| November 2, 1990
Dear Ms. Julius:
I admire your willingness to work on behalf of correct policies
vis a vis Israel. I share your concern about the attitudes of the
Bush administration. As you can see from the enclosed statement
I inserted into the Congressional Record, and this article from the
Jewish Advocate, I have been doing what I can to get the President
to change his position.
Your idea of a grass roots effort is a very good one, and there is a
very clear approach that makes sense: mobilizing people to write to
George Bush to get him to change his position.
Congress remains appreciative of Israel's position, and supportive
of its legitimate needs. It is the President and his Secretary of
State who have been causing the difficulty, and it therefore makes
sense for you to get as many people as you can to write to
President Bush and urge him to be more supportive of the legitimate
needs of Israel. I believe this is very much in America's interest,
and both the U.S. and Israel would benefit from such a change.
Peace in the Middle East can never come as long as Israel can not
count on strong American support for its basic security.
Barney Frank
ENC(2)
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October 26, 1990
Extension of Remarks
submitted by
Rep. Barney Frank
Mr. Speaker, as one who believes strongly that it is very much in
America's interest that our strongest Middle Eastern ally, Israel,
remain secure from the threats posed by the large number of its
neighboring states which remain opposed to its very existence, I
regret deeply the tensions that have been growing lately between the
Bush administration and Israel.
Obviously, disagreement on some specific issues have contributed to
these tensions, but there is one serious underlying cause of this
recent tension which I urge the Bush administration to remedy.
That is the refusal of President Bush and Secretary of State Baker to
recognize that Israel is rightfully insistent on maintaining a unified
Jerusalem as its capital. While previous American administrations
have, regrettably, declined formally to recognize the moral and
political fact that Jerusalem is one city and the capital of Israel,
the Bush administration has exceeded its predecessors in the vigor of
its challenge to this point.
Indeed, I believe that the seeds of the current tensions between the
Israeli and American administrations were planted on March 3 of this
year when President Bush inexplicably interjected the Jerusalem issue
into his answer to a question about settlements on the West Bank and
in Gaza. I remember, Mr. Speaker, listening to that press conference
while driving from Logan airport to events in my district, and being
unpleasantly startled when President Bush responded by asserting that
the United States does "not believe there should be new settlements in
the West Bank or in East Jerusalem ..."
Mr. Speaker, in the democratic nation of Israel, no government could
-- and in my view no government should -- survive for a day if it
acquiesced in this denial of Israel's right to sovereignty over all of
Jerusalem. Sadly, President Bush made this statement gratuitously,
calling Israel's right to Jerusalem into question just as the Israeli
government was deciding how to respond to an American proposal about
talks on the issue of elections in the West Bank and Gaza. And, as
soon as I heard the President say this, I feared that his grave error
would result in an impasse in these talks. And, that is exactly what
transpired. It became impossible for the Shamir government to
consider further concessions to the American position on participation
in the elections of Arabs living in Jerusalem, once President Bush
asserted that America in effect made no distinction between Gaza and
the West Bank on the one hand, and East Jerusalem on the other.
Inevitably, Israeli officials became very resistant to any proposal
which would lead to the inference that they agreed with this American
denial of Israeli control over Jerusalem.
And, it is this factor which continues to be a serious obstacle to
American-Israeli agreement on other points today. I believe that we
will see a continuation of problems as long as Israel confronts an
American executive branch which denies its right to Jerusalem as its
capital. If President Bush would recognize reality, and recognize
that Israel's claim to Jerusalem is historically, morally,
strategically, and legally correct, it would do a great deal to create
a climate in which further progress towards peace could continue.
I hope he will correct the serious mistake he made on March 3, and
which he and other officials of his administration have repeated
since, to the mutual disadvantage of both nations, and of the cause of
peace.
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The Jewish Advocate, Thursday, November 1, 1990
"Keep the Heat on Saddam
Frank: Unwise To Go To War While the Country is Divided"
By Jane Weingarten Special to the Advocate
Iraq's occupation of Kuwait cannot be compared to Israel's occupation
of the West Bank and Gaza Strip, Congressman Barney Frank said in
Wellesley this week. Speaking before the South Middlesex unit of
B'nai B'rith, Frank labeled any effort to compare the two occupations
as "nonsense," and called Israel's presence in the territories an act
of self-defense "because Nasser's Egypt and the Fedayeen (terrorists
who made incursions into Israel) were there to wipe Israel out.
No one has ever suggested that Kuwait was trying to overthrow Iraq,"
Frank said.
Although Frank wants Israel to "show flexibility" in resolving its
raging dispute with the Palestinians in the territories, and believes
that "no country is at its best when it is occupying a hostile people,"
he stated firmly that "President Bush and Secretary of State Baker are
keeping the peace talks from going forward by contesting Israel's right
to control East Jerusalem as the capital of its nation."
Frank pointed to the strong recognition in Congress of Israel's moral,
strategic, and political right to East Jerusalem. A majority of the
members of Congress signed a resolution favoring East Jerusalem as the
capital of Israel. Congress has voted the foreign aid package and
funds for housing that Israel needed.
Frank this week entered into the Congressional Record a statement of
his "deep regret" about the Bush administration's heightening of
tensions over East Jerusalem. In a two-page statement he said, "If
President Bush would recognize reality, and recongize that Israel's
claim to Jerusalem is historically, morally, strategically and legally
correct, .... (Please see above for Frank's statement into
Congressional Record.)
Amplifying this statement, Frank told the B'nai B'rith audience that
Israeli Prime Minister Shamir proposed elections leading to autonomy
in the territories two years ago. "Key negotiations had to do with
East Jerusalem. There's a sharp distinction between the territories
and East Jerusalem, which we see as Jerusalem, one nation, one capital."
Saying Bush equates East Jerusalem with Gaza, Frank said, "To Israeli's,
East Jerusalem equals Tel Aviv. It's part of the country."
Calling Saddam Hussein "vicious, ruthless, and calculating," Frank
said our government's response in the Gulf crisis has been politically
effective. Iraq was a big country that wanted the money and resources
of a smaller country. "It's morally and strategically right for us
to be there in the Gulf, standing up against Saddam Hussein's action.
And it's right for the Arab League to join us there. We're not just
there for the oil. When OPEC tripled the price of oil in 1973, we
didn't send troops."
President Bush did the right thing to send troops, but we need an
international force there. "We are not an international 911. I
object to young Americans dying in the Gulf with no help from anyone
else," Frank asserted.
"Bush has defined success for America as driving Hussein entirely out
of Kuwait. It is in error to insist on driving him out. It would
leave Jordan's King Hussein and Egypt's President Hosni Mubarak --
as our allies -- in a weakened position in the Arab world. We should
keep making Saddam Hussein pay a high price. I believe he is already
unhappy," Frank said.
Syria's Pres. Hafez Assad is against Saddam. He was outvoted by the
Arab League, he started trouble for the PLO, and he lost in Lebanon,
where Syrian interests have prevailed.
The best way for us to get Hussein out of Kuwait, he said, is to
maintain the embargo and keep the political and economic pressure
mounting against him.
Frank warned that Bush should not unilaterally decide to go to war.
"It's unwise to send our boys when our country is divided. For the
solemn step of going to war, he must use the broadest possible
political participation. This is not Grenada or Panama. The moral
and human cost of invasion would not be worth it. Where are the
French, the Pakistanis, and our other allies? They should be there."
When asked by a member of the audience if we can really keep the
embargo going, Frank answered, "We've kept troops in Western Europe
since the end of World War II. We can stick it out for a long time.
We're there to protect the Saudis, unless they order us out."
Frank believes that Saddam Hussein does not want war with
technologically superior Israel. "Jordan is the buffer. But a
neighborhood like that where Assad of Syria is the moderate is not
a neighborhood you want to live in."
In the event of an Iraqi offensive against Israel, Frank says the
United States would definitely go to Israel's defense.
"Hussein's brutality came as no surprise to Israel. They are a
small nation in a sea where sharks like him are swimming around,
and no longer is there criticism of Israel's 1981 bombing of the
Iraqi nuclear facility."
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