Congress Torn Between Conflicting Israel Lobbies

By Lucille Barnes

"Critics, including some in the Israeli embassy, have charged that the campaign warning against deployment of GIs on the Golan is little more than a smokescreen used by some opponents of the overall Arab-Israeli peace process."

—Staff writer Sam Skolnik, Washington Jewish Week, June 30, 1994

Perhaps for the first time in history members of Congress seeking to solidify their support with the pro-Israel community were under conflicting pressures early this summer from the government of Israel, its principal lobby, the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC), and its mainstream American Jewish organization supporters on one hand and U.S. Jewish groups affiliated with right-wing Israeli factions that oppose the peace process on the other. Sensing a means of driving a wedge between Congress and the Israeli Labor government's plan to return part or all of the Golan Heights to Syria in return for Syrian signing of a peace agreement with Israel, at least five U.S. groups opposing land-for-peace settlements with Israel's Arab neighbors lobbied Congress against one likely proviso of such a deal.

That is the stationing of U.S. personnel on the Golan Heights similar to the U.S. monitors still stationed in Sinai to ensure that that area, returned to Egypt as part of the Israeli-Egyptian peace agreement, remains demilitarized.

Organizations lobbying Congress against stationing U.S. monitors in the Golan included Americans for a Safe Israel, the Center for Security Policy, Christians' Israel Public Action Campaign (CIPAC), Pro-Israel, and the Jewish Institute for National Security Affairs (JINSA), a group closely affiliated with Israel's military-industrial complex.

First results of the lobbying effort were demonstrated in a letter written at the end of May to President Bill Clinton attacking the idea of a U.S. peacekeeping mission in Golan and signed by Sen. Alfonse D'Amato (R-NY), Sen. Larry Craig (R-ID), Sen. Don Nickles (R-OK), Sen. Jesse Helms (R-NC) and Rep. Jim Saxton (R-NJ).

The idea of U.S. troops as part of an international peacekeeping force on the Golan Heights first was suggested by the administration of President George Bush and since has been adopted by President Clinton. Israeli Foreign Minister Shimon Peres has indicated that talk about such a plan is premature. Said Israeli Foreign Ministry Undersecretary Uri Savir, "Senator D'Amato is a good friend [but] we're not negotiating with the senator, we're negotiating with the Syrians."

The activities by conflicting factions within America's "Israel lobby" resulted in public embarrassment for Sen. Thad Cochran (R-MS), who introduced an amendment to the Defense Department's appropriations bill calling upon the Pentagon to study the implications of putting U.S. troops as peacekeepers on the Golan Heights. Cochran subsequently withdrew the bill, stating:

I was under the false impression the amendment had the support of the Jewish community and the Israeli government. When I learned that it did not, and that it was only supported by those in opposition to the government's policy, I withdrew the amendment. I don't think it is my place to take sides in this way on this issue.

Aside from revealing that Senator Cochran's principal concern was not for the safety of U.S. forces but rather for maximizing pro-Israel campaign contributions, Cochran's about-face also raised the question of who had convinced him that the Israeli government wanted him to introduce an amendment that it in fact feared and opposed. The answer, according to staff writer Lawrence Cohler of The Jewish Week of Queens, NY, was Reagan administration Assistant Secretary of Defense Frank Gaffney. Gaffney's right-wing advocacy organization, the Center for Security Policy, was in tune with the Israeli government when it was headed by hard-line Likud party chief Yitzhak Shamir. However, Gaffney's current efforts seem aimed at undermining any Israeli Labor government initiative to reach a land-for-peace agreement with Syria.

In a statement to Cohler, Gaffney said Senator Cochran's "decision not to continue, to my mind, is more of a statement about the kind of pressure he came under." Pressed further by Cohler as to whether he had misleadingly represented his views as those of the current government of Israel, Gaffney added:

"For someone to represent [my lobbying] as interfering in the internal affairs of the Israeli government at the very moment when the Israeli govenment is interfering in the affairs of the U.S. government gives new meaning to the word 'chutzpah.'"

Following Cochran's withdrawal, Sen. Malcolm Wallop (R-WY), whose relationship with Israel's U.S. lobby seems grounded in mutual disdain, offered a similar amendment calling for a Pentagon study of the implications of U.S. peacekeepers on the Golan Heights to the Department of Defense budget authorization bill. The amendment, openly opposed by the Israeli government, was defeated by a Senate vote of 67 to 3, indicating from which government at least two-thirds of Senator Cochran's senatorial colleagues take their cues.

Following the defeat of Wallop's amendment, the Defense Department appropriations bill was passed by Congress and signed by President Clinton. In addition to the military aid to Israel included in the foreign aid bill, the defense bill includes additional funding for the joint U.S.-Israel Arrow ground-to-air missile and full funding for research, development and procurement of Unmanned Aerial Vehicles that presently are jointly produced by Israeli and U.S. companies.

It also calls upon the president to make "available for purchase by Israel" any "conventional defense system or technology offered for release to any NATO or other major non-NATO ally" unless "such actions would contravene United States national interests." It further states that "the President should make available to Israel, within existing technology transfer laws, regulations, and policies, advanced United States technology necessary for continued progress in cooperative United States-Israel research and development of theater missile defenses."

Near East Report, AIPAC's weekly publication, commended 7 senators and 13 House members for "strong leadership" and the fact that "the bill contains a number of pro-Israel provisions." The senators were Jeff Bingaman (D-NM), Carl Levin (D-MI), Joseph Lieberman (D-CT), John McCain (R-AZ), Sam Nunn (D-GA), James Sasser (D-TN) and Strom Thurmond (R-SC).

House members commended by AIPAC included Ron Dellums (D-CA), Norm Dicks (D-WA), Julian Dixon (D-CA), Duncan Hunter (R-CA), Jon Kyl (R-AZ), Jerry Lewis (R-CA), Frank McCloskey (D-IN), Dave McCurdy (D- OK), Joseph McDade (R-PA), John Murtha (D-PA), Joseph Skeen (R-NM) and Charlie Wilson (D-TX).

Congress Blocks Jerusalem AID Office

A much safer way to please the Israel lobby was pursued by members of Congress who sought to block the opening of a U.S. Agency for International Development office in East Jerusalem to supervise assistance to the new Palestinian National Authority. The decision, which has not yet been made, is the only logical one geographically, since Jerusalem is centrally located between the northern and southern parts of the West Bank, due to be evacuated by Israeli forces under the Declaration of Principles agreed upon at Oslo, and could also deal with the presently evacuated areas of Jericho, to the east, and Gaza to the west. Nor would locating the office in East Jerusalem set a precedent, since a part of the American Consulate General in Jerusalem, which has consular jurisdiction over the entire West Bank area and from which U.S. dealings with Palestinians have been conducted for more than half a century, is situated in East Jerusalem.

Nevertheless, four members of the House Foreign Affairs Committee—Representatives Eliot Engel (D-NY), Benjamin Gilman (R-NY), Robert Andrews (D-NJ) and Ileana Ros-Lehtinen (R-FL)—issued a joint statement at the end of June saying such a move would be "ill-advised" and "only serves to prejudge the future status of Jerusalem and the self-rule areas by drawing a political connection between Jerusalem and the self-rule regions."

Every U.S. administration prior to the Clinton administration has purposely made that connection with repeated statements that included East Jerusalem among "occupied territories" that would be exchanged in any land-for-peace agreement based upon U.N. Security Council Resolution 242, which the U.S. has endorsed since it was passed in 1967, and upon which the Oslo Accord is based.

In its scramble for Israel lobby electoral support, the Clinton administration has begun to ignore that policy in its public statements. An example was AID administrator J. Brian Atwood's response to the four members of Congress. "We never intended to put an office in East Jerusalem," Atwood told the Associated Press. "It was never seriously considered."

Seizing upon the statement, the Anti-Defamation League of B'nai B'rith issued a press release commending Atwood's statement and urging "our government to adopt Mr. Atwood's assurance." Picking up on the same theme, four other members of Congress wrote a letter to President Clinton urging him to support and protect Israeli sovereignty over Jerusalem and stressing the writers' "belief that Jerusalem is Israel's capital—and only Israel's capital—and that it must remain a united city under Israeli sovereignty."

Doing some prejudging of its own, the letter also supports a Senate amendment that prohibits any new U.S. offices or official meetings in Jerusalem to deal with the Palestinian Authority and calls upon the administration to protect Jerusalem "from any Palestinian claim to the city." The letter, drafted by pro-Israel activists Newt Gingrich (R-GA), John Lewis (D-GA), Bill Paxton (R-NY) and Charles Schumer (D-NY), was circulated among House members for co-signatories in August.

Forty-Three Representatives Support U.S.-Israel Trade Pact

Forty-three House members signed a letter written to President Clinton by House Majority Leader Richard Gephardt (D-MO) urging expansion of the U.S.-Israel Free Trade Agreement to include Middle Eastern countries that have signed a comprehensive peace treaty with Israel. The letter also calls for an end to all forms of the Arab boycott of Israel.

Clinton Signs $13.8 Billion Foreign Aid Bill

The foreign aid bill for fiscal year 1995 approved by Congress and signed by President Clinton in mid-August provides a total of $13.8 billion in foreign aid worldwide, of which $3 billion was earmarked for Israel and $2.1 billion for Egypt, making Israel, with a population of 5 million, and Egypt with a population of 59 million, the recipients of more than half the worldwide total of bilateral U.S. foreign aid. There are other provisions in multilateral portions of the bill which provide additional benefits for Israel. Israel also receives $2 billion per year in U.S. government loan guarantees, giving it a FY 1995 total of approximately $6.3 billion for the third consecutive year. (See "Cost of Israel," preceding this article on page 32.)

Other major recipients of 1995 U.S. foreign aid are the former Soviet republics, $850 million, Eastern Europe and the Baltic states, $359 million, and the Development Fund for Africa, $802 million.

Representatives Admonish Jordan

Representatives Gary Ackerman (D-NY) and Robert Borski (D-PA) wrote separate letters to the Jordanian ambassador to the U.S. expressing concern over reports that, following the signing of a non-belligerency agreement in Washington between Jordan and Israel, the Jordanian Press Association had warned its members not to fraternize with Israeli journalists until a comprehensive peace has been achieved.

Use Loan Guarantees to Resettle West Bank Jewish Settlers?

Peace Now representatives in the U.S. are sounding out congressional leaders about the possibility of using some of the $10 billion in U.S. loan guarantees promised Israel by Congress to compensate West Bank Jewish settlers who agree to move back to homes within Israel's Green Line borders, according to the Jerusalem Post.

Co-chairman Linda Heller Kamm of Americans for Peace Now was quoted by the newspaper as saying, "My feeling is that if there is a formal request about this matter from the Israeli government, it would be favorably received." The Israeli newspaper quoted Peace Now head Tzali Reshef as saying that 50 percent of the residents of the settlements would be willing to move if offered compensation. He said resettling the 140,000 Jewish settlers in the West Bank would cost about $2 billion, which is the amount of loan guarantees the U.S. provides Israel annually.

Congesswomen Support Cairo Conference Report

Rep. Patricia Schroeder (D-CO) says the Caucus for Women's Issues in the U.S. Congress, which she co-chairs, is working on legislative proposals to ensure that the program adopted at the U.N. population conference in Cairo in September will be carried out in U.S. government policy. Focus of the proposals is improvement of women's health, power and status. Schroeder was joined in her support for funding programs to improve the status of women by Rep. Constance Morella (R-MD).

Legislators Challenge Japan Loan to Iran

Following terrorist attacks on Jewish community facilities in Argentina, the Israeli embassy in London, and other Jewish targets, all allegedly linked to the Iran-backed Lebanese Hezbollah militia, Senators Connie Mack (R-FL) and Paul Simon (D-IL) sent a letter Aug. 29 to the Japanese ambassador to the U.S. urging Japan to suspend a proposed $500 million loan to Iran. The letter, signed by Senate Majority Leader George Mitchell (D-ME), Senate Minority Leader Robert Dole (R-KS), and 38 other senators, said that "Iran's active sponsorship of terrorism is beyond dispute."

Lucille Barnes covers political affairs for U.S. and foreign publications from Washington, DC.