WASHINGTON, 4 April — Congress reconvenes next week after a two-week recess, but lawmakers are already speaking out in defense of Israel. Hill staffers tell Arab News that the Congressmen will undoubtedly establish a new bill — as a first order priority — to condemn and impose new sanctions on the Palestinians.
Pro-Israeli support has always run strong on Capitol Hill because of strong Jewish lobbies, prolific Jewish money to support campaign financing, and influential Jewish voters in domestic politics.
Before leaving on recess last December, Congress passed a foreign aid appropriations bill (H.R. 2506) that allows the House to impose sanctions on the PLO and the PA unless they comply with previous commitments. One only wonders what new anti-Palestinian measures Congress will create.
Several bills have been introduced to pressure the Palestinians to end violence and negotiate a peace agreement.
Other bills being drafted included one by Sen. Mitch McConnell, R-Kentucky, and Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-California, are aimed specially at Chairman Arafat.
As it stands, the Feinstein-McConnell bill would impose a series of sanctions, including denying Arafat a visa to travel in the United States, restricting operations of the Palestinian office in Washington, imposing travel restrictions on the senior Palestinians representative at the United Nations and seizing any assets held by Arafat in the US.
It is this bill that is likely to be approved when Congress reconvenes.
But as congressmen fawn over Israel and ignore its brutal takeover of Palestinians, the House is said to be considering another bill, introduced last year by Rep. Gary Ackerman, D-New York, that will empower the president to impose a variety of sanctions against the Palestinians, if the president deems the peace accords have been broken.
These would including closing the Palestinians’ Washington office, designating the Palestinian Authority and related groups as terrorist organization, denying US visas to top Palestinians officials and eliminating all non-humanitarian aid to the West Bank and Gaza.
Another bill, sponsored by Rep. Eric Cantor, R-Virginia, would prohibit any federal agency from director or indirectly assisting the Palestinian Authority or related groups.
These congressmen — just to make sure they get all the details right — have been conferring with Howard Kohr, executive director of the American-Israeli Public Affairs Committee, AIPAC.
Kohr said he has received dozens of calls from lawmakers during their recess asking what they can do to help Israel.
Only a handful of lawmakers have the courage, and temerity, to speak out against the blind pro-Israeli stance of their colleagues, saying that legislative action condemning Arafat and the PLO would greatly endanger the peace process.
“This is not time for criticism; it’s a time for us to bring people together,” Rep. John Dingell, D-Michigan, told reporters. He is one of 11 lawmakers who voted against the December resolutions that “expressed a solidarity with Israel in the fight against terrorism.”
“How do you become an honest broker when you give one side the feeling you’re against them?” Dingell said.
Congress has proved a vocal choir to Israel’s Sharon, who has consistently drawn parallels between the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks in America and Palestinians’ actions in Israel.
Democrats and Republicans on the Hill have also used the Sept. 11 attacks and the daily pattern of suicide bombings in Israel to created an even stronger bond between the two countries.
“For us it happened one day. For them, it happens day after day. I think there is enormous sympathy for Israel,” said Sen. Mitch McConnell, R-Kentucky.
“We can identify with their shock and loss,” said Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle, D-South Dakota. “A lot of us are thinking: There but for the grace of God go we.”
“The Israelis have had many Sept. 11ths in their country nearly every day with these suicide bombings,” said International Relations Committee chairman Henry Hyde, R-Illinois “Sharon has a duty to protect his country and his people.”
“Sharon is doing what we in Texas describe as, ‘A man’s gotta do what a man’s gotta do,’” adding that “it would be fine with me” if the prime minister were to force Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat into exile.
President Bush is soaking in every word of their advice.
“It’s all about the 2004 elections,” said a high-ranking European diplomat in Washington who asked not to be named.
“I hate to be so parochial, but that’s what it’s all about. Bush does not want to win the war and lose the election, he learned that from his father.”
