House Adopts Anti-boycott Bill by 364-43 Vote; Fight Moves to Senate

With the House of Representatives having overwhelmingly approved without change its international Relations Committee’s bill to counter the Arab boycott of Israel and Americans who do business with Israel, foes of the measure were expected today to center their strength in the Senate to ease restrictions prohibiting Americans from complying with the boycott.

The Senate is expected to take up its Banking Committee’s version either late next week or the following week. Since the Senate legislation is certain to differ from the House measure, the issues will be ultimately fought in the Senate- House conference where agreement must be attained before the Congress can vote on identical legislation.

Anti-boycott proponents generally see the House measure as stronger than the Senate version since its restrictions are regarded as making it more difficult for Arab countries to maneuver American companies into discriminating against other Americans or circumventing the intent of the law. The Senate and House versions differ mainly on the unilateral selection clause and means of complying with local laws by a company operating within an Arab country.

With the acquiescence of the Carter Administration, the support of organized labor and the leadership of both Republican and Democratic parties, a bipartisan wave of support buried the opposition to the legislation in the House yesterday by a better than 8-1 margin. The vote was 364-43 with 26 not voting. Some negative votes came from those who opposed other sections of the Export Administration Act of which the new anti-boycott legislation is a part.

SCARE TACTICS DENOUNCED

International Relations Committee chairman Clement Zablocki (D. Wis.), who managed the bill on the floor, pointed out that “no one who testified before the committee claimed that it would involve the loss of 500,000 jobs.” The loss of that number, he said, which appeared in an advertisement in the Wall Street Journal, “is sheer nonsense and the worst sort of scare tactics.”

Zablocki pointed out that the 500,000 job figure is “probably the total number of jobs that resulted from all U.S. trade with all the Arab nations and no one is claiming that this will terminate U.S. trade with the Arab nations in total.” His “best judgment,” Zablocki continued, is that there would be “possibly no loss at all, maybe several hundred jobs, but in no case would any job loss be more than several thousand.” He also noted that the committee was told “this legislation will enhance trade and will create jobs.”

Supporting the bill, Rep. William Broomfield (R.Mich.), the committee’s ranking Republican, said that “I can hardly recall a single piece of legislation that was as closely lobbied, debated, analyzed, compromised and as carefully written” as the measure he said was designed to “legislate in a very difficult and controversial area.”

OPPOSITION VIEWS AIRED

The opposition leader, House Republican Whip, Robert Michel (R.III.), said “morality and sensitivity” are not “on only one side” of the issue. He claimed the bill makes “uncertain the future of hundreds of thousands of Americans working for companies who now do business in Arab nations.” He also said the bill “would put in jeopardy billions of dollars of national income” and “seriously damage U.S. influence in negotiations for a Middle East peaceful settlement.”

“An unspoken assumption underlying this debate.” Michel said, is that “there is fear, very real fear, present in the House, that those who question or vote” against this bill “will be labeled less than friendly to the nation of Israel.”

Michel said in this connection that he has supported Israel and it is his view that “the United States will never permit the original borders of the State of Israel to be violated by an aggressor nation,” but he held that “true support of Israel means that we keep the U.S. strong, for without a strong America, Israel will surely be destroyed. And we cannot have a strong America by legislating away hundreds of thousands of American jobs.”

In response, Deputy Democratic Whip Benjamin Rosenthal (D.NY), said that Michel “sees the vote on this bill as being a vote for or against Israel. I do not see it that way at all. It is a vote for or against fundamental American principles.” Rosenthal said the boycott has “very little impact in Israel.”