of a balanced budget amendment would make it almost impossible to sustain Israel's aid," AIPAC lobbyists decided to stay out of the fight. "There has been no discussion within the organization about taking a stand," an AIPAC source told Besser.

Other supporters of Israel were less reticent to anger Republicans. Said Rabbi David Saperstein, director of the Religious Action Center of Reform Judaism, according to Besser: "The foreign aid budget has been under enormous pressure for the past eight years. Structural changes like a balanced budget amendment, which would require an additional $200 billion in cuts, inevitably would increase that pressure, and pressure on aid to the single biggest recipient—Israel."

Even after a constitutional amendment passes each house of Congress by a two-thirds vote, it still requires ratification by three-fourths of the states.

AIPAC Hails "Record Margins" In Congress for Aid to Israel

In its year-end review of the 1994 record of congressional support for Israel, Near East Report, the bi-weekly publication sent to AIPAC members, noted that "the active role played by Congress was essential in preserving vital assistance to Israel."

The foreign operations appropriations bill, which contains aid for Israel, was passed in the House by "the widest margin in history, 341-85," NER said, and "the Senate vote was a decisive 88-12."

In addition to the $1.8 billion in military aid and $1.2 billion in economic aid for Israel contained in that bill, NER pointed out, "lawmakers also voted to provide $80 million for refugee resettlement in Israel." NER pointed out that "the bill also included legislative earmarks on Israel's aid, protecting it from budgetary or political pressure by requiring the administration to fully fund these programs."

The same bill "also included an important amendment on U.S. policy toward Jerusalem," NER reported. "It prohibits the U.S. government from opening new offices in Jerusalem to distribute aid to the Palestinian Authority (PA) and it disallows formal meetings in Jerusalem between U.S. officials and leaders of the PA."

When U.S. supporters of the peace process suggested that Jerusalem could serve as the capital of both Israel and a Palestinian state, AIPAC lobbyists got busy again. "The House sent another powerful message of support for a united Jerusalem as Israel's capital," NER wrote, referring to the signing by 279 members of the House of Representatives of an AIPAC-inspired letter urging the Clinton administration to follow a policy that does not "in any way support a Palestinian claim to the city."

Among other pro-Israel congressional accomplishments cited by NER were legislation waiving anti-PLO laws (so that the U.S. could supply funds to the Palestinian National Authority in support of the Declaration of Principles agreed upon by Yitzhak Rabin and Yasser Arafat), but requiring that President Clinton certify every six months that the PLO is abiding by its commitments under the agreement.

Congress also urged Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) member states to press other Arab countries to follow the GCC lead in dropping enforcement of the secondary and tertiary aspects of the Arab League boycott of Israel. Congress also sent letters signed by 63 senators and 38 House members to Commerce Secretary Ron Brown expressing concern over the possibility that the sale of satellite imagery to Saudi Arabia would undermine Israel's "qualitative intelligence edge."

Congress also earmarked additional U.S. funding for Israeli development of the Have Nap missile, jointly produced Unmanned Aerial Vehicles and the Arrow ground-to-air anti-ballistic missile program.

Every $70 Million Counts

Continued U.S. funding for the Arrow anti-ballistic missile was near the top of Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin's agenda on his November visit to Washington. He was alarmed because military officers in the Pentagon have said the U.S. has no need for the Israeli system, which uses some U.S. technology and would end up competing with U.S.-manufactured weapons systems (as did the U.S.-funded, Israeli produced Lavi fighter aircraft project, which also involved the transfer of U.S. military technology and which Israel sold to China after the U.S. halted its support for the project).

Rabin got an administration commitment of $14 million a year for the Arrow for each of the next five years. The funds, over and above the annual $l.8 billion in military aid earmarked annually for Israel from the foreign aid budget, will come from the Defense Department budget, as will the funds for the other jointly-produced weapons systems.

Lucille Barnes covers Washington for U.S. and foreign publications.