The dust-up over the appointment of Chas Freeman pick for chairman of the National Intelligence Council showed the fault lines along which the pro-Israel and the pressure-Israel lobbies in Washington will divide. As I wrote last week, the willingness of the Jewish left to weigh in on that issue in favor of Freeman showed that the J Street and Israel Policy Forum crowd is determined to back anything that they suspect will undermine the position of Israel’s supporters in the new administration. The battle over Freeman is far from finished. With Democrats like Sen. Charles Schumer now asking questions about him, it’s worth asking what will be the next big battle on this front?
The answer may come from the massive aid-package that Obama is proposing to give the Palestinians to rebuild Gaza. Some $600 million of a $900 million stimulus-package is supposed to be used by the good-guy Palestinians (more specifically, Palestinian Authority Prime Minister Salam Fayyad) and not by Hamas, but Fayyad has no authority in Gaza. The rest of the money will probably be funneled into the United Nations Relief Works Agency, which means it is likely to aid Hamas one way or the other.
The good news is that some members of Congress, which must approve at least $745 million of the package, are asking questions about how the money will be used and who will get it. The Jerusalem Post reported yesterday that Nevada Democrat Shelly Berkley has written to Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, asking that restrictions be placed on the aid upon receipt of the money. Possible conditions could include the cessation of rocket fire from Gaza into Southern Israel and the release of kidnapped Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit. Even more to the point, Congress’s demand for transparency could strip away the veil of humanitarianism from what may turn out to be a billion-dollar terrorist boondoggle.
This is an issue that supporters of Israel — Jews and non-Jews alike — should jump on. Americans do not want their tax money going to Hamas surrogates or being used to reinforce Palestinian extremism. On the other hand, we can expect opposition to demands for Palestinian accountability from those who value a peace process concerned only with pressuring Israel.
This may well turn out to be a replay of the 1990’s, when the Clinton administration and some supporters of Israel went all out to oppose any restrictions on aid to Yasser Arafat and his corrupt, terrorist-infested Palestinian Authority. That whitewash of the P.A. set the tone for the follies of the Oslo era. After having seen the price of that policy paid in Israeli blood, will the Obama administration and the Jewish left pick up where Clinton left off? It will be up to those who care about Israel — Democrats and Republicans, Jews and non-Jews — to try and avoid a repeat of that error.
