Washington Report, May 16, 1983, Page 5

Lobby Activities

For Arabs:

The National Association of Arab Americans (NAAA) has been told by the Department of Justice that the file containing 600 pages of investigative documents on possible espionage violations by former Senate aide Stephen Bryen has been "located." NAAA filed a lawsuit against the Justice Department in early April after it told NAAA that the file "could not be found."

With the news that the file had been recovered NAAA also received about 26 pages of additional documents. According to NAAA's Ronald Cathell, one of these documents is a Justice Department memorandum which says that a review of Senate Foreign Relations Committee files by a Justice Department investigator "disclosed several documents which clearly indicate that Bryen was furnishing information to the Israeli Defense Ministry." NAAA is planning to press its lawsuit to obtain still more documents and information on how the file was lost in the first place.

NAAA took a major logistical step recently by moving its Washington office to a more central downtown location with more than twice the space of its previous quarters on Connecticut Avenue. The pro-Arab lobby now occupies the entire ninth floor—which was remodeled to NAAA's specifications—of an office building located at 21st and M Streets in Northwest Washington. According to Mr. Cathell, the increased space will allow NAAA to implement its long-held plans to upgrade its operations which include the creation of four new administrative positions to manage the departments of government, media and communications, research, and an NAAA subsidiary known as the Middle East Policy and Research Corporation (MEPARC). NAAA is now in the process of filling these positions.

Meanwhile, the Palestine Human Rights Campaign (PHRC) recently held its national convention, which brought together PHRC members, evangelical Christians, and numerous clergy from the mainstream Christian denominations in an effort to improve these religious leaders' understanding of Mideast problems. The three-day event was held in Atlanta under the theme "War and Peace in the Holy Land: What Does Biblical Justice Require of Us?"

Another conference was held recently in Washington under the joint sponsorship of The International Organization for the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination and a group known as American Jewish Alternatives to Zionism, led by Rabbi Elmer Berger. In a two-day symposium, panels of scholars presented papers and answered questions on the theme "Judaism or Zionism: What Difference for the Middle East?" The conference took place in a leading downtown hotel and was attended by more than 150 persons.

For Israel:

At a recent Congressional hearing the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) urged the House Foreign Operations Subcommittee to approve aid levels to Israel for next year that are not only substantially higher than amounts requested by President Reagan but are in excess of the levels approved by the House Foreign Affairs Committee.

The latter is the body which must authorize any foreign aid bill before funding can be allocated by the operations and appropriation committees.

Testifying before the Subcommittee on Foreign Operations on May 10, AIPAC's Executive Director, Thomas Dine, requested an allocation of $2.61 billion—including $910 million in economic assistance which would not have to be paid back; and $1.7 billion in military aid, half of which would be "forgiven" (i.e., grants) and half of which would be in the form of repayable loans.

The total sum proposed by AIPAC which would thus not have to be repaid by Israel exceeds by $60 million the levels approved by the House Foreign Affairs Committee: $850 million in grant economic funds and $1.7 billion in military aid, split 50-50 between the amount which would be in grants and that which would have to be repaid to the U.S.

The figures requested by the pro-Israel lobby are also considerably higher than the levels requested by the Reagan Administration early this year. Whereas the grant portion of the Administration's aid requests for Israel total $1.33 billion, the grant segment requested by AIPAC totals $1.76 billion.

In attempting to justify the aid levels which he proposed Mr. Dine cited the "alarming rate" at which Syria is rearming itself and the "disturbing possibility" that it and the Soviet Union "are preparing for joint action (against Israel) in the near future."