Israel's Congressional Supporters Seek to Increase Aid, Derail Peace

By George Moses

Sorting through the residue of Operation Desert Storm, most analysts agree that virtually every assumption about the US role in the Middle East must be re-examined and, most likely, changed. One of the key questions to be answered is, what has happened to the standing of the Palestinians in the collective mind of Congress as a result of the Persian Gulf war?

First, why does the question matter?

It matters because Congress continues to be the preferred setting for the political forces at work to prevent a fair settlement for Palestinians. This work has started anew since the end of hostilities with the plethora of resolutions introduced in Congress in early March. These resolutions argue, in effect, that the primary business of the American peace effort in the Middle East is to force the Arab states to recognize Israel. Collateral to this drive is the argument that the Palestinians, because of their pro-Iraq sympathies, have somehow lost their right to a prominent place at the peace table.

That's the bad news.

One of the major disasters of the Gulf war has been the shattering of what little credibility the PLO leadership had managed to acquire with Congress.

The good news is that all of the benefits of the intifada have not been lost. There is still substantial sympathy among congressmembers for the plight of the Palestinians. But even the good news has a down side. For want of an effective way to channel that sympathy, it is largely being lost as a political force.

One of the major disasters of the Gulf war has been the shattering of what little credibility the PLO leadership had managed to acquire with Congress. This is not just AIPAC-inspired rhetoric. Sober members of Congress of good judgment on the issues say privately exactly what they say publicly: that the PLO has no credibility with congressional policymakers. They acknowledge the fact that the PLO is the only organized body that can speak with authority for the Palestinians. Notwithstanding that fact, as congressional representatives like to say, Arafat has become marginalized in American policy thinking.

It is at just this point that congressional sophistication runs out. In the minds of virtually every American senator and representative, Yasser Arafat is the PLO and the PLO is Arafat. Because the electoral and succession procedures of the PLO are opaque to outsiders, it appears to these observers that Arafat rules as a king, successfully blocking any challenge to his reign in his lifetime.

Palestinians and some other Arabs can recite in great detail the various permutations of PLO leadership, which factions answer to whom, and who is currently on top. They seem not to realize that all of this is lost on American policyrnakers. Supporters of the Palestinians who should know better have allowed a radical Zionist dream to be realized. In congressional circles, Palestinians are personified by one man, and he is completely discredited in that arena.

If this were a classroom exercise in political theory, the question to be put to the class would be this: if the government of Israel is truly trying to make peace with its Palestinian neighbors, why does it try so hard to discredit and destroy the one entity which can deliver that peace, especially after that entity has offered to do so?

The Best Deal For Israel

The answer is that the Israeli leadership knows that it can get its best deal by negotiating with Palestinians who have no clear claim to leadership and are unsure of their mandate. As long as the United States will help in this enterprise, the Greater Israel crowd can reject successive Palestinian representatives until it gets a set so weak that they will give away the store in a negotiation. In that respect, the recent refusal of Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Shamir's government to meet with the Palestinians who met with Secretary Baker could be taken by those Palestinians as a compliment both to their rectitude and to their fortitude.

The single greatest flaw in American policy regarding the dispute is the unwillingness to act to defeat this ploy. And that is where the Congress comes in.

Congressmembers are very busy. The primary claims on their time and attention are domestic and electoral, not foreign and esoteric. The radical Zionists have made it easy for them to agree with Israel's Likudist expansionism. Supporters of the Palestinians have done little that has been effective to counter that effort, and the Palestinians themselves sometimes seem to go out of their way to make it even harder.

In the minds of virtually every American senator and representative, Yasser Arafat is the PLO and the PLO is Arafat.

The result is large numbers of members of Congress who dutifully regurgitate policy analysis which wouldn't withstand the scrutiny of a freshman political science class. They do this in many cases with the vague sense of unease that it doesn't sound quite right, but Zionist campaign contributors seem to like it, nobody else seems to object and, what the heck, there are "more important" things to worry about.

With that kind of backing, Zionist supporters have a free hand to operate, shielded from the light of congressional or, for other reasons, vigorous press scrutiny. Does Israel's human rights record need whitewashing? The Zionists' man is in place to make sure that Israel is not made uncomfortable by demands of justice for Palestinians. And don't worry about the congressional human rights caucus. Our guys run it, and they know that Israel couldn't possibly be abusing Palestinians. Does Israel need more money to control those pesky Palestinians but without the visibility of an increase in the bottom line appropriation? We'll find ways to "enhance" the package so it doesn't show. We'll make sure that the guys on Capitol Hill don't object.

And now it's all getting worse.

One of the considerations for Secretary Baker in composing a peace proposal is what will sell in the House and the Senate. With the standing of Palestinians among members of Congress injured as badly as it is, the likelihood of a fair settlement for them is reduced accordingly.

If you're counting casualties from Desert Storm, don't stop yet.

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