Wait
Congress Likes
Election Results
JAMES D. BESSER WASHINGTON CORRESPONDENT
fficials reacted with cau-
tious pleasure to the rela-
tively uneventful balloting
in the West Bank and
Gaza, and the strong endorse-
ment by Palestinian voters of the
Israeli-Palestinian peace process.
"The elections show that the
majority of Palestinians do ac-
cept peace with Israel," said Rep.
Eliot Engel, who observed the
elections along with American
diplomats. "It's clearly a rejec-
tion of Hamas and their call to
boycott the election and the
peace process."
Mr. Engel, a co-chair of the
congressional Peace Accord Mon-
itoring Group, said that "once
you have a democratic vote and
the beginning of democratic in-
stitutions, it's very difficult to go
back." -
But he agreed that Congress
will be watching closely to make
sure Mr. Arafat and the Pales-
tinian National Council repeal
elements of the PLO covenant
calling for the destruction of Is-
rael.
Just in case, Congress ex-
tended the law allowing Ameri-
can aid to the Palestinians only
until March 31— which will be
two months after the election,
the deadline for removing the of-
fensive language imposed by the
original Oslo accord.
"The ball is in Arafat's court,"
Mr. Engel said. "He's been elect-
ed, he's clearly the leader of the
Palestinian people. He has to
show that the agreements he
signed are viable and that he will
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fulfill the commitments he's
made. If he does that, Congress
will certainly look on this posi-
tively, and American money will
continue to flow."
He discounted exuberant talk
among Mr. Arafat's supporters
about the inevitable creation of
a Palestinian state, possibly
within the next few years.
"In these difficult negotiations,
you have to take things one step
at a time," he said. "There's a lot
of bravado. But there's a long
way to go before we get to that
point; it doesn't make any sense
to get bogged down on that issue
now."
Mr. Engel was joined by Rep.
James Moran, D-Va., and former
Rep. Wayne Owens; the group
was just a small eddy in a flood
of election observers from a num-
ber of countries.
Another observer was Rabbi
Ammiel Hirsch, executive direc-
tor ofthe Association of Reform
Zionists of America (ARZA).
"Even if you say the words
Palestinian state,' you're still not
talking about a state like other
states, in the sense of an unlim-
ited foreign policy or an unlim-
ited right to arm itself," he said
after his return.
The plethora of observers, he
said, "gave added legitimacy to
the democratic process that took
place. It was not a perfect de-
mocratic process — but it was
a whole lot better than any oth-
er place in the Arab world. By al-
most any standard, the vote was
a tremendous success."
High-Tech
Good News
ro-Israel activists got some
good news when Congress
unexpectedly restored
funding to the U.S.-Israel
Science and Technology Com-
mission.
The commission, created in
the heady days after the signing
of the first Israeli-Palestinian
agreement in 1993 to help fund
high-tech American-Israeli pro-
jects, has been in limbo for
months because conservative
legislators had put a hold on the
portion of its funding channeled
through the Commerce Depart-
ment.
Israel and the United States
share equally in funding the pro-
p
ject; the Israeli share has long
since been allocated.
In part, the holdup was an out-
growth of Republican efforts to
sack the entire Commerce De-
partment.
But Rep. Harold Rogers, R-
Ky., the chair of a key Appropri-
ations subcommittee, changed
his mind and decided to release
the Commerce Department por-
tion of the money.
The restored funding covers
the budget for fiscal year 1995,
which ended months ago; fund-
ing for the current fiscal year
hasn't even been discussed yet
because of the backlog of appro-
priations measures.
N