This Week

JAMES D. BESSER
Washington Correspondent

T

he headline on last week's
press release from House
Majority Whip Tom DeLay
(R-Texas) said it all:
"Congress Calls on the President to
put Seniors Before Foreign Aid."
Pro-Israel lobbyists cringed.
The reason wasn't anxiety over
Israel's regular $2.8 billion aid allot-
ment for Fiscal Year 2000, which
lobbyists and legislators alike say
will be passed no matter how
Congress and the administration
resolve the most bitterly partisan
budget battle in recent memory. But
with a fog of isola-
tionism creeping
over Capitol Hill,
extra aid to meet
new needs —
including the $1.8
billion package promised by
President Bill Clinton to help imple-
ment last year's Wye River accord —
is increasingly doubtful.
If the shift continues, Israel's regu-
lar aid will soon be on the block as
well.
Last week, officials in Israel, already
alarmed by the Wye aid holdup, were
quietly bemoaning another example of
the dangerous new mood in
Washington: the Senate vote rejecting
the nuclear test ban treaty.
That, too, pointed to a politically
driven retreat in Washington from
international responsibilities that
could threaten Israel's security, as well
as American interests around the
world.
DeLay wasn't the only one to sug-
gest that foreign aid takes food out
of the mouths of needy Americans.
Last week, as Congress and the
administration continued their bud-
get mud-wresting match, ads sur-
faced on Washington area radio sta-
tions.
"Which would you rather see your
representatives in Congress do?" the
announcer intoned. "Give money
away to foreign governments or save
it to protect Social Security?"
In recent days the Republican
leadership, facing an almost certain
veto of a foreign aid bill the
President said was $2 billion short of
the minimum needed, proclaimed
that tapping the Social Security sur-
plus was the only way to increase the
aid budget, which they noisily
refused to do.
That set up a false but politically
compelling confrontation: aid to for-

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Isolationism's
Return

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Congressional
actions these days
make one long for
certain skills of
Newt Gingrich
and Bob Dole.

eign countries versus protecting the
retirement incomes of Americans.
Never mind that tapping Social
Security funds is a time-honored way
for Congress to deal with budget
numbers that don't add up. Never
mind that the aid gap could easily be
filled by cutting recent pork-barrel
appropriations. This was politics, pure
and simple.
Nobody challenged Israel's aid, but

Top: Newt Gingrich
Above: Bob Dole

the attacks inevitably put that aid —
by far the biggest slice of the pie — in
a highly unfavorable light.
Republican leaders, eager to wield
aid as a political crowbar, have used
the same tactic to stall the extra $1.2

billion for Israel promised at Wye
River. For months they have insisted
the Wye spending be offset by cuts in
popular domestic programs, a political
poison pill the administration was
unwilling to swallow.
As a result, Israel is absorbing all
the costs of its most recent West Bank
redeployment without the promised
U.S. help. Short-term politics in a
hyper-partisan environment is part of
the problem, but so is a long-term
shift toward a much more isolationist,
xenophobic world view, and not just
from presidential candidate Pat
Buchanan, who even thinks American
involvement in World War II was a
bad idea.
On Capitol Hill, this nation's
international responsibilities are
increasingly seen as irresistible polit-
ical targets, not overriding national
interest. Last week's Senate defeat of
the nuclear test ban treaty was one
more glaring example. That vote
may eviscerate U.S: efforts to slow
the spread of nuclear weaponry, with
incalculable consequences for us and
our allies, including Israel.
The problem has been compound-
ed by the departure from Congress of
leaders who recognized the critical
importance of U.S. leadership in the
world, and who willingly put parti-
sanship aside for common foreign
policy goals.
Former House Speaker Newt
Gingrich (R-Ga.) was no
slouch on partisan warfare, but
cared about an active U.S. role
in the world and often stepped
outside the partisan box to
promote the concept. Former
Majority Leader Bob Dole (R-
Kans.) wasn't a reliable friend
of Israel, but he shared the
same commitment.
Their successors, blinded by
narrow partisan politics and
personal loathing of Bill
Clinton, haven't risen to the
leadership challenge.
Nor has the pro-Israel
lobby penetrated the new iso-
lationist mood. It agreed
with the administration tac-
tic of downplaying the Wye
River aid and working to get
it quietly wrapped into a supple-
mental spending bill later this
month. If that works, the American
Israel Public Affairs Committee
(AIPAC) may again be praised for
political savvy. If it fails, the group
will face difficult questions about its
claims of clout with the Republican
congressional leadership. II

