A bill to restore the aid to Israel that was part of the Foreign Aid bill killed by the Senate last Friday will be introduced in the House of Representatives tomorrow by Rep. Bella S. Abzug (D., N.Y.). The Congresswoman’s Israeli Foreign Assistance Act of 1971 provides for $300 million in military sales credits, $85 million in economic grants and $14 million in aid to schools and hospitals. The bill is similar to the $385 million aid-to-Israel measure introduced in the Senate yesterday by Sen. George McGovern (D., S.D.).
A spokesman for Rep. Abzug said her bill was designed to provide aid to Israel without at the same time, as in the previous Foreign Aid bill, having to provide aid to such “dictatorships” and “undemocratic” nations as Vietnam, Cambodia and Greece.
A scrutiny of the defeated Foreign Aid bill by the Jewish Telegraphic Agency found a proposed outlay of $23.2 million for aid to Palestinian refugees. Unless the Senate agrees on a new foreign aid arrangement, the United States will not provide such assistance in the next fiscal year. The US has given $518 million for Palestinian refugee aid since 1949, through the United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA).
JTA has documented Jewish history in real-time for over a century. Keep our journalism strong by joining us in supporting independent, award-winning reporting.
The Archive of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency includes articles published from 1923 to 2008. Archive stories reflect the journalistic standards and practices of the time they were published.
