American Jewish organizations have expressed outrage that the Bush administration’s proposed 1993 budget seeks to eliminate a restriction relating to compliance with the Arab boycott of Israel, as well as a prohibition against issuing “Israel only” passports.
The proposals “couldn’t do more to sanction the Arab boycott of Israel if the Arab League had written it itself,” charged Rep. Bill Green (R-N.Y.), who discovered the State Department plan.
Green, a member of the House Appropriations subcommittee on foreign operations, found the two proposed deletions in an appendix to the State Department budget, on Page 717 of the published federal budget, unveiled last week.
The provisions would nullify the section of a 1991 law that prohibits the U.S. government from making purchases from foreign firms that comply with the Arab League boycott of Israel or discriminate on the basis of religion.
Also scrapped would be a section that prohibits the practice of issuing passports for travel to Israel only. Such passports have been issued in the past so that travelers to Israel can enter Arab countries with passports that do not bear Israeli entry or exit stamps.
Opponents of the practice say it encourages Arab countries to continue rejecting passports with Israeli customs markings.
The 1991 law allows the secretary of state to issue a waiver on a country by country basis if that is necessary to carry out its diplomatic efforts in the country.
In the 1992 fiscal year, the State Department found that in 23 countries that are members of the Arab League or have large Moslem populations, it would be impracticable to obtain goods and services only from firms that certify that they do not comply with boycott.
This meant that U.S. embassies and other facilities in these countries could buy goods from local companies. But they still could not buy from other non-U.S. companies that sent goods into those countries without receiving a certificate of non-compliance.
TRYING TO ‘UNDO THE WORK OF CONGRESS’
But in the 1993 budget, the State Department seeks to delete the entire provision, regardless of whether a waiver applied or did not.
“In plain English, what this says in that the State Department thinks it’s OK to do business with firms that comply with the Arab boycott of Israel,” Green said.
“Also, that we should play along with the Arab countries’ denial of entry to anyone with an Israel stamp on their passport.”
Green promised to fight for a reversal of the State Department proposal.
Phil Baum, associate executive director of the American Jewish Congress, accused the administration of “trying covertly to undo the work of Congress,” which wanted to prohibit government contracts to firms that comply with the boycott.
The Anti-Defamation League also expressed concern about the administration proposal, in a letter to Secretary of State James Baker from Melvin Salberg, ADL national chairman, and Abraham Foxman, its national director.
They stressed that the anti-boycott provision “only holds foreign companies to the same standards upheld for American companies.”
The Jewish Community Relations Council of New York also sent Baker a letter of protest signed by Kenneth Bialkin, its president, and Michael Miller, executive director.
They said they could not understand why with the Middle East peace talks going on, “the State Department would submit to Arab pressure and capitulate to the boycott,” rather than insist that the “Arab states abandon this economic warfare against Israel.”
Bialkin is also president of the International Committee on Free Trade with Israel, which monitors boycott-related activities.
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