Jewish World Review Nov. 10, 1999 /1 Kislev, 5760

Holding peace hostage?


By David Twersky

http://www.jewishworldreview.com -- THREE DAYS BEFORE the House of Representatives okayed the foreign aid bill on Nov. 5, United States Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan (D-NY) responded to a letter pleading with him to oppose the $1.8 billion in Wye Middle East peace process aid included in the bill.

“I write in response to your thoughtful letter informing me that ‘voting for Wye funding in any amount is a cardinal sin,’” Moynihan wrote.

“While I do appreciate your concern for the state of my soul, I would recommend to you the wisdom of my departed friend Menachem Begin, G-d rest his heroic soul, who once told me that ‘I will never give an American legislature an excuse to vote against a request of any Israeli government.’ The view of the last two Israeli governments having been quite clear in this matter, I will support my government’s commitments.

“May I also mention that the last time Jews residing in the Holy Land involved outside powers in their internal disputes, the Romans ended up destroying the very city they had been invited to protect.”

Moynihan was responding to an Oct. 23 letter sent to members of Congress by Ruth and Nadia Matar of Women for Israel’s Tomorrow. In that letter the Matars argued that “No senator or congressman can in good conscience vote the huge amount of the funds necessary to implement Wye….”

Apparently many lawmakers found that they could, after President Bill Clinton’s team brokered a deal with the GOP leadership in Congress to appropriate the foreign aid funding with the Wye money and just under $800 million more that the administration had sought.

Of course, not every lawmaker has Moynihan’s breath of knowledge of Jewish history (or the help of a savvy Jewish staffer, like Moynihan’s David Luchins). Moreover, the letter from the Matars wasn’t the only anti-Oslo argument presented to members of Congress. Anti-Oslo advocates who fear that concessions to the Palestinians will endanger Israel’s security pulled out all the stops, linking Wye money to fears that elderly Americans would lose health care and other social security benefits.

Before the House vote, a leading and well-informed critic of the peace process, Murray Kahl, urged his e-mail readers to “Remember that Social Security surpluses (Medicare etc.) are involved; and as seniors lose their HMO rights (prescriptions, co-payments etc.), they are forced — without their consent — to financially support Yasser Arafat who has a proven record of corruption.”

When the House approved the bill 316-100, the American Israel Public Affairs Committee hailed the result as “a crucial victory for the peace process.”

Taking a dimmer view was the Washington, DC-based Center for Security Policy, which alerted readers that prospects for a real peace “have only been further diminished by the decision.”

In the end, the attempt to link their cause with the other anti-foreign aid arguments failed. The Republicans didn’t want to give Clinton all the monies he sought — the final version restores less than half of the $2 billion Clinton wanted for other foreign policy goals (especially Third World debt relief) — but they did want to get right with Wye funding.

Wye wasn’t the problem — even though when Clinton vetoed the bill first time around, he specifically cited the absence of the Wye funds as his causus belli.

The Wye-less foreign aid bill “sent the worst possible signal to our friends in the Middle East, and the strongest possible encouragement to those in the region who would do us harm,” National Security Adviser Sandy Berger said on Oct. 20. “As we have made clear, the president will not sign a foreign operations bill that does not contain” the Wye aid.

But a funny thing happened on the way to the president’s desk. Although Clinton would not sign the bill without Wye funds, he wouldn’t sign it with Wye funds, either, unless it included a portion of the other foreign aid funds he wanted.

As we pointed out in my newspaper, The New Jersey Jewish News, on Oct. 28, Clinton hadn’t requested the Wye funding in the foreign aid bill because he was steamed at then-Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu for failing to implement the Wye accords.

By the time Ehud Barak and Yasser Arafat agreed at Sharm el Sheik on the when of Wye, the foreign aid bill was already written — without the extra Wye funds. This raised hopes among Wye opponents that the GOP could effectively adopt an anti-peace process politics. The soft right argued that the Palestinians should be denied funding on grounds of their alleged non-compliance with peace process commitments, a view echoed by U.S. Senate Majority Leader Trent Lott (R-MS). Their strategy was to try to unlink the Israel Wye money from the Palestinians. The harder right opposed the unlinking strategy, arguing that Israel shouldn’t get funded for Wye either.

Then the American Israel Public Affairs Committee rolled in with a lobbying blitz, and lo and behold, Lott said he favored funding Wye sooner rather than later — and certainly not never. Republican support for the peace process prevailed, skepticism about Palestinian compliance notwithstanding.

But when the House was set to approve the foreign aid bill with the Wye funds but without the extra $2 billion the administration wanted, it was the Democrats’ turn to hold the peace process hostage. On Thursday, Nov. 4, Sandy Berger told House Democrats to vote against the bill unless the Republicans added the other funds. Don’t worry, he said. If it passes anyway we’ll veto it again. In other words, after attacking the Republicans as isolationists for not funding Wye, the administration was poised not to fund Wye unless Congress appropriated third world debt relief.

AIPAC went into high gear, pressing House Democrats to reject the White House strategy. The Republicans had initially argued that foreign aid would drain money from Social Security and could cost grandma her next check, and now the Democrats were arguing that unless debtor nations were given relief, the peace process could wait.

Thankfully, Clinton and House Speaker Dennis Hastert (R-IL) found common ground — and not only in regard to anti-poverty programs in Chicago and Newark. The Republicans found $799 million they could appropriate without stealing from grandma; the Democrats were saved from having to choose between voting for the Wye-enhanced foreign aid bill and solidarity with House colleagues who were wondering why Israel got more money while long impoverished nations got no relief.

Except for a handful of fiscal conservatives, like NJ Rep. Marge Roukema (R-Dist. 5), and pro-lifers, like NJ Rep. Chris Smith (R-Dist. 4), the overwhelming majority of the House climbed on board the foreign aid train. On Sunday, Nov. 7, in response to an New Jersey Jewish News query, Sen. Evan Bayh (D-IN) told a house full of AIPAC supporters in Short Hills New Jersey that Wye monies was the only item in the foreign aid bill that he really supported.

So did both sides use Wye funding as political hostage in pursuit of other aims? Yes, because the pro-Israel and pro-peace process constituencies were the only domestic forces totally committed to the foreign aid playing field. “Those irresponsible, isolationist Republicans are holding Wye aid hostage to their budget games,” the White House charged a few weeks ago. Last week it was the administration’s turn, as it held Wye hostage to its other foreign policy objectives.

Once again, Israel was the engine that pulled the foreign aid train.

JWR contributor David Twersky is managing editor of the New Jersey Jewish News. Comment on this article by clicking here.

©1999, David Twersky