Last week, just as the Palestinians were getting set to enhance their U.N. status to non-member state, U.S. senators initiated a number of amendments that would cut off U.S. funding to the Palestinians in such a case.
The likeliest to pass had bipartisan support — Sens. Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.), Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) and John Barrasso (R-Wy.) were cosponsors.
Now it’s disappeared.
Unless it turns up soon, this is a rare fail of the pro-Israel mainstream. It’s worth contemplating why.
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The amendment was to have been attached to the National Defense Authorization Act, not because the Palestinians had anything to do with the NDAA, but because it was the budget-related bill likeliest to pass soonest.
And it did this evening, but not, as far as anyone can tell, with Schumer-Graham, or any of the other amendments targeting Palestinian funding.
J Street rallied against Schumer-Graham-Barrasso, with followers sending close to 15,000 leters to senators and making close to a thousand calls.
The Schumer-Graham amendment was the least far-reaching of the three amendments circulating — instead of cutting funding immediately, it conditioned cuts on whether the Palestinians would use their new status to bring charges against Israel in the U.N. court system, and mandated the closure of the PLO office in Washington unless the Palestinians unconditionally returned to talks.
AIPAC backed Schumer-Graham, and in its own blunt statement suggested that Congress would soon review the U.S. relationship with the Palestinians in the event of a successful vote.
Now, that’s not happening, evidently.
Which may be inconvenient for the Netanyahu government, now standing alone in levying penalties (new settlement building, withholding taxes) against the Palestinians.
It also could undercut a key Netanyahu claim of influence — that whatever the ups and downs of his relationship with the White House, Congress stands solidly behind his government.
The amendment could come back, attached to another bill. Pro-Israel members in the House could attach the same amendment to the House version of NDAA (although I have not heard this to be the case) and then that amendment could make it into the reconciled House-Senate law.
But still, why did the first run fail? Another pro-Israel amendment approving additional funding for Iron Dome made it through handily, as did enhanced Iran sanctions.
Well, here’s an admittedly impressionist sequence:
–On Thursday, before the U.N. vote, Schumer-Graham-Barrasso unveil the penalties-for-Palestine amendment; the U.N. vote happens later Thursday; U.S. Ambassador Susan Rice delivers a stinging rebuke to the Palestinians in explaining her "no" vote, one, pro-Israel officials tell me, that hews closely to their own talking points.
–The Netanyahu government on Friday leaks news of an E-1 expansion.
–Over the weekend at the Saban Forum, Rahm Emanuel, President Obama’s former White House chief of staff, calls Netanyahu’s settlement announcement a "betrayal" of Obama during the annual Saban Forum. Emanuel is especially incesed because Obama stood by Israel during the recent miniwar with Hamas in Gaza. A participant tells me that Emanuel’s remarks — leaked by former Prime Minister Ehud Olmert — were hardly the only Netanyahu rebuke during the off the record proceedings.
–On Sunday, Netanyahu announces he is withholding tax transfers to the Palestinians.
–Today, Israeli "sources" tell Y-Net that Obama is playing a double game, backing Israel in the U.N. while urging European nations to carept its ambassadors. The White House, in a rare on the record statement, flatly denies it.
–Then, tonight, the "penalties for Palestine" amendment disappears.
I’ll finish with three notes:
1) Senators lacking substantial support for their initiatives tend to bury them. Consensus, even in this polarized era, is the body’s lifeblood.
2) Pro-Israel Democrats, similarly, might be prone to bury a pro-Israel initiative that would garner much greater Republican than Democratic support.
3) Before the election, Democrats were so exasperated with what they perceived as Netanyahu’s bigfootedness, that one prominent Jewish Democrat, Sen. Barbara Boxer D-Calif, called him out on the record.
