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DECEMBER 1999, pages 54-55 Congress Watch Congress Uses Appropriations Process for Middle East Meddling
Congress’s wrangling over national spending priorities stopped progress on all individual Middle East-related bills, the good ones as well as the bad ones, since the August congressional recess. However, both the foreign aid and the State Department appropriations bills have made it through the conference process and have been passed by both houses, and both include provisions important to the Middle East. Although both bills were passed by both houses, they were vetoed by President Bill Clinton. He vetoed the foreign aid bill because it was nearly $2 billion below his request, about $1 billion below last year’s levels, and it included none of the Wye River funding package. He vetoed the State Department bill, which also included the Justice and Commerce Departments, because it doesn’t pay overdue U.S. dues to the U.N. and doesn’t provide federal funding for additional police. There is some question as to whether Congress will try to produce substitute bills acceptable to Clinton or will fold them into a larger “omnibus” appropriations bill before Thanksgiving. In either case, however, the Middle East-related provisions included in the conference reports will likely be retained. Perhaps the most troubling provisions of the State Department bill are the two concerning Jerusalem, which could be inferred to grant U.S. government recognition of Jerusalem as the capital of Israel. The first of these provisions prohibits any funds appropriated for FY 2000 “or any fiscal year thereafter” to be used for any consulate or diplomatic facility in Jerusalem unless that facility is under the supervision of the U.S. ambassador to Israel. Until now, the U.S. consul general in Jerusalem has reported to the secretary of state, rather than the ambassador in Tel Aviv. The other troubling provision prohibits the use of funds for publishing any document listing countries and their capitals unless the document identifies Jerusalem as the capital of Israel. The bill also includes a provision prohibiting the use of funds for any form of assistance to the Palestinian Broadcasting Corporation, but that was no surprise.
The amounts appropriated for Israel and Egypt were as described in the last issue of the Washington Report: Israel, $960 million in economic aid, $1.92 billion in military aid, and $60 million for “refugee assistance”; Egypt, $735 million in economic aid and $1.3 billion in military aid. Economic aid for Jordan, however, was $150 million, rather than the $200 million previously anticipated. The conference report explained this by saying that the $50 million difference was part of the Wye River agreement, and will be addressed “when Congress takes action on all funds requested for implementation of the Wye River accords.” The report also provides a total of $7 million in military aid to Tunisia. Significantly, the report retains the Senate provision, inserted by Sen. Spencer Abraham (R-MI), earmarking $15 million for Lebanon, an increase of $3 million over last year’s level. In a subtle change of wording, the report provides $10 million “to bring about political transition in Iraq, of which not less than $8 million” would go to designated Iraqi opposition groups. Total aid to the Middle East is capped at $5.321 billion, as in the House bill. The other provisions that survived the conference were the ones effectively renewing the presidential waiver provision of the Middle East Peace Facilitation Act (permitting the president to waive on national security grounds the prohibition on official contacts between U.S. and Palestinian officials, and to allow the PLO to maintain offices in the U.S.); prohibiting direct or indirect funding to certain countries, including Iraq, Libya, Iran and Syria; and prohibiting assistance to the Palestinian Broadcasting Corporation. The conference dropped the provision withholding 5 percent of aid to any country violating U.N. sanctions against Libya, because the U.N. has suspended these sanctions.
The floor votes approving the conference report were remarkably close, 51-49 in the Senate and 214-211 in the House. In fact, The Washington Post reported, but the Congressional Record did not reflect, that the report passed the Senate only after Sen. Jesse Helms (R-NC) changed his vote from no to yes. Most of those voting no who spoke against the report on the floor, in both the Senate and the House, gave as a primary reason for their opposition the lack of funding for the Wye River agreement. For the first time in memory, most of the Jewish Democrats in the House opposed the report. Interestingly, the American Jewish Committee urged opposition to the report and wrote to House Minority Leader Richard Gephardt (D-MO) expressing concern over the lack of Wye funding, while, on the other hand, AIPAC’s president, executive director and legislative director all signed a letter to Senate Appropriations Committee chairman Mitch McConnell (R-KY) saying they supported the conference report, but hoped that Congress could fund Wye before the end of the year. In the House, International Relations Committee chairman Benjamin Gilman (D-NY) expressed his strong support for the report, although it “regrettably” does not include the Wye funding. However, Gilman said, “no one really doubts that Congress will eventually approve the Wye River Accord funding.” Subsequently, Sens. Dianne Feinstein (D-CA) and Frank Lautenberg (D-NJ), joined by 20 of their Senate colleagues, sent letters to President Clinton, Senate Majority Leader Trent Lott (R-MO) and Minority Leader Tom Daschle (D-SD) asking that full funding for the Wye agreement be given a high priority before the end of this session of the 106th Congress. The letters said that “as Israel and the Palestinian Authority move ahead with implementation of the Wye agreement and final status negotiations, it is vital that the United States also do its part.” Those signing the letters, in addition to Feinstein and Lautenberg, were Senators Abraham, Barbara Boxer (D-CA), Max Cleland (D-GA), Susan Collins (R-ME), Kent Conrad (D-ND), Christopher Dodd (D-CT), Richard Durbin (D-IL), Russ Feingold (D-WI), Daniel Inouye (D-HI), Jim Jeffords (R-NH), Edward Kennedy (D-MA), Carl Levin (D-MI), Barbara Mikulski (D-MD), Patty Murray (D-WA), Jack Reed (D-RI), Charles Schumer (D-NY), Gordon Smith (R-OR), Arlen Specter (R-PA), Robert Torricelli (D-NJ), and Paul Wellstone (D-MN).
While many people in and outside of Congress have bemoaned the failure to approve the Wye package, only the Churches for Middle East Peace (CMEP), an ecumenical joint program of 15 churches and religious organizations, has raised the issue of the proposed composition of the $1.9 billion package, which is skewed heavily toward enhancing Israel’s already formidable strategic military capability, rather than for purposes consistent with implementing Israeli-Palestinian peace agreements. In an “Action Alert,” CMEP Director Corinne Whitlatch points out that Assistant Secretary of State for Near East Affairs Martin Indyk, in Senate Appropriations Committee testimony on March 25, gave the following breakdown of the $1.2 billion designated for Israel: $200 million for relocation of bases from the West Bank to Israel; $175 million for counter-terrorism; and about $800 million for theater missile defense and related research and development costs, Longbow helicopter upgrades, electronic warfare aerial platforms, and other communications and munitions. These components were reiterated by President Clinton in a joint statement with Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak on July 19. In contrast, all of the $400 million for the Palestinians would be for Wye implementation or development projects.
With Congress distracted by the money bills, the test ban treaty, and other politically charged issues, no progress has been made on any of the bills of particular Middle Eastern relevance described in the previous issue of the Washington Report, apart from the addition of a few co-sponsors to some of them. The Anti-Muslim Intolerance bill sponsored by Senator Abraham has picked up the co-sponsorship of Sen. Joseph Lieberman (D-CT), and the House version of the Sanctions Reform bill now has a total of 101 co-sponsors. However, a senior staff member of a Democratic congressman who supports sanctions reform said there is little sentiment in Congress to change the present system, and he sees no chance that the bill will pass during the 106th Congress. As an indication of this, Sen. Chuck Hagel (R-NE) was angry at his own leadership because a humanitarian provision that would have exempted food and medicines from unilateral economic sanctions was deleted by the Agriculture Appropriations conference committee. The only other positive bill to even gain additional co-sponsors is the Secret Evidence Repeal bill, originally co-sponsored by Reps. Bob Barr (R-GA), David Bonior (D-MI), Tom Campbell (R-CA), and John Conyers (D-MI) and described in previous issues of the magazine. The bill now has 51 co-sponsors. However, even though this bill is extremely important to the Arab-American community, which has put a lot of work into promoting it, there is no general congressional sentiment in favor of it, and it is highly unlikely that the Secret Evidence Repeal bill will even be brought to a floor vote during this Congress. With this in mind, Senator Abraham has quietly and privately met with Attorney General Janet Reno in an effort to correct at least some of the most egregious uses of secret evidence against immigrants. During this meeting Abraham learned that most of the problems have come not from the provisions of the Anti-Terrorism Act of 1996, but from the Justice Department’s application of the “Administrative Guidelines on Classified Evidence” drafted to implement a provision of the Immigration and Naturalization Act nearly 50 years ago. Reno agreed that her staff would work with Abraham’s staff to redraft the guidelines. The first, organizational meeting of the two staffs was held in mid-October. Abraham hopes that this effort will result in noticeable, positive curtailment of the use of secret evidence by the Department of Justice and its agencies.
Two of the four Jerusalem-related bills described in the previous issue of the Washington Report were largely overtaken by the Jerusalem provisions of the State Department appropriations bill, described above. Of the other two, the only one to have even gained new co-sponsors is H.R. 2768, introduced by Rep. Nita Lowey (D-NY), which would allow U.S. citizens born in Jerusalem to have Israel listed as their place of birth on their passports. It now has 30 co-sponsors. (This provision was also in the Senate version of the State Department appropriations bill, but it did not survive the conference committee.)
An amended Iran Nonproliferation bill, which would apply sanctions on persons or countries found to have transferred nuclear, biological, or chemical weapons goods, services, or technology to Iran, passed the House on Sept. 14. Again, the focus was on U.S.-Russian relations, especially cooperation in the international space station. But the amended version added a large measure of presidential flexibility, which made it acceptable to most members and to the administration.
A letter worth mentioning is one being circulated by Rep. Nick Rahall (D-WV) to President Clinton urging official U.S. government support for the “Bethlehem 2000” project. The letter says, in part, “the Palestinian people launched the Bethlehem 2000 Project in December 1996 with the mandate to host the people of the world in celebrating the millennium in Bethlehem…spanning a 16-month period from Christmas 1999 to Easter 2001.” As this article is being written, the letter has 26 signatures. Shirl McArthur, a retired foreign service officer, is a consultant in the Washington, DC area. |
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