Congress' Double Standard

By Dennis J. Wamsted

Congress' unseemly obeisance to Israel, carefully orchestrated by the domestic pro-Israel lobby, has seldom been more evident than during the past three months. For example, the 26-member special congressional panel investigating the Iran-Contra scandal concluded its extensive public and private hearings into the affair—without once seriously exploring the pivotal role played by the Israeli government in the ill-fated arms-for-hostages policy adopted by the Reagan administration in 1985.

Virtually alone among panel members, Senator James McClure (R-ID) repeatedly questioned witnesses about the roles of the Israeli government and various individual Israelis in the affair. Other panel members largely avoided asking these politically sensitive questions. Indeed, it was almost as if the panel members had quietly decided, either in concert or independently, that publicly questioning the extent of Israel's involvement simply would not be worth the political price that would undoubtedly be extracted by the pro-Israel lobby, led by the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, during the next election cycle.

The investigative panel's shyness is but the first example of overreaching congressional desire to placate Israel and its powerful allies in the US. Foreign aid is another realm where Israeli interests reign supreme.

Israel: Foreign Aid's Black Hole

In a time of tight budgets, cutbacks, and reductions, aid to Israel remains sacrosanct. Last month the Washington Report projected likely sums for the forthcoming (Fiscal Year 1988) foreign aid program. The numbers allocated for Israel have not changed. The four million Israelis are still slated to receive $3 billion in direct US governmental gifts, not loans, next year. Of this, $1.8 billion will be in forgiven foreign military sales credits (FMS), and $1.2 billion will be grant economic support fund (ESF) monies.

That these totals have not changed is significant. By contrast, funding levels for virtually every other US aid recipient and program were slashed during a late July mark-up by the House Appropriations Subcommittee on Foreign Operations, the panel with authority over the US foreign aid program. (Egypt's aid totals also remained untouched during the mark-up, largely because of the 1979 peace treaty it signed with Israel.)

Overall, the subcommittee approved a $13.2 billion foreign aid program, some $2.7 billion less than originally requested by President Reagan for FY 1988, and almost $700 million less than the amount appropriated during the current fiscal year. Funding for the ESF and FMS programs, the two principal portions of the US security assistance aid budget, was sharply reduced. FMS funding, which provides loans for military equipment and weapons purchases, was reduced to $3.9 billion from the $4.4 billion requested by President Reagan. ESF funding, designed to buttress economic development in countries with significant defense expenditures, was lowered to $3.15 billion from the $3.6 billion requested.

Israel, therefore, now is scheduled to receive 46.5 percent of the total FMS program for the coming year and 38 percent of the funds budgeted for the ESF program. Overall, aid to Israel will gobble up 42.5 percent of the world-wide budget of these two key programs in FY 1988.

Obey Tried to Lower Israel's Stipend

Recognizing the disproportionate share allocated to Israel, subcommittee Chairman David Obey (D-WI) suggested a small cut in aid to Israel prior to July's mark-up. Even a small cut in aid to Israel would significantly increase the amount of aid available overall, Obey argued, because Israel is one of the few recipients of US foreign assistance that actually spends its entire aid budget in a given fiscal year. Obey abandoned the plan after failing to gain any firm support from the administration or panel Republicans. Without administration support, Obey said, he was unwilling to ask fellow subcommittee Democrats to support such a politically controversial move. "If the administration isn't willing to take that on, then I'm not willing to ask my Democrats to hang out there and do something that...gives somebody [the Republicans] a chance to play games with this politically," the Wisconsin Democrat asserted at the mark-up.

Americans in Israel and Saudi Arabia: What a Difference a Lobby Makes

In mid-June a group of representatives on the House Foreign Affairs Committee's Europe and the Middle East Subcommittee convened a hearing allegedly to investigate "business practices" in Saudi Arabia. In reality, the hearing, which was chaired by Representative Tom Lantos (D-CA), not subcommittee Chairman Lee Hamilton (D-IN), was little more than an opportunity for several of Israel's most ardent congressional supporters to pillory Saudi Arabia.

Witnesses testified that while in Saudi Arabia they had been jailed without charges or physically abused while imprisoned. Lantos called Saudi Arabia a "chamber of horrors," while subcommittee member Lawrence Smith (D-FL) referred to Saudi Arabia as a "supposedly civilized society." Representative Benjamin Gilman (R-NY), ranking minority member of the Foreign Affairs Committee's Europe and Middle East Subcommittee, urged Congress to "take a good hard look at US-Saudi relations" in light of this testimony.

Despite its histrionics and highly misleading billing, the hearing was noticeably lacking in substance. Unmentioned in the discussion of four or five possibly legitimate grievances was the fact that some 300,000 Americans have lived and worked in Saudi Arabia during the past 15 years, largely without incident. More troublesome, the plight of many Americans attempting to visit Israel has been completely ignored by these same members of Congress.

In the past three months alone, at least 75 American citizens have either been denied entry into Israel outright or forced to leave large cash deposits with Israeli authorities when entering the country, according to State Department figures. Of these 75 reported cases, 40 have involved Arab-Americans and 35 Black Americans. Nor is this the first time such discriminatory treatment has been reported to the State Department. Judith Tucker, an assistant professor at Georgetown University, wrote to syndicated columnist Jack Anderson that in 1985 she was singled out to "receive honorary Arab treatment" because her husband is an Arab-American. In an early-August column for the Washington Post, Anderson cited Tucker's experience and similarly discriminatory treatment meted out last autumn to Omar Kader, a prominent Arab-American businessman who is also a staunch opponent of the US pro-Israel lobby.

In response to mild criticism by the US State Department, which threatened to issue a "travel advisory" warning Americans of possible harassment when they try to enter Israel, the Israeli government agreed to increase supervision at the country's airport gateways.

One thing is certain: No congressmen will push to convene hearings on this overt Israeli discrimination. What would normally be seized upon by liberal legislators like Senator Edward Kennedy (D-MA), chairman of the Senate Labor and Human Resources Committee, is avoided like the plague when Israel is involved. Here even the most strident liberal will remain silent as the civil rights of American citizens are routinely and capriciously violated. What a difference a lobby makes!

Israeli and Pakistani Nuclear Programs: Why the Difference?

Congress has reacted with predictable duplicity to recent revelations concerning the Pakistani nuclear program. The uproar began in mid-July with the arrest of a Pakistani on charges of illegally seeking to export nuclear-related material from the US to Pakistan. Later the same month, a US grand jury indicted him and a retired Pakistani general on charges of illegally seeking to secure US nuclear-related materials. US law mandates suspension of US foreign aid to countries that do not currently possess nuclear weapons and are proved to be seeking to acquire or build such weapons.

Not surprisingly, a number of congressmen have vigorously asserted that aid to Pakistan should, at a minimum, be curtailed and perhaps cutoff entirely. Senator Claiborne Pell (D-RI), chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, has been perhaps the most vocal proponent of an aid cut off, saying, "Now is the time to show Pakistan we mean business." Similar arguments were put forward by Senator John Kerry (D-MA) and Representative Stephen Solarz (D-NY), the author of the 1985 law.

Once again, however, Congress is ignoring the fact that Israel was the first foreign aid recipient to seek material and equipment in the US for the production of its own nuclear arsenal. Indeed, the 1985 law authored by Solarz exempted countries such as Israel, which by then had already secured the necessary equipment to produce its own nuclear weapons, from any possible punitive actions. Consequently, the ambitious Israeli nuclear weapons program continues unabated, with no adverse impact on the country's annual US aid handout, while the far more limited Pakistani program is criticized and the aid package for a key US ally in South Asia imperiled by zealously pro-Israel US congressmen.

Dennis J. Wamsted is a free-lance writer specializing in Middle East affairs and the US Congress.