This Week

Washington Watch

Botched Aid Bill;
Immigration Help;
Embassy Moves;
Ribbons To Remember

JAMES D. BESSER
Washington Correspondent

Washington

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IV

hat went wrong with
the administration's
request for extra mili-
tary aid to help Israel
with the costs of this year's Lebanon
pullout and beefed-up defenses? The
answer: everything.
Bad timing, mistakes by several
key players and the eruption of vio-
lence in Israel, Gaza and the West
Bank that began in late September
came together to doom the adminis-
tration's request for $450 million for
Israel, about half of what Prime
M,inister Ehud Barak had requested.
Washington insiders say the first
mistake was for the administration
to wait so long before bringing the
request to Congress.
"Israel and the administration
negotiated for months, when this
could have been settled very quick-
ly," said a leading pro-Israel lobbyist
here. "Then, the White House chose
to take a very low profile, with the
idea that the appropriation could be
quietly inserted into a last-minute
spending bill." But by the time
Congress returned early this month
for a lame duck session to complete
critical budget bills, the Israeli-
Palestinian talks were in shambles —
and a new President had been elected.
Several key members of Congress,
eager not to open any new cans of
budgetary worms during the inter-
regnum, insisted on leaving the issue
to President-elect George W. Bush
and the incoming Congress.
When the proposal was belatedly
introduced, the administration did
not make the extra aid a priority,
mostly out of concern that new
money for Israel in the midst of the
new violence would just complicate
efforts to end it and restart stalled
negotiations.
The leading pro-Israel group, the
American Israel Public Affairs

Committee (AIPAC), lobbied on
behalf of the supplementary aid, but
ignored another key component of
the administration request: $225
million for Egypt.
The administration insisted that it
was an all-or-nothing package; key
members of Congress signaled that
they'd rather pass nothing than give
more money to Egyptian President
Hosni Mubarak, whose support for
the peace process has been erratic, at
best.
Pro-Israel groups, faced with what
looked like a losing battle, just went
through the motions, sources here
say. And Israeli officials, preoccupied
with the upsurge in violence and the
worsening international situation,
did not fight for the aid.
The bottom line: nobody seemed
to want it enough to work to over-
come political obstacles in Congress.
The new Congress could consider
the request for added aid when it
convenes in early January. Bush and
his emerging foreign policy team
have not signaled whether they will
resubmit the request; with big tax
cuts high on the new administra-
tion's agenda, the incoming presi-
dent may be reluctant to begin his
term with demands for extra foreign
aid.

Immigration Help

The just-completed lame duck ses-
sion did better on immigration
issues — but just barely.
Lawmakers approved an extension
of the "Lautenberc, amendment," the
1989 measure that makes it easier
for Jews from the former Soviet
Union to win coveted refugee status.
The end of the 106th Congress
also marked the retirement of the
measure's original sponsor, Sen.
Frank Lautenberg (D-NJ). But
Leonard Glickman, president and
CEO of the Hebrew Immigrant Aid
Society (HIAS), said that Sen. Arlen
Specter (R-Pa.) has agreed to spon-

