The Senate Appropriations Committee eliminated all United States financial assistance to Syria yesterday and continued its virtually unanimous opposition to an attempt to reduce aid to Israel because of incursions into south Lebanon against Palestine Liberation Organization terrorists.
Sen. Mark Hatfield (R. Ore.) whose efforts to cut 10 percent, or $100 million from the $1 billion in military credits earmarked for Israel, received no-support in the Appropriations subcommittee on aid last week and, apparently in view of the temper of the full committee, did not renew his proposal yesterday. Whether he will do it on the Senate floor when it considers the bill as a whole, probably late next week, was uncertain.
Thus, the Senate committee sent to the Senate floor for a vote an appropriations bill of $8.4 billion that includes $1 billion in military aid and $785 million in economic assistance for Israel; $750 million in economic support and $1 million in military training for Egypt; and $181 million for Jordan, of which $121 million is for military assistance and $60 million for economic assistance.
The committee sliced $175 million from various programs worldwide but not in migration aid and refugee assistance. The $456 million for that includes $25 million for resettling Soviet and East European Jews in Israel.
BASIS FOR ACTION ON SYRIA
The committee’s bill is for the fiscal year that began Oct. 1. The House has approved the measure in its major elements except that it has also approved the Carter Administration’s request to continue $45 million in economic aid to Syria. The Senate committee, on the motion of Sen. William Proxmire (D. Wis.), with support from Sen. Dale Bumpers. (D. Ark.), cut out this aid to Syria.
The vote was 12-7. The committee’s chairman, Sen. Warren Magnuson (D. Wash.), voted for the Proxmire motion while the subcommittee chairman Sen. Daniel Inouye (D. Hawaii) opposed it.
Proxmire contended that Syria had not softened its rejectionist stance against the Camp David accords or the Egyptian-Israeli treaty. He suggested that deleting the aid might be an effective message. The State Department had told the committee that withdrawing aid to Syria would impede a peace settlement and that Syria was a stabilizing influence in Lebanon.
HATFIELD LOSES ROUND ON ISRAEL
In the subcommittee session, Hatfield argued that Israel’s military aid should be reduced as a warning against its using force in south Lebanon. Proxmire pointed out that the subcommittee, shortly before Hatfield’s suggestion, had rejected a motion to cut aid to Syria. It would be “highly ironical” if the committee now turned around and cut Israel’s funds while “rewarding Syria” for its opposition to the Camp David accords, Proxmire said.
Supporting Proxmire, Sen. Dennis De Concini (D.Ariz.) said that “reducing aid to Israel would be inconsistent with our commitment to Israel as a long-term ally and friend in the Middle East and the area’s only democratic state.” He said that if Israel violated the U.S. Export Control Act by using American weapons in south Lebanon, then the State Department should provide the “determination” and it has not done so.
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