Congress is expected to heed the Ford Administration’s urgent request not to renew action at this time on behalf of the 4000 persecuted Syrian Jews and block the State Department’s intention to grant $25 million to the Syrian government to help the U.S. peace-making effort.
In the foreign aid legislation adopted by the Congress in December and signed into law by President Ford, the Administration was prohibited from granting Syria any part of the $100 million fund for special Middle East requirements without giving the Congress the prerogative of barring it.
Under the law, the State Department must inform the Congress of its intention. With Secretary of State Henry A. Kissinger returning to the Middle East next week in his step-by-step negotiating between Israel and the Arab states, the State Department wanted to grant the gift without having to insist that Syria end its harassment of Jewish citizens.
BEING QUIET FOR THE MOMENT
Capitol Hill sources said that top Administration officials, including at least one of Kissinger’s foremost lieutenants, asked key Congressmen not to raise the Jewish issue at least for this one time, noting Syria is a key country in the on-going negotiations effort.
"We’re swallowing hard and being quiet for the moment," a key Congressional source sympathetic to the Syrian Jews told the Jewish Telegraphic Agency. "We had hoped our legislation would be a signal to the Syrian government and the State Department to help those people who have ‘Jew’ stamped in red on their identification cards. But we don’t know if the State Department has really done anything to help one of the world’s most oppressed peoples."
"If the twenty-five million dollars can help the negotiations for peace–and we are told Kissinger thinks it will–we’ll shut up for a little while," another source said. "The State Department always makes the argument of quiet diplomacy and in this case pointed out what the Jackson-Vanik amendment has done for Soviet emigration."
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