Highlights of April 22-23, 2009 House Foreign Affairs and Appropriations Subcommittee Hearings on Israel-Palestine
Secretary Clinton’s exchanges on the administration’s Israel-Palestine policy with the House Foreign Affairs Committee Wednesday and the House Appropriations State and Foreign Operations Subcommittee Thursday yielded contradictory explanations from Clinton and sharper expressions of congressional disapproval than the Secretary faced on Iran.
Can the U.S. deal with a Palestinian government that includes Hamas?
Much of the back and forth with committee members on Israel-Palestine issues dealt with the administration’s request for waiver authority over provisions of the Palestinian Anti-Terrorism Act of 2006 and the 2009 Omnibus Budget Bill to enable the U.S. to talk with and provide aid to any future Palestinian government that included Hamas members but that opposed violence, recognized Israel, and was committed to past agreements. (These are the three conditions set by the so-called “Quartet” of the U.S., the EU, Russia, and the UN for dealing with Hamas or any other Palestinian group.)
Asked by Rep. Gary Ackerman (NY) of Foreign Affairs what the U.S. would do if the Palestinians formed a government that includes Hamas, Clinton replied, “We will not deal with nor in any way fund a Palestinian government that includes Hamas unless and until Hamas has renounced violence, recognized Israel and agreed to follow the previous obligations of the Palestinian Authority.” But in answer to a similar question from another Foreign Affairs member, Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen (FL), the Secretary said that U.S. assistance “will only be permitted to any power-sharing government, in which Hamas participates, if the president certifies that the power-sharing government has met the three principles I just outlined.”
In her first reply Clinton said that the U.S. would require Hamas itself to accept the three Quartet conditions before dealing with any government that includes its members, but her second answer indicated that only the government, not Hamas, would have to accept the conditions. She reinforced her second answer elsewhere in her testimony by referring to the successful Northern Ireland peace process and noting that “Not everyone in Sinn Fein and not everyone in the IRA initially agreed to the principles. But the leadership of the government that was dealt with in both instances did. That’s what we’re looking for. And we think that is sufficient, given the assurances that we will be looking for to provide you.” She also seemed several times in her testimony to point to a way that Hamas might find it easiest to accept the three principles. She said that the Arab League peace initiative included the same Quartet principles, implying that the U.S. could support a Palestinian government that accepted the Arab initiative.
Appropriations Subcommittee member Adam Schiff (CA) also took up the waiver issue in Thursday’s hearing. “I’m concerned,” he said, “that you could have a situation where Hamas is permitted to appoint ministers to a unity government provided those ministers agree to Quartet principles, even thou Hamas does not.” Clinton answered, “I believe that we have a proposed policy in the supplemental that is an important way of our being able to encourage a unity government that does accept the Quartet principles. And I would underscore what I said about Northern Ireland. There were a lot of people who weren’t enthusiastic about joining in peace talks and did so because they were pushed. But they—when they sat at the table, they had to be part of an entity that said they were in favor or, you know, a peace and, you know, not continuing the bombings in the U.K. and Northern Ireland.”
Rep. Mark Kirk (IL) was among the members unconvinced by Clinton’s defense of the administration’s waiver request. He told the Secretary, “You’re picking up some pretty strong bipartisan concern here, which means that an amendment is coming. So I would urge you to beat a strategic retreat on this point, and then use the Congress as the bad guy…”
Gaza
The administration’s request for some $900 million in aid for the West Bank and Gaza also ran into opposition from some members of both committees. Ros-Lehtinen termed any aid for Gaza a “bailout for Hamas.” Rep. Eliot Engel (NY) said he agreed with Ros-Lehtinen’s concern that Gaza aid “doesn’t fall into the hands of Hamas.”
In her prepared testimony Clinton said there was a “humanitarian crisis” in Gaza, but in a lengthy exchange with Keith Ellison (MN) she emphasized that the Gaza crossings from Israel are no longer completely closed and that “many items… are being transported through the crossings.” Ellison, who was one of several members of Congress who visited Gaza in February, said “there’s a very tight definition of what constitutes humanitarian aid” and said that many food items were still on Israel’s prohibited list. Clinton responded, “We have looked at the lists, and a lot of what has been said was not permitted to cross is just not accurate.”
