The Israeli government’s planned construction of 1,600 new housing units in a settlement in Occupied East Jerusalem, which was announced during U.S. Vice President Joe Biden’s March visit to Israel, could not have come at a more opportune time for the more than 150 grassroots activists who participated in the March 8th Capitol Hill lobbying day, sponsored by Interfaith Peace-Builders and the U.S. Campaign to End the Israeli Occupation. Israel’s plans for the housing construction, in clear breach of an occupying power’s obligations under international law to refrain from engaging in settlement activity, underlined the importance of the activists’ lobbying, namely to encourage Congressional members to bring U.S. policy towards Israel/Palestine in line with human rights, international law, and equality.
Speaking in Jerusalem one day after the lobbying day, Biden issued an uncharacteristically harsh and direct rejoinder to Israel’s action. “I condemn the decision by the government of Israel to advance planning for new housing units in East Jerusalem. The substance and timing of the announcement, particularly with the launching of proximity talks, is precisely the kind of step that undermines the trust we need right now and runs counter to the constructive discussions that I’ve had here in Israel,” Biden stated.
As importantly, Biden also promised that the Obama Administration would not abide continued Israeli intransigence, announcing that it would hold Israel “accountable for any statements or actions that inflame tensions or prejudice the outcome of talks.”
The Obama Administration’s promise of accountability potentially represents a dramatic turnaround from the Clinton and Bush years, when Israel effectively scuttled the Oslo “peace process” by doubling its settlement population in the Occupied Palestinian Territories (OPT) and then brutally cracking down on Palestinians during and after the Second Intifada, without consequence.
Holding the Israeli Government Accountable: Lessons from History
The last time the United States held Israel accountable for its actions occurred during the first Bush Administration. In the aftermath of the Gulf War, U.S. Secretary of State James Baker famously tussled with Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Shamir over the exact issue that divides the Obama Administration from the Netanyahu-led Israeli government today: the expansion of Israel’s illegal settlements in the OPT. Baker refused to extend U.S. loan guarantees to Israel as a result of its intransigence, until a slightly more pliant Israeli government headed by Yitzhak Rabin entered office and enacted a short-lived promise to freeze settlement expansion.
Nor was Baker’s bare-knuckled approach to Israel the first time the United States successfully exerted pressure on its ally to change its unacceptable behavior. Following the 1956 British-French-Israeli war against Egypt, Israel defied international law and UN resolutions calling on it to end its military occupation of the Egyptian Sinai Peninsula. As a result, the Eisenhower Administration cut off all forms of U.S. assistance–military and economic–until Israel capitulated and returned to its internationally recognized border with Egypt.
The March 8, 2010 Lobbying Day
With these historic examples in mind, the grassroots lobbyists who participated in this year’s Grassroots Advocacy Training/Lobby Day, urged Members of Congress to hold Israel accountable for its unacceptable behavior as a vehicle for supporting the Obama Administration’s goals of ending Israeli settlement expansion; ending Israel’s illegal blockade of the Gaza Strip; and negotiating a just and lasting Israeli-Palestinian peace.
In particular, these grassroots lobbyists pressed their elected officials on four “asks,” which included:
1) Introducing amendments to the FY2011 budget request to condition and restrict U.S. military aid to Israel;
2) Asking Secretary of State Hillary Clinton to investigate previous Israeli violations of the Arms Export Control Act (AECA);
3) Introducing a resolution calling on Israel to end its illegal blockade of the Gaza Strip, and;
4) Asking the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) to investigate 501(c)(3) charitable organizations illegally funneling tax-deductible donations to Israeli colonies in the OPT.
The complete Congressional information packet, with talking points, memos, draft resolutions, and letters, used for this lobbying day can be downloaded by clicking here.
These four “asks” represent very modest policy proposals to better align Capitol Hill policy toward Israel with the Obama Administration’s own goals, and Congressional offices displayed a somewhat surprising degree of willingness to take these ideas seriously. In upcoming months, the US Campaign to End the Israeli Occupation will continue to utilize both direct and indirect lobbying strategies to advance these proposals.
These four policy “asks” provide constructive ideas to implement Biden’s promise of accountability. Conditioning or restricting U.S. military aid to Israel is a logical first step in a process of cutting off military aid to Israel and holding it accountable for its misuse of U.S. weapons to colonize Palestinian land, its illegal military occupation of Palestinian territory, and its grave human rights abuses against Palestinians. During the Bush Administration alone, Israel killed more than 3,100 innocent Palestinian civilians, according to data compiled by the Israeli human rights organization B’Tselem, often with U.S. weapons.
The memo grassroots lobbyists presented to Members of Congress contained common-sense budget amendments designed to restrict Israel from using U.S. weapons in the OPT, in line with existing requirements under the AECA, and to make $3 billion in military aid to Israel in this year’s budget contingent upon a real and verifiable settlement freeze and a lifting of its illegal blockade of the Gaza Strip.
Grassroots lobbyists also asked their Members of Congress to send a letter to Secretary of State Clinton asking her to investigate Israel’s possible violations of the AECA with a particular emphasis on human rights abuses stemming from “Operation Cast Lead,” Israel’s December 2008-January 2009 assault on the Gaza Strip that killed nearly 1,400 Palestinians, destroyed thousands of Palestinian civilian buildings and homes, and created billions of dollars in damage to Gaza’s civilian infrastructure. A previous January 2009 effort by Representative Dennis Kucinich (D-OH) to initiate a similar investigation was rebuffed by the State Department. Additional Congressional letters to Clinton would bring greater pressure to bear on the State Department to investigate Israel’s misuse of U.S. weapons, the first step towards imposing sanctions under the AECA.
Members of Congress were also given a draft resolution condemning Israel’s ongoing blockade of the Gaza Strip, an illegal act of collective punishment. A Congressional resolution to this effect is the logical follow-up step to the “Dear Colleague” letter organized by Representative Jim McDermott (D-WA) and Representative Keith Ellison (D-MN), signed by 54 Members of Congress, and sent to President Obama in January 2010, calling his attention to the devastating humanitarian consequences of Israel’s illegal blockade.
Finally, Congressional offices were intrigued by the idea of pressing the IRS to crackdown on 501(c)(3) charitable organizations that misrepresent their declared educational purpose and funnel money to illegal Israeli settlements in the OPT. Dozens of such settlement-support organizations collect an estimated millions of dollars each year in tax-deductible donations, which otherwise would have gone to the U.S. Treasury. The American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee (ADC), an endorsing organization of the lobbying day, recently filed complaints with the IRS against some of these organizations. A letter supporting this campaign signed by Congressional members could help end U.S. taxpayer subsidization of illegal Israeli settlements whose expansion President Obama opposes.
These very modest and sensible policy proposals could help the Obama Administration out of the self-inflicted policy rut into which it has fallen on Israel/Palestine. For the first nine months of his tenure, Obama pressed hard for an Israeli settlement freeze to set the right conditions for a resumption of negotiations. In the face of Israeli intransigence, Obama backed down and declared at last fall’s UN General Assembly meeting that a settlement freeze was no longer necessary and that his Administration would now devote its efforts to resuming negotiations at any costs. After months of tedious shuttle diplomacy, his Special Envoy for Middle East Peace, George Mitchell, secured Israeli and Palestinian agreement for indirect or “proximity” talks, only to see this agreement unravel immediately following Israel’s announced settlement expansion during Biden’s visit.
Having frittered away almost one and half years and achieving neither an Israeli settlement freeze nor a resumption of Israeli-Palestinian negotiations, the Obama Administration is desperately in need of some bold policy initiatives and changes if it is serious about achieving Israeli-Palestinian peace during its first term.
It remains to be seen whether President Obama will learn that words alone are not adequate to induce policy changes in Israel’s actions. History has demonstrated that the Israeli government enjoys the carrots provided by the United States, but does not feel that these carrots obligate it to modify its policies to fit U.S. agendas. To do this, the proverbial stick also must be wielded at the right time. With declining public support for Israel’s colonization of Palestinian land and growing Congressional weariness with Israeli intransigence, now is the opportune moment to reassess U.S. policy and wield the stick. Any, but ideally all, of the policy proposals grassroots activists presented to Members of Congress would constitute a positive start in this direction.
*Josh Ruebner is the National Advocacy Director of the US Campaign to End the Israeli Occupation, a national coalition of more than 325 organizations working to change U.S. policy toward Israel/Palestine to support human rights, international law, and equality. He is a former Analyst in Middle East Affairs at Congressional Research Service (CRS), a federal government agency which provided Members of Congress with policy analysis.