[Peace-discuss] House Sets Limits on Palestinian Aid

[C. G. Estabrook]

[Looks like the House is throwing the administration into the briar patch,
with AIPAC's help.  I love the last lines: "In 2003, when Abbas was
appointed prime minister under Arafat, Bush set aside $20 million for the
Palestinians. Most of it was used to pay Palestinian debts to the Israeli
electricity company. Last year, after Arafat's death, Bush set aside
another $20 million, which was used to cover more electricity debts."
--CGE]

	House Sets Limits on Palestinian Aid 
	By Ori Nir 03/18/05 
	"The Forward" 

WASHINGTON -- Defying the wishes of the Bush administration, Congress
approved a foreign-aid package this week forbidding any direct assistance
to the Palestinian Authority and, in a rare snub, denying the president
the authority to waive restrictions in the interest of national security.

The legislation was approved 388-to-44 in the House of Representatives and
is expected to sail through the Senate. The House approved $200 million in
aid, to be channeled to nongovernmental projects outside the control of
the P.A., as part of an $81 billion in emergency spending bill to help pay
the costs of military operations in Iraq and Afghanistan.

The limits on Palestinian aid were the product of a deal brokered by the
American Israel Public Affairs Committee. The pro-Israel lobbying
powerhouse, known as Aipac, was called to mediate talks involving
administration officials and lawmakers from both parties, including New
York Rep. Nita Lowey, an influential Jewish Democrat, congressional
sources said. Sources also said that the driving force behind the
rejection of direct aid was House Majority Leader Tom DeLay, a Texas
Republican, who at one point threatened to cut all aid to the Palestinian
territories out of the bill.

"DeLay became more Jewish than the chief rabbi — if you can twist the
phrase that way — and he was not going to let it through," said Rep.
Gary Ackerman, a Democrat from New York who supported direct aid.

DeLay's office did not respond to a request for comment by presstime.

DeLay's success in blocking direct aid has some lawmakers and Jewish
communal officials worried about the degree to which the Texas Republican,
an evangelical Christian who opposes the creation of a Palestinian state,
will go to undercut American and Israeli attempts to achieve a two-state
solution. Some supporters of direct aid also argued that Jewish
organizations have failed to do enough to inform lawmakers about the
increasingly positive American and Israeli view of newly elected
Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas.

Abbas is said to have earned the trust of the White House with his
repeated pledges to end attacks on Israel and to renew diplomacy. The
chief of staff of the Israeli military, Moshe Ya'alon, recently declared
that under Abbas, the P.A. had begun to fight terrorism and "is rejecting
terrorism as a political tool."

Critics say that DeLay's demands have thwarted administration efforts to
empower the newly elected Palestinian president and make an immediate
tangible change in the living conditions of Palestinians in the West Bank
and Gaza.

Israel's government indicated privately and publicly that it had no
objection to funneling American aid directly to Abbas. Many Jewish
organizations also voiced support.

"Abbas should have some discretion over deciding which projects are
funded," Matan Vilna'i, a member of the Labor Party and a minister without
portfolio in the Israeli government, told the Forward. "It is important
that he is perceived as having control — at least of some of the funds
— in order to strengthen his authority, to empower him."

Rep. Lois Capps, a California Democrat who backed direct aid, said, "I
don't understand how it advances U.S. interests to put tougher conditions
on President Abbas than we ever had for Arafat."

"Taking away the ability of the president to send some of this aid
directly to the Palestinian Authority, if he so chooses, is a mistake,"
Capps said.

But proponents of the legislation — among them those who took part in
drafting it — say that it is a reasonable compromise, which allows a
significant increase in aid to the Palestinians while applying enough
safeguards to make sure that the money is not abused.

"I feel we have a unique opportunity to advance the peace process, and
because it is a special opportunity I think it is especially important
that we hold the Palestinians accountable," said Lowey, who, as ranking
minority member of the appropriations subcommittee on foreign affairs,
participated in drafting the language on aid to the Palestinians. "We just
can't take any risk that funds would end up in the wrong hands," she said.

Before passing the bill Wednesday, House members overwhelmingly rejected
an amendment, introduced by Rep. Anthony Weiner, a Democrat from New York,
that would have blocked all aid to the Palestinians.

Many Jewish lawmakers with an interest in the bill relied on Lowey to
handle the negotiations, said a staffer for one Jewish lawmaker who
opposed direct aid.

According to well-positioned sources, members of the appropriations
subcommittee tapped Esther Kurz, who directs Aipac's legislative
department, to broker compromise language that would satisfy DeLay's
demands while allowing the administration to have the money. Aipac, up to
that point, had only been marginally involved in the Palestinian aid
package. Now it was requested to exert its authority on Israel-related
issues and to broker compromise language. The assumption, one source said,
was that DeLay would be hard pressed to oppose language that the chief
pro-Israel lobby has endorsed.

In addition to his close ties to Christian conservatives, DeLay has worked
with the Zionist Organization of America, which vehemently opposes
Israel's Gaza disengagement plan and regularly criticizes Israeli and
American efforts to support Abbas. DeLay was also close to Republican
lobbyist Jack Abramoff, an Orthodox Jew with hawkish views on Israel,
until Abramoff's recent legal troubles involving claims that he
overcharged Native American tribes involved in casino gambling.

DeLay is also facing potential legal problems, after several of his
associates were indicted in Texas on alleged campaign fund-raising
violations.

Despite his mounting troubles, DeLay continues to be viewed in many
circles as the most powerful member of Congress. So even securing $200
million for non-governmental agencies in the Palestinian territories was
an accomplishment.

"You know, $200 million is better than nothing," Ackerman said. "So to me
this is something that I grudgingly accept as a political reality as far
as Washington sometimes works, where one man's authoritarian attitude can
change the process if he is in a position of leadership."

As a result of DeLay's efforts, America's financial assistance to the
Palestinians will continue to be funneled — as it was in the past decade
— through the U.S. Agency for International Development to contractors
hired by the American government, to underwrite a list of development
projects in the West Bank and Gaza prepared by the State Department.

Most of those who in the past month advocated direct aid — including
Jewish members of Congress and America's largest public-policy umbrella,
the Jewish Council for Public Affairs which earlier this month adopted a
resolution supporting direct aid — failed to weigh in during the
congressional negotiations.

"If Aipac brokered it and the administration isn't opposing it, how can
we?" said a senior official with a major Jewish organization.

In sharp contrast to the silence of supporters of direct aid, hardline
Jewish and Christian groups, including ZOA, have been lobbying against
assistance to the Palestinians. The Christian Israel Public Affairs
Committee has been asking members of Congress to oppose any P.A. aid, said
Richard Hellman, president of the Christian organization.

America's international allies had urged the administration to come
through with direct aid. In turn, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice
stated her support for the idea February 16, before the House subcommittee
on foreign appropriations.

Under the deal, the full $200 million would be approved. None of that sum
would be made available directly to the P.A. To ensure this, a provision
was added canceling the traditional presidential waiver that allows the
administration to override the language of the law and use aid money as it
deems fit for national security considerations.

A Republican congressional aide told the Forward that the waiver would
likely be restored during negotiations between House and Senate members.

The administration, sources said, grudgingly agreed to that language. One
reason is that the president can still apply his waiver discretion to the
remaining $55 million (of the original $75 million) that is still
available in the 2005 fiscal year budget for P.A. aid. President Bush has
used his waiver to provide assistance to the P.A. twice in the past year
and a half. In 2003, when Abbas was appointed prime minister under Arafat,
Bush set aside $20 million for the Palestinians. Most of it was used to
pay Palestinian debts to the Israeli electricity company. Last year, after
Arafat's death, Bush set aside another $20 million, which was used to
cover more electricity debts.

Copyright: The Forward