The Budget's Foreign Policy Handcuffs by Stephen Zunes

The Budget's Foreign Policy Handcuffs
Stephen Zunes
Foreign Policy In Focus
March 20, 2009
http://www.fpif.org/fpiftxt/5978

Hopes that a Democratic administration with an expanded
Democratic congressional majority might lead to a more
ethical, rational, and progressive foreign policy were
challenged with last week's passage of the 2009 omnibus
budget bill, which included many troubling provisions
regarding the State Department and related diplomatic
functions.

In the House of Representatives, all but two dozen
Democrats supported and all but 20 Republicans opposed
the bill. It passed the Senate by voice vote, believed
to have been mostly divided by strict party lines.

While the Obama administration had little to do with
putting the bill together and seemed willing to wait to
put its imprint on the budget for the 2010 fiscal year,
it was nevertheless disturbing that the new president
didn't challenge the inclusion of segments of the
legislation that seemed to be designed by House Speaker
Nancy Pelosi, Senate Majority leader Harry Reid, and
other Democratic congressional leaders to undercut his
authority to pursue a different Middle East policy than
his predecessor.

Most notably, Pelosi and other Democratic leaders
refused calls for conditioning U.S. military aid to
Israel, Egypt, and other countries in the region on
their adherence to internationally recognized human
rights standards. In addition, in reaction to the United
Nations Human Rights Council raising concerns about
human rights abuses by Israel and other U.S. allies in
the region, Pelosi's bill bars the use of any U.S. funds
to be appropriated as part of the annual contribution of
UN member states to support the Council's work.

Also problematic is that - while Congressional Democrats
formally dropped their longstanding opposition to
Palestinian statehood in the 1990s (in contrast to
President Barack Obama, who has supported Palestinian
statehood since his days as a student activist in the
early 1980s) - the Democratic-sponsored appropriations
bill contains a series of measures which appear to be
designed to prevent the emergence of a viable
Palestinian state alongside Israel.

Fueling the Arms Race

Challenging the widespread consensus by arms control
specialists and other observers that the Middle East
already has too many armaments, Pelosi and the Democrats
have clearly determined that, in their view, the region
doesn't have enough armaments and that the United States
must continue its role as supplier of most of the
region's weaponry. As teachers, librarians, social
workers, health care professionals, and other Americans
are losing their jobs due to a lack of public funding,
the Democrats' appropriation bill pours billions of
dollars' worth of taxpayer funding into sophisticated
weapons for both Israel and neighboring Arab states.
And, with his signature, it appears Obama agrees with
these distorted priorities.

Pelosi and the Democrats made clear their outright
rejection of recent calls by Amnesty International and
other human rights groups to suspend U.S. military aid
to Israel in response to the use of U.S. weapons in war
crimes during the assault on the Gaza Strip in January,
instead siding with the former Bush administration in
allocating $2.5 billion of unconditional military aid to
the Israeli government this fiscal year.

Rather than being directed toward counterterrorism or
other defensive measures, the bill stipulates that funds
will be used for the procurement of advanced weapons
systems, roughly three-quarters of which will be
purchased from American arms manufacturers.

An additional $1.3 billion in foreign military financing
is earmarked for the Egyptian dictatorship of Hosni
Mubarak, $235 million for the autocratic monarchy in
Jordan, $58 million for Lebanon, and $12 million for the
repressive regime in Tunisia. The only other country
specifically targeted for military aid in this
legislation is Colombia, which will receive $53 million.

While last year's appropriations bill blocked Egypt from
access to part of its military aid until it had taken
clear and measurable steps to "adopt and implement
judicial reforms that protect the independence of the
judiciary" and "review criminal procedures and train
police leadership in modern policing to curb police
abuses," such provisions were removed from this year's
bill, yet another indication of the Democratic
majority's lack of concern for human rights.

Sabotaging a Palestinian Unity Government

As European governments and others, recognizing that
some kind of government of national unity between Fatah
and the more moderate elements of Hamas is necessary for
the peace process to move forward, Pelosi and her
colleagues are attempting to sabotage such efforts. This
year's appropriations bill prohibits any support for
"any power-sharing government" in Palestine "of which
Hamas is a member," unless Hamas unilaterally agrees to
"recognize Israel, renounce violence, disarm, and accept
prior agreements, including the Roadmap."

By contrast, there are no such provisions restricting
the billions of dollars of aid to the emerging coalition
government in Israel, which includes far right parties
that have likewise refused to recognize Palestine,
renounce violence, support the disarming of allied
settler militias, or accept prior agreements, including
the roadmap.

In short, to Pelosi and other Democratic congressional
leaders, Palestinians simply do not have equal rights to
Israelis in terms of statehood, security, or
international obligations. The Democrats are willing to
sabotage any Palestinian government that dares include -
even as a minority in a broad coalition - any hard-line
anti-Israeli party, yet they have no problems whatsoever
in pouring billions of taxpayer dollars into supporting
an Israeli government dominated by hard-line anti-
Palestinian parties.

There's a word for such double-standards: racism.

Other Anti-Palestinian Provisions

Migration and refugee assistance are other areas where
the anti-Palestinian bias of Pelosi and other Democratic
leaders becomes apparent. There are dozens of countries
in which the United Nations, assisted in part through
U.S. aid, is involved in relief operations, including
those dealing with Rwandans, Kurds, Congolese, Afghans,
Iraqis, Somalis, and other refugee populations from
which terrorist groups operate or have operated in the
recent past. However, Pelosi and the Democratic
leadership have determined that it's among Palestinian
refugees alone that the State Department is required to
work with the UN and host governments "to develop a
strategy for identifying individuals known to have
engaged in terrorist activities."

Pelosi's bill stipulates that not less than $30 million
in funds for migration and refugee assistance should be
made available for refugee resettlement in Israel. None
of the other 192 recognized states in the world are
specifically earmarked to receive this kind of funding,
which is normally made available on assessment of
humanitarian need. In recent years, successive Israeli
governments have encouraged immigrants to live in
subsidized Jewish-only settlements, illegally
constructed on confiscated land in the occupied West
Bank and Golan Heights, in violation of a series of UN
Security Council resolutions and a landmark advisory
opinion of the International Court of Justice. The
inclusion of this funding is widely interpreted as an
effort by Pelosi and other Democratic lawmakers to
encourage further Israeli colonization in occupied
Palestinian and Syrian territory so as to decrease the
likelihood of a peace settlement.

Only $75 million in aid is allocated to the West Bank
and none of it is allocated to the Palestinian Authority
itself. In contrast, annual U.S. economic assistance to
Israel (which doesn't include the billions in military
aid) goes directly to the Israeli government and has
usually totaled more than 15 times that amount, even
though the per-capita income of Palestinians in the West
Bank and Gaza Strip is less than one-twentieth that of
Israeli Jews.

Pelosi's bill contains lengthy and detailed conditions
and restrictions on programs in the West Bank, with
extensive vetting, reporting, and auditing requirements
required for no other place in the world. This year's
bill adds requirements that all funds are subjected to
the regular notification procedures, also an
unprecedented requirement. There are also a number of
other stipulations not found for any other nations, such
as the provision banning any assistance to the
Palestinian Broadcasting Corporation.

Despite all the additional administrative costs such
restrictions require, the bill caps administrative
expenses at $2 million; no such limitations exist
involving aid to any other nation.

The Democrats' goal appears to be to make it all the
more difficult for Palestinians - already suffering
under U.S.-backed Israeli sieges - to meet even their
most basic needs for health care, education, housing,
and economic development.

Roadblocks for Palestinian Statehood

Though the United States remains the world's number one
military, economic, and diplomatic supporter of
repressive Middle Eastern governments - including
absolute monarchies, military juntas, and occupation
armies - the appropriations bill includes language
insisting that the "governing entity" of Palestine
"should enact a constitution assuring the rule of law,
an independent judiciary, and respect for human rights
for its citizens, and should enact other laws and
regulations assuring transparent and accountable
governance." No such language exists in regard to any
other nation.

There are also provisions blocking U.S. support for a
Palestinian state unless it meets a long list of
criteria regarding perceived Israeli security needs.
Again, no such conditions exist for any other nation in
terms of its right to exist.

One target of Pelosi and other Democratic leaders is the
Palestinians' desire to regain the Arab-populated
sections of East Jerusalem, which have been under
Israeli military occupation since 1967. In addition to
its religious significance for both Palestinian
Christians and Palestinian Muslims, Jerusalem has long
been the most important cultural, commercial, political,
and educational center for Palestinians and has the
largest Palestinian population of any city in the world.
Given the city's significance to both populations, any
sustainable peace agreement would need to recognize
Jerusalem as the capital city for both Israel and
Palestine.

In an apparent effort to delegitimize any Palestinian
claims to their occupied capital, however, Pelosi's bill
prohibits any "meetings between officers and employees
of the United States and officials of the Palestinian
Authority, or any successor Palestinian governing
entity" in Israeli-occupied East Jerusalem "for the
purpose of conducting official United States Government
business with such authority." Even if the Israelis do
agree to end their occupation of Arab East Jerusalem,
Pelosi and the Democrats have inserted language that no
funds could be used to create any new U.S. government
offices in Jerusalem that would interact with the
Palestinian Authority or any successor Palestinian
government entity.

Nuclear Nonproliferation

Pelosi and her Democratic colleagues continue to pursue
nonproliferation based on ideological litmus tests
rather than universal law-based principles. For example,
the bill requires that any assistance to Russia be
withheld until the Russian government has "terminated
implementation of arrangements to provide Iran with
technical expertise, training, technology, or equipment
necessary to develop a nuclear reactor, related nuclear
research facilities or programs, or ballistic missile
capability." However, there are no such restrictions on
the United States itself continuing its nuclear
cooperation with India, despite India's maintaining and
expanding its nuclear weapons arsenal in violation of UN
Security Council Resolution 1172, nor are there any
objections included regarding ongoing U.S. ballistic
missile development with Israel, despite Israel's
nuclear weapons arsenal and its ongoing violation of UN
Security Council Resolution 487.

The appropriations bill stipulates that the United
States will support the UN's International Atomic Energy
Agency - which successfully dismantled Iraq's nuclear
program in the early 1990s - "only if the Secretary of
State determines (and so reports to the Congress) that
Israel is not being denied its right to participate in
the activities of that Agency." This appears to be an
effort to prevent one of the means by which the United
Nations could conceivably pressure Israel into ending
its ongoing violation of Resolution 487, which calls on
Israel to place its nuclear facilities under the
trusteeship of the IAEA. There are no other countries
whose potential exclusion from the IAEA would jeopardize
U.S. funding.

Moving Forward

It should also be noted that there were a number of
positive changes to the FY2009 budget impacting the
Middle East. Language that required the State Department
to designate the birthplace of U.S. citizens born in
Israeli-occupied parts of greater East Jerusalem as
"Israel" - thereby effectively recognizing Israel's
illegal annexation of Palestinian territory - was
dropped. There was also a new segment in the bill
directing the Secretary of State to report on Moroccan
suppression of human rights in the occupied Western
Sahara.

Most significant is a provision banning nearly all
cluster-bomb exports to Israel and other Middle Eastern
countries, an initiative which had been defeated during
the last session of Congress thanks to near-unanimous
Republican opposition, as well as negative votes from
such leading Democratic senators as Joe Biden and
Hillary Clinton. Obama - who, in contrast, voted in
favor of the resolution - apparently helped to insure
the inclusion of this provision in the bill, which has
been applauded by human rights groups.

Meanwhile, a number of additional anti-Palestinian
amendments introduced from the floor by Senator John Kyl
(R-AZ) were voted down after vigorous lobbying by
Americans for Peace Now and other liberal groups.

Nevertheless, it's disappointing that so many other
right-wing provisions involving the Middle East were
included in the omnibus spending bill, particularly
since this year's appropriations were put together by a
Congress with the largest Democratic majority in
decades.

It will be President Obama, and not the Democratic-
controlled Congress, who will ultimately determine the
direction of U.S. foreign policy in the Middle East and
elsewhere in the coming years. Unfortunately, even
assuming the best of intentions by a president who came
to office in large part due to popular dissatisfaction
with the direction of U.S. policy in the region, he
won't be able to fundamentally change the direction of
that policy if Congress continues to pursue policies
supporting militarization, occupation, and repression.

Stephen Zunes, a Foreign Policy in Focus senior analyst,
is a professor of politics and chair of Middle Eastern
Studies at the University of San Francisco.