Rep. Jonathan Bingham (D.NY) announced today that the House Foreign Affairs Committee yesterday adopted his amendment to the Administration’s proposed Foreign Assistance Act for the fiscal year of 1975 to put the Congress on record as opposing American aid to any country which denies its citizens the right to emigrate. In the first day of considering amendments to the act, the committee adopted the Bingham amendment, which, he said, was stimulated primarily by the tragic plight of 4800 Syrian Jews who have not been allowed to leave that country.
“These Syrian Jews have been subjected to arbitrary arrest and harassment and have been denied the most basic human rights and liberties including the right to emigrate and escape oppression,” Bingham said. “My amendment expressed the sense of Congress that United States aid should not be provided to such nations which deny their citizens the right or opportunity to emigrate.”
Bingham, who has long supported the Jackson/ Mills-Vanik legislation denying most favored nation status and trade credits to the Soviet Union until it permits free emigration, noted that his amendment was the first significant extension of this principle to other nations. The amendment was included in the section of the bill which authorizes $2.8 billion in foreign aid, including almost $1 billion for nations of the Middle East.
URGE AMENDMENT BE APPLIED TO SYRIA
Rabbi Joseph Harari, director of the Committee for Rescue of Syrian Jews, told the JTA in New York today that two weeks ago, in preparation for the presentation of Bingham’s amendment, his committee members sent telegrams to every Senator and Congressman urging the adoption of the policy advanced by the Bingham amendment. “We urge you to insist that no aid or credit shall be granted in any form to the Syrian Arab Republic until it permits the departure of its captive Jewish minority,” the telegram said in part.
“We hope that this congressional action makes it clear to the Syrian government that it cannot expect to receive any American aid until it releases our brethren,” said Rabbi Harari. He said Bingham, as well as Representatives Herman Badillo, Ogden Reid, Benjamin Rosenthal and Edward Koch, all Democrats of New York, deserve credit for their part in bringing about this amendment.
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