Despite "Republican Revolution," Congress Shows It's Still Israeli-Occupied Territory

By Lucille Barnes

The "Republican revolution" of the 1994 congressional elections may have changed the name of the majority party in both houses of the 104th Congress, but it changed nothing on key votes affecting Israel. Despite Republican demands for serious spending cuts to balance the federal budget in seven years, and House Speaker Newt Gingrich's insistence that "everyone must share the pain," by the time Congress took a summer recess in August, it was clear that neither America's biggest foreign aid recipient, Israel, nor the two Arab countries that had made peace with it, were going to feel any pain at all.

Congress reduced foreign aid to $12 billion, an 11 percent cut and 20 percent below President Bill Clinton's request. However, in the House 1996 Foreign Aid Appropriations bill, bilateral military aid for Israel remained at $1.8 billion and economic aid at $1.2 billion, with an additional $80 million to assist Israel in the absorption of refugees from the former Soviet Union. Additional goodies for Israel were included in the budgets of the Defense Department (see below), the Commerce Department and other U.S. government agencies, and Israel was permitted to spend more than $400 million of its direct U.S. military aid on products of its own rather than on products of U.S. defense industries. Also, the unique arrangement whereby Israel receives all of its bilateral U.S. economic aid in a lump sum payment at the beginning of the fiscal year, rather than in quarterly installments as received by all other U.S. aid recipients, was continued.

Nor did Egypt, whose aid is pegged at two-thirds of that received by Israel, suffer any pain. It was authorized $2.2 billion in FY 1996 aid. Jordan, too, was rewarded, though not as handsomely as it had expected, for signing a peace agreement with Israel during 1995 by having its remaining $275 million debt to the U.S. forgiven. After some debate, Jordan also was authorized an additional $100 million in military support to upgrade its armed forces.

Because Congress sheltered Israel, Egypt and Jordan, which together receive more than half of worldwide bilateral U.S. foreign aid, from the impact of the 11 percent cut in the overall foreign aid level, other aid recipients either had their programs terminated or sharply reduced.

Efforts by one House member, Rep. James Traficant (D-OH), to spread the pain equally among aid recipients failed. Noting that the Israeli and Egyptian programs were the only ones not being cut, Traficant observed that "there should be no sacred cows when we are cutting veteran's programs, Medicare and school lunches." He proposed 10, 5 or 1 percent across-the-board cuts on Israeli and Egyptian as well as other foreign aid programs.

To the consternation of lobbyists for the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC), who demand 100 percent adherence to their voting recommendations, when Traficant's 1 percent reduction amendment actually reached the House floor for a vote, more than a third of House members supported it, with 139 ayes to 270 nos. Despite such flurries of resistance, however, the new Republican majority demonstrated conclusively that, revolution or no, Congress still is Israeli-occupied territory.

Defense Budget Bulging With Ill-Concealed Israeli Perks

The draft House Fiscal Year 1996 Defense Appropriations bill includes funding for so many U.S.-Israel defense programs, in addition to the $1.8 billion in military aid for Israel already included in the House Foreign Aid Appropriations bill, that Near East Report, AIPAC's biweekly newsletter, devoted extensive space in its July 31 and August 14 issues just to listings of the perks and of the individual members of Congress who added them to (or, more accurately, subtracted them from) the Pentagon's budget for American defense.

According to the Near East Report, Reps. Charlie Wilson (D-TX) and Henry Bonilla (R-TX) "were helpful in securing funding for the HAVE-NAP missile." (HAVE-NAP is a long-range air-to-ground missile which increases Israeli capabilities to strike distant targets in the Middle East.) The House Defense Appropriations bill allocated $39 million to provide Israel with 54 such missiles.

Reps. Joseph McDade (R-PA), Joe Keen (R-NM), Norman Dicks (D-WA) and Jerry Lewis (R-CA) all were listed as "helpful in securing funding for other U.S.-Israel programs." Among these was a fully funded Single Channel Ground and Airborne Radio System (SINCGARS). Another was $38 million to upgrade American AH-1 Cobra series helicopters with the U.S.-Israeli cooperative Night Targeting System. Still others were the Nautilus laser program, the Counter-terrorism Technical Support Working Group (which develops technology with NATO and Israel), and the U.S.-Israel Unmanned Aerial Vehicle Program. There also was a $34 million allocation for the Foreign Comparative Testing program, which was designed to allow Israeli testing of foreign-made defense items. (This may put Israel in the unique position of testing its own military items to determine whether or not the U.S. should buy them.)

The Defense Appropriations Bill also includes funding for the Israeli Arrow anti-tactical ballistic missile program. That program, which is being developed largely with U.S. funds, is unique in that few U.S. technicians are convinced it is sound. Whether or not it is, however, is academic so far as the U.S. is concerned, since there are no plans to incorporate the Arrow in American air defenses. The Near East Report alludes to this, noting plaintively that "the report accompanying the bill contained negative language about the [Arrow] program."

Perks in the Senate's Bill

Turning to the Senate's draft 1996 Defense Authorization bill, NER credits Senators Bob Smith (R-NH), Jeff Bingaman (D-NM), Joseph Lieberman (D-CT) and John McCain (R-AZ) for getting language into the bill stating that Israel should be treated with "equal-to-NATO" status when purchasing technology from the U.S. NER notes "the bill also states congressional support for establishing U.S. policy that 'makes available to Israel, within existing technology transfer laws, regulations and policies, advanced United States technology necessary for achieving continued progress in cooperative United-States research and development of theater missile defenses.'"

NER prudently did not credit any senators for inserting that language into the draft bill. If it is not struck out in committee, that wording might give Israeli scientists carte blanche to rummage around in America's attic of highly classified star wars technology for items that would be of great interest to Israel's own military aerospace industry—and to some of its past customers, such as China and North Korea.

NER credits Sen. William Cohen (R-ME) for making the Senate bill "improve the services available to the Navy at the Port of Haifa." Senators Lieberman and Strom Thurmond (R-NC) are credited with working "to include report language supporting funding of U.S.-Israel Crash-Attenuating Seats...that could be used to enhance troop safety on board Navy/Marine Corps helicopters."

Senators John Warner (R-VA), Carl Levin (D-MI) and Jim Inhofe (R-OK) are credited for obtaining full funding for another U.S.-Israel defense program to develop Bradley Reactive Armor Tile, to make Bradley Fighting Vechicles more resistant to shaped charges.

Senators credited for increasing funding by $2 million over the administration's request for the Counter-Terrorism Technical Support Working Group are Smith, Bingaman and Lieberman. Warner and Levin are credited with securing funding for Israeli production of Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs), SINCGARS, the Night Targeting System (NTS), and other U.S.-Israel defense programs.

AIPAC Goes to Bat for the Palestinians

Before leaving for the August recess, both houses of Congress passed 45-day extensions of the Middle East Peace Facilitation Act (MEPFA). The extension permits President Clinton to waive U.S. laws restricting assistance to and even dialogue with the Palestine Liberation Organization by certifying that the PLO is in compliance with its peace agreement commitments.

The certification is necessary to put the U.S. government in compliance with its own commitment to provide Palestinian National Authority President Yasser Arafat $100 million in aid per year over a six-year period as support for the Oslo agreement.

Hard-line Israeli opponents of the peace agreement, mostly from Israel's Likud party, have been working both through allies in the U.S. Jewish community and directly through lobbying visits by former Israeli generals and a blitz of faxes to congressional offices to derail the U.S. aid to the PNA by raising the hoops through which the PNA must jump. An ally of the Likud lobby in this endeavor has been House International Relations Committee Chairman Benjamin Gilman (R-NY).

What has been jarring to members of Congress is the key role played by AIPAC in supporting an extension of MEPFA and continued U.S. aid to the Palestinians. AIPAC, which supposedly is financially supported by its American membership, in fact supports any elected government of Israel. Support for Yasser Arafat's PNA is the Rabin government's current program, at least for as long as it believes Arafat can be tempted to continue deferring negotiation of water rights, withdrawal from Hebron, final Israeli borders, and the status of Jerusalem while the Israeli government keeps constructing "facts on the ground" in East Jerusalem and the West Bank. Given its hold on Congress, AIPAC, for its own reasons, has turned out to be Yasser Arafat's most effective Washington supporter.

Congress Forwards Letters Requesting Embassy Move to Jerusalem

The biannual pre-election year letters from Congress to the secretary of state requesting that the U.S. embassy be moved from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem, regardless of the outcome of talks on the final status of that city, were right on time for 1995. The Senate letter, calling for ground to be broken in Jerusalem in 1996 and the move to be completed by 1999, was forwarded with an overwhelming 93 signatures out of a possible 100. The surprise this year was the fact that the two New York senators who sponsored the letter, Republican Alfonse D'Amato and Democrat Daniel Moynihan, were joined by Senate Majority Leader (and Republican presidential candidate) Bob Dole, who was one of the few who opposed the initiative in 1994.

Support for a companion letter sponsored by Representatives Ben Gilman (R-NY), Charles Schumer (D-NY), Bill Paxon (R-NJ) and John Lewis (D-GA) was less overwhelming in the House, with 256 co-signers out of a possible 435. Among names missing was that of House Speaker Newt Gingrich. Gingrich always has been considered a friend by AIPAC and now his wife, Marianne, is employed to lobby American Jewish businessmen to invest in duty-free port facilities in Israel. Nevertheless, the speaker has a keen nose for the political breezes, and public opinion polls show the American public supports by two to one the present Clinton administration policy of withholding any decision on the embassy until the final status of Jerusalem has been negotiated.

It's Never Too Late To Pander Again

In the House Appropriations Committee markup of the foreign aid bill, Rep. Nita Lowey (D-NY), one of Israel's most indefatigable supporters in a crowded field, offered an amendment prohibiting U.S. government officials from conducting meetings in East Jerusalem with representatives of the Palestinian National Authority. Coming from one of the people who supports moving the U.S. Embassy to Israel from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem because "every country should be allowed to choose its own capital," the move to keep the Palestinians from choosing theirs was doubly ironic.

Nevertheless the amendment, similar to wording offered for last year's foreign aid appropriations bill, was passed by unanimous voice vote.

Counter-Terrorism Bill on Hold

Propelled by the shock waves of the Oklahoma City bombing last April, the Clinton administration's Omnibus Counter-terrorism Bill sailed through the Senate on June 7 by a 92 to 8 vote. House members, however, read the fine print and many didn't like what they saw. The House bill was tabled, at least until after the August recess.

Now the bill's primary proponents, B'nai B'rith's Anti-Defamation League (ADL), the American Jewish Committee, and the House Jewish caucus led by indefatigable pro-Israel gadfly Charles Schumer (D-NY), not only are trying to get the bill back on track, but strengthened. They are opposed by the American Civil Liberties Union, the National Association of Arab Americans and Muslim-American groups, among others.

Opponents object to efforts to stop fund-raising for legitimate organizations overseas engaged in social, medical and charitable operations by arbitrarily declaring that some of the same organizations engage in unspecified "terrorist" activities. The bill would penalize donors to such organizations even if the donations are earmarked specifically for medical or charitable purposes. The bill also would authorize secret judicial proceedings against non-citizen U.S. residents in which the suspect is not entitled to a summary of charges and therefore has no means to prepare a legal defense.

While none of the opponents of the bill object to serious anti-terrorism efforts by U.S. government agencies, all have problems with the arbitrary manner in which an entire organization or movement might be designated "terrorist" by individuals within Congress or the Executive Branch with a private overseas agenda of their own, and by the implications for all green card holders of deportation procedures based upon unspecified charges by unnamed accusers.

It is unlikely that members of Congress will find much enthusiasm for the legislation during their visits to their home districts in August except from members of right-wing Jewish organizations, most of whom seem motivated by a desire to upset the Israeli-Palestinian peace process by cutting off donations to community services in Gaza and the West Bank.

Reaction among Arab-American leaders was summarized by NAAA Executive Director Khalil Jahshan, who told the Washington Jewish Week, "The legislation has been fine-tuned a bit, but our preference is to drop the whole thing. The disadvantages far outweigh the advantages."

Congress Votes to Lift Bosnia Embargo

The Senate passed a bill sponsored by Senators Robert Dole (R-KS) and Joseph Lieberman (D-CT) to lift the United Nations arms embargo that is preventing the Bosnian government from obtaining heavy arms to defend itself. The debate showed how deeply unpopular is the Clinton administration's policy of deferring to European countries, most of which are perceived as turning a blind eye to genocide in Europe's backyard. The Dole-Lieberman bill, which is similar to a proposal approved earlier by the House, would require the president to lift the embargo only after a withdrawal of all U.N. peacekeeping forces from Bosnia, or within 12 weeks of a request from the Bosnian government for withdrawal of the peacekeepers. Responding to fears expressed by some senators that the legislation would tie the president's hands, Dole and Lieberman agreed to a proviso giving Clinton the right to delay lifting the embargo for an unlimited number of 30-day periods if he certifies that such action is necessary for the "safety, security and successful completion" of the withdrawal.

"Our fingerprints are all over this conflict," Dole said. We cannot escape responsibility...It's not just about Bosnia. It's a vote about America and what we stand for—our humanity and our principles."

Opposing the bill, Sen. John Kerry (D-MA) said lifting the embargo would amount to an "epitaph for Bosnia: we wish you good luck and have a nice war." Kerry said the U.S. should give NATO a chance to strengthen its response to Serb aggression.

Asked to assess chances of mustering the two-thirds vote necessary to override a Clinton veto of the bill, Dole said it probably would depend upon events related to Bosnia during the August congressional recess.

Lucille Barnes writes on national affairs from Washington, DC.