Fourteen Freshmen Save the Day

Under the watchful eye of Israel's lobby, congressmen will go to extreme measures to help move legislation to provide aid to Israel. Just before Congress adjourned in December 1983, a group of freshmen Democrats helped the cause by taking the extraordinary step of changing their votes in the printed record of proceedings, a step congressmen usually shun because it makes them look indecisive. This day, however, under heavy pressure from pro-Israel constituents, the first-term members buckled and agreed to switch in order to pass a piece of catchall legislation known as a Continuing Resolution. The resolution provided funds for programs that Congress had failed to authorize in the normal fashion, among them aid to Israel. Passage would prevent any interruption in this aid.⁷⁹

For once, both the House Democratic leadership and AIPAC were caught napping. Usually in complete control of all legislative activities

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that relate to Israel, AIPAC failed to detect the brewing rebellion. Con­cern over the budget deficit and controversial provisions in the bill for Central America led these freshman Democrats to oppose their own leadership. Unable to offer amendments, they quietly agreed among themselves to oppose the whole package.

When the roll was called, the big electric board over the Speaker s desk showed defeat—the resolution was rejected, 206-203.⁸⁰ Twenty-four first-term Democrats had deserted the leadership and voted no. Voting no did not mean they opposed Israeli aid. Some of them, con­cerned over the federal deficit, viewed their vote as a demand to the lead­ership to schedule a bill raising taxes. For others, it was simply a protest. But for Israel it was serious.

"The Jewish community went crazy," a Capitol Hill veteran recalls. AIPAC's professionals went to work.⁸¹ Placing calls from their offices just four blocks away, they activated key people in the districts of a selected list of the errant freshmen. They arranged for "quality calls" to individ­uals who had played a major role in the recent congressional election. Each person activated was to place an urgent call to his or her congress­man, insist on getting through personally, and use this message:

Approval of the Continuing Resolution is very important. Without it, Israel will suffer. I am not criticizing your vote against it the first time. I am sure you had reasons. However, I have learned that the same question will come up for vote again, probably tomorrow. I speak for many of your friends and supporters in asking that you change your vote when the question comes up again.

Each person was instructed to report to AIPAC after making the calls. The calls were accordingly made and reported. The House of Rep­resentatives took up the question at noon the next day. It was the same language, word for word, that the House had rejected two days before. Silvio Conte, senior Republican on the Appropriations Committee, knowing the pressure that had been applied, challenged the freshmen Democrats to "stick to their guns" as "men of courage."⁸² Republican leader Bob Michel chided those unable to "take the heat from on high."⁸³

Some of the heat came, of course, from the embarrassed Democratic leadership, but AIPAC was the institution that brought about changes in votes. On critical issues, congressmen responded to pressures from home, and, in such circumstances, House leaders had little leverage. To Repub­

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Approximately 6,000 jobs would be lost as a direct result of taking the $250 million out of the U.S. economy and allowing Israel to spend it on defense articles and services which can just as easily be purchased here in the United

licans Conte and Michel, the main issue was the need for budgetary restraint.⁸⁴ They argued that the measure should be rejected for that rea­son. During the debate, no one mentioned that day—or any other day— the influence of the Israeli lobby.

The urgent telephone messages from home carried the day. When the roll was called, fourteen of the freshmen—a bit sheepishly—changed their votes.⁸⁵ They were: C. Robin Britt (NC), Jim Cooper (TN), Richard J. Durbin (IL), Edward J. Feighan (OH), Sander M. Levin (MI), Frank McCloskey (IN), Bruce A. Morrison (CT), James R. "Jim" Olin (VA), Timothy J. Penny (MN), Harry M. Reid (NV), Bill Richardson (NM), Norman Sisisky (VA), John M. Spratt, Jr. (SC), and Harley O. Staggers, Jr. (WV).

To give the freshmen an excuse they could use in explaining their embarrassing shift, the leadership promised to bring up a tax bill. Every­one knew it was just a ploy—the tax bill had no chance to become law. But the excuse was helpful, and the resolution was approved 224-189.⁸⁶ The flow of aid to Israel continued without interruption.

Subsidizing Fnreign Competition

The final vote on the 1983 Continuing Resolution authorized a remark­able new form of aid to Israel. It included an amendment, crafted by AIPAC and sponsored by ardently pro-Israeli Congressmen Clarence Long of Maryland and Jack Kemp of New York, that permitted $250 million of the military grant aid to be spent in Israel on the development of a new Israeli fighter aircraft, the Lavi. The new fighter would compete for inter­national sales with the Northrop F-20 and the General Dynamics R16— both specifically designed for export. The amendment authorized privileged treatment never before extended to a foreign competitor. It was extraordinary for another reason: it set aside a U.S. law that requires all for­eign aid procurement funds to be spent in the United States.

During debate of the bill, Democrat Nick J. Rahall of West Vir­ginia, was the only congressman who objected.⁸⁷ He saw the provision as threatening U.S. jobs at a time of high unemployment:

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States. Americans are being stripped of their tax dollars to build up foreign industry. They should not have to sacrifice their jobs as well.

That day, Rahall was unable to offer an amendment to strike or change this provision because of restrictions the House had established before it began debate. All that he, or any other member, could do was to vote for or against the entire Long-Kemp amendment, which included controver­sial provisions for El Salvador and international banks, as well as aid to Israel. The amendment was approved 262-150. Unlike RahalPs, most of the 150 negative votes reflected opposition to other features of the amend­ment, not to the $250 million subsidy to Israel's aircraft industry.

The following May, during the consideration of the bill appropriat­ing funds for foreign aid, Rahall offered an amendment to eliminate the $250 million, but it was defeated 379-40. Despite the amendment's obvious appeal to constituents connected with the U.S. aircraft indus­try, fewer than 10 percent of House members voted for it. It was the first roll call vote on an amendment dealing exclusively with aid to Israel in more than four years, and the margin of defeat provided a measure of AIPAC's power.

After the vote, AIPAC organized protests against the forty legislators who had supported the amendment. Rahall recalls that AIPAC carried out a campaign "berating those brave forty congressmen."⁸⁸ He adds, "Almost all of those who voted with me have told me they are still catch­ing hell from their Jewish constituency. They are still moaning about the beating they are taking."

The "brave" congressmen got little thanks.⁸⁹ Two ethnic groups, the American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee and the National Asso­ciation of Arab Americans, congratulated Rahall on his initiative and urged their members to send letters of congratulation to each of the con­gressmen who supported his amendment. The results were meager. As the author, Rahall could expect to receive more supportive mail than the rest. He received "less than ten letters" and speculates that the other thirty-nine got even fewer.⁹⁰

"Don't Look to Congress to Act"

The relucrance of congressmen to speak critically of Israel was apparenr in 1983 when the House gave President Reagan permission, under rhe War

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Powers Act, to keep U.S. Marines in Lebanon for eighteen months. The vote took place a few days before the tragic truck bombing killed more than 240 marines in Beirut. At the time the House acted, however, several marines had already died. A number of congressmen warned of more trou­ble ahead, opposed Reagan's request, and strongly urged withdrawal of the U.S. military force. Five took the other side, mentioning the importance of the marine presence to the security of Israel's northetn border.

In all, ninety-one congressmen spoke, but they were silent on the mil­itary actions Israel had carried out in Lebanon during the previous year— unrestricted bombing of Beirut, forced evacuation of PLO fighters, and aiding in the massacres at Sabra and Shatila by surrounding the camps, allowing Lebanese Christian Phalange fighters in and refusing to allow fleeing refugees out, sending them back to be slaughteted.⁹¹ These events had altered the Lebanese scene so radically that President Reagan felt impelled to return the marines to Beirut. Israel's actions had necessitated the marines' presence, yet none of these critical events was mentioned among the thousands of words expressed during the lengthy discussion.

A veteran congressman, with the advantage of hindsight, explained it directly.⁹² Just after the terrorist attack that killed U.S. Marines who were asleep in their Beirut compound, Congressman Lee Hamilton was asked if Congress might soon initiate action on its own to get the marines out of Lebanon. The query was posed by William Quandt, a Middle East specialist who had served in the Carter White House, at the close of a private discussion on Capitol Hill involving a small group of senior congressmen. Hamilton, a close student of both the Congress and the Middle East, responded, "Don't look to Congress to act. All we know is how to increase aid to Israel."

Hamilton's statement has proved true. Aid to Israel—despite our country's budget problems and Israel's defiant behavior toward the United States in its use of U.S.-supplied weapons and its construction of settle­ments on occupied territory—continues to increase, with no peak in sight.

Bonior and Secret Evidence

The voices of protest in the House of Representatives became less audi­ble in 2001 with the announcement by Democrat David Bonior of Michigan that he would not seek re-election. Bonior, a member of the House since 1976 and Democraric Whip since 1992, was known for his

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strong positions on environmental, labor, and human rights issues, and has always fought for social and economic justice. He sponsored the Secret Evidence Repeal Act (H.R. 2121) in the 106th Congress, and a similar bill (H.R. 1266) in the 107th. Virtually every person against whom secret evidence has been used has been an Arab Muslim, and Bonior—who pro-Israel Washington PAC founder Morris Amitay called "the poster child for the pro-Arab cause in this country"—long opposed the discriminatory and unconstitutional use of secret evidence.⁹³ Severely crippled by newly instituted redistricting, Bonior lost his bid for the gov­ernorship of Michigan in the 2002 elections.

"Here We Go Again"

Another blow to honest debate in the House was the retirement of Con­gressman Thomas Campbell (R-CA), who cosponsored the Secret Evi­dence Repeal Act with Bonior. In November 2000, Campbell lost his bid to unseat Dianne Feinstein (D-CA) in the U.S. Senate race, and resumed a teaching post at Stanford Law School. Feinstein would go on to propose and pass Senate Resolution 247, which the American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee described as "a one-sided message to the American people and our friends and allies throughout the world that American elected officials are only concerned about Israel in the Middle East."

A similar resolution was introduced by Tom DeLay (R-TX) in May 2002 in the House of Representatives. It passed by a vote of 352-21, with twenty-nine abstentions. Thirty-three members did not vote, sug­gesting discontent with the legislation modified by fear of AIPAC. The resolution, which extensively condemned Palestinian suicide attacks and Palestinian President Yasser Arafat but offered no criticism whatsoever of Israel's aggressive policy of collective punishment, was called "unbal­anced and . . . counterproductive" by Congressman Jim Moran (D-VA). John Dingell (D-MI), who called the resolution "one-sided" and "pro­vocative," noted that its passage—at a time when President George W. Bush was expressing his sternest criticism yet of Israel—"will undermine rhe administration, diminish U.S. leverage with the Palestinians, and further damage U.S. credibility in the region." Nick Rahall (D-WV) put it more bluntly: "Here we go again. How many times has this body

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passed resolutions of this nature that are so unbalanced, so one-sided, that we become the laughingstock of the world?"⁹⁴

Some members voted to open up debate on the tesolution, with the intention of including new language that would offer more balance. As Congressman Mark Green (R-WI) noted the day of the vote, however, "in a House of 435 members, there were only eighty-two who voted with me on this, and only three of those were Republicans. I wish we had more, because I think we would have ended up with a better piece of legislation."⁹⁵

Despite the eloquence of courageous members of Congress—whose ranks included Jesse L. Jackson, Jr. (D-IL), Lois Capps (D-CA), David Price (D-NC), Peter DeFazio (D-OR), Jay Inslee (D-WA), Amory Houghton (R-NY), Marcy Kaptur (D-OH), Cynthia McKinney (D-GA), and of coutse David Bonior—anti-Palestinian oratory became deafening on the Republican side of the House of Representatives. It was an especially depressing development to Republicans like myself.

The resolution was a factor in the defeat of a five-term Democrat, Earl Hilliard, in the Alabama runoff primary on June 25, 2002. Hilliard, a supporter of Palestinian statehood, was one of the twenty-one who voted against the resolution. Arab American and Muslim groups rallied financial support in his campaign, but Hatvard-educated Artur Davis, according to Hilliard, was able to outspend him by a larger margin, thanks to strong support from New York City Jews. Davis focused on charges of ethics violations by Hilliard and accused him of links with ter­rorism. Both candidates are African American.

As evidence of the pro-Israel bias in the House, soon-to-retire major­ity leader Richard Armey (R-TX), proposed on May 1, 2002, that Pales­tinians simply vacate the West Bank. Prodded in an interview by MSNBC's Chris Matthews, Armey said, "I happen to believe that the Palestinians should leave." Faced with prorests, Armey said, days later, that he meant to say that Palestinian terrorists should leave.

The week before, Tom DeLay, Armey's heir apparent as majority leader and future creator of the controversial "Israel First" resolution, told the annual AIPAC convention, "As long as I'm in Congress, I'll use every tool at my disposal to ensure that the Republican conference in the House of Representatives continues to preserve and strengthen America's alliance with the State of Israel."⁹⁶