U.S. Administration to Maintain Current Level of Aid to Israel

The Clinton administration plans to maintain the current level of U.S. aid to Israel, a senior State Department official told members of Congress this week.

Edward Djerejian, assistant secretary of state for Near East and South Asian affairs, told a House subcommittee Monday that President Clinton is committed to “continuing aid to Israel and Egypt at the current levels.”

Since the mid-1980s, Israel has received $3 billion annually, with $1.8 billion going for military aid and $1.2 billion for economic assistance. Egypt receives $2.1 billion.

Djerejian’s comments came four days after the U.S. ambassador to Israel, William Harrop, was quoted as saying that “It may prove difficult to maintain our economic aid” to Israel “at its current high level.”

The State Department distanced itself from those remarks last Friday, but supporters of Israel have been concerned that the Clinton administration might cut foreign aid significantly in the current climate of financial sacrifice.

Djerejian also told the House panel that the administration is seriously considering releasing $50 million of aid withheld last year from Jordan, in recognition of its support for the Middle East peace process.

The aid, originally earmarked for the 1992 fiscal year, was withheld because of U.S. concerns that Jordan was failing to comply strictly with international sanctions against Iraq following the Persian Gulf War.

Djerejian said the Clinton administration plans to follow through with the Bush administration’s plan to sell Saudi Arabia 72 advanced F-15 jet fighters. He said the sale, worth more than $9 billion, would benefit American suppliers, create aerospace jobs here and provide $3 billion in tax revenues.

LOAN GUARANTEES ON TRACK

In over two hours of testimony to the House Appropriations subcommittee on foreign operations, Djerejian reviewed the progress of the Middle East peace talks and discussed Secretary of State Warren Christopher’s recent trip to the region.

He pointed out that the trip had succeeded in shifting attention away from the issue of the 415 Palestinians deported by Israel in December, and said that the parties involved in the peace talks had expressed their willingness to resume negotiations.

Rep. David Obey (D-Wisc.), the subcommittee chairman, pressed Djerejian on the issue of continuing aid to Israel and Egypt at their current high levels, observing that the countries have economic problems not being quickly resolved.

Obey also criticized the current system whereby aid recipients agree ahead of time to purchase expensive military equipment, thereby locking the United States into maintaining high levels of aid to these countries, so that they can pay for the equipment.

Djerejian responded to this concern by arguing that if the peace process succeeded, “it would alter the defense burden of the countries” involved.

He argued repeatedly that aid to Israel and some of the other countries in the region could not be reduced until the peace process had resulted in more normal conditions there.

But he acknowledged the current unpopularity of foreign aid, in a political climate where Americans are being asked to sacrifice.

Obey asked the assistant secretary about the status of the first $2 billion in U.S. loan guarantees to Israel, part of the overall $10 billion agreed on last year after a lengthy controversy.

Djerejian said that the two governments had signed an agreement in January authorizing the first $2 billion to go to Israel.

The assistant secretary also told the subcommittee that Christopher had put the goal of cracking the Arab League’s economic boycott of Israel and companies that do business with it “at the top of his agenda” with the Arab governments during his recent trip.

“It is not comprehensible,” he said, that American companies would be discriminated against in the Persian Gulf after the United States had gone to war to protect the gulf countries from Iraqi aggression.

Djerejian said that the countries of the Gulf Cooperation Council had privately agreed to remove companies from their domestic blacklist and not add companies to the list.

‘THAT’S NOT ENOUGH’

But Will Maslow, editor of the American Jewish Congress newsletter Boycott Report, said Monday that reports over the last few weeks have indicated that Saudi Arabia and Kuwait are refraining privately from enforcing the boycott against American firms, while publicly maintaining the boycott.

“Throwing the Jewish community a bone, saying they’re not enforcing it, that’s not enough,” Maslow said. He said his organization plans to ask the G-7 leading industrialized nations at their meeting this summer to work for an end to the boycott.

On the Middle East peace talks, Djerejian said “real progress” had been made since October 1991, when the talks opened in Madrid.

He cited “important developments” in the Israeli-Syrian negotiating track, about which various Israeli and American officials have expressed optimism recently.

He repeated the U.S. administration’s desire to work as a “full partner” with the parties, as long as they remain seriously committed to the negotiations.

Djerejian said Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin’s upcoming visit to Washington could prove “very important” in continuing the strong U.S.-Israel relationship and in providing the “assurances Israel needs to make peace.”

Rabin is scheduled to meet with Clinton next Monday.

Meanwhile, a bipartisan group of 11 senators this week sent a letter to the president expressing their “strong desire to work closely” with him “to further our mutual goal of strengthening American-Israeli relations.”

The senators, members of the Senate Caucus on U.S.-Israeli Security Cooperation, suggested that military and technology cooperation between the two countries be increased “in order to strengthen both countries and reduce Israel’s long-term dependence on foreign aid.”

The letter was spearheaded by the caucus’ two co-chairs, Sens. Arlen Specter (R-Pa.) and Richard Shelby (D-Ala.)