Brit Tzedek v'Shalom

Jewish Alliance for Justice and Peace

Washington Jewish Week

January 20, 2006

by James D. Besser

Jewish and pro-Israel groups were increasingly panicky this week as congressional leaders from both parties prepared competing proposals for lobbying reform, and backers of bills already in the hopper were getting ready for the return of lawmakers at the end of the month.

While pro-Israel groups are not a specific target of the reformers, concern is growing that new revelations in the Jack Abramoff affair could ultimately produce provisions that will hurt issues advocacy groups.

Already in the works were major lobby reform bills by Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) and Rep. Chris Shays (R-Conn.), a completing bill by Sen. Russ Feingold (D-Wisc.) and a “good government” bill by Rep. David Obey (D-Wisc.) that includes provisions dealing with lobbyists.

On Tuesday the House Democratic leadership unveiled a serious of “principles” to guide lobby reform; House Speaker Dennis Hastert (R-Ill.) offered up a more detailed Republican plan.

Both emphasize things like closing the “revolving door” between Congress and big lobbying firms and barring gifts to members of Congress, including meals, fancy skyboxes at sporting events — an Abramoff favorite — and lobby-sponsored travel.

It’s the travel that has many pro-Israel groups worried. Dozens of members of Congress, governors, mayors and other officials are brought to Israel every year by these groups, a mode of lobbying considered particularly effective.

The Obey bill goes the furthest in limiting lobby-sponsored trips. Most such travel would not be affected by the leadership proposals, since trips are paid for by charitable affiliates of these groups. But as the Abramoff scandal intensifies and more information is revealed about Abramoff’s use of charitable entities to sponsor trips, Jewish leaders are privately worried.

“There’s a real feeling that with all the tumult in Congress, what emerges could be more sweeping, and ultimately make it harder for groups to offer Israel travel,” said an official with one major Jewish group. “We don’t believe anybody in the leadership is targeting what we do, but we also realize this could be a runaway issue.”

A congressional staffer said Jewish groups are “just waking up” to the potential for legislation cutting into their activities.

“So far, [Jewish and pro-Israel] groups have not done a good job explaining to the public what they do and how that is different from what Jack Abramoff did,” this staffer said.

Gilbert Kahn, a Kean University political scientist, said Jewish groups are right to be concerned that frenzied debate driven by public outrage over Abramoff and his congressional buddies could produce provisions limiting legitimate lobbying, but cautioned that “this is very early in the process. It’s very difficult to anticipate how energized the movement for reform will be.”

Kahn said the other big controversy swirling around Capitol Hill — the Bush administration’s domestic spying programs—will compete for lawmakers’ attention, possibly slowing the lobby reform drive.

Livni Well-Connected

Tzipi Livni, the newly appointed foreign minister of Israel, may not be a household name, but the former Likudnik who joined Prime Minister Ariel Sharon in his new centrist Kadima Party has friends where it counts in Washington: at the highest levels of the State Department.

U.S. and Israeli sources say Livni — an attorney, former Mossad official and until recently Israel’s justice minister, has developed strong working ties with a number of top administration officials, starting with Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice.

Livni replaces Silvan Shalom, who resigned Monday as part of the government shakeup that began when Sharon, now in a coma in a Jerusalem hospital, left his Likud Party and formed Kadima.

Shalom was regarded as a nonentity in Washington, said a longtime pro-Israel lobbyist.

He was “a minister who never even gained the respect of his own ministry,” this source said. “Now you’re going to someone who comes with a solid reputation for substance and good connections here. With Tzipi, you’re going from a featherweight to a heavyweight.”

Abraham Foxman, national director of the Anti-Defamation League, said that “in the last few years, with the prime minister’s acquiescence, [Livni] has developed strong relations in Washington. This is a positive development even before she takes over. For the U.S., she is a known quantity.”

Another known quantity was in Washington this week for a handful of meetings with administration officials, Mideast experts and some Jewish groups.

Shimon Peres, the former leader of the Labor Party and now a major figure in Kadima, was expected to talk with Rice late Wednesday about the “road map,” the possibility of new unilateral Israeli withdrawals and his government’s options for dealing with the Palestinians if Hamas gains a strong toehold in the Palestinian Authority in next week’s parliamentary elections.

Also on the agenda: new U.S. aid to help develop Gaza and the Negev, a topic also raised in a meeting with World Bank President Paul Wolfowitz.

Peres also took a couple of side trips. In Texas he met with former Secretary of State James Baker III, and in New York he sat down with former President Bill Clinton.

Peres also met with a small group of political leaders and Mideast activists at a dinner Tuesday sponsored by the Center for Mideast Peace.

Liberals Mum on Suicide Ruling

Orthodox groups reacted with indignation to the Supreme Court decision Tuesday upholding Oregon’s first-in-the-nation assisted suicide law. Liberal Jewish groups, on the other side of most hot-button debates, reacted not at all.

Several Jewish activists said the 6-3 decision will add some extra heat to the raging fight over the nomination of Samuel Alito to the high court.

The justices ruled that former Attorney General John Ashcroft overstepped his authority in claiming federal law prohibited the distribution of certain drugs to assist in suicides.

Oregon’s “Death with Dignity Act,” the only law of its kind, has been the target of conservative groups, which say it establishes a precedent that could spawn similar laws in other states.

Three justices dissented: Justices Antonin Scalia and Justice Clarence Thomas, and the new chief justice, John Roberts.

That points to the precarious ideological balance of the court today, said Sammie Moshenberg, Washington director for the National Council of Jewish Women.

“If anybody had any illusions that John Roberts would be in the moderate majority on the court, this decision provides an early glimpse that this is not true,” Moshenberg said. “And it makes the Alito nomination even more critical; if he is confirmed, the balance on the court will be seriously skewed to the right.”

But NCJW, which opposed Roberts and opposes Alito, did not take a position on the Oregon case. The American Jewish Committee, the American Jewish Congress and the Reform movement also sat out the case.

Not the Orthodox Union and Agudath Israel of America, holding down the Orthodox side of the Jewish spectrum.

“We are deeply disappointed in the consequences of the Supreme Court’s ‘assisted suicide’ ruling,” said Abba Cohen, Washington director for Agudah. “The Bush administration surely did the right thing when it challenged the Oregon statute.”

In a statement, Nathan Diament, the OU Washington director, said that “for millennia, Judaism has taught the infinite value and sanctity of human life and that we must seek to preserve it, while at the same time taking all responsible measures to comfort the ill. The Bible instructs us to ‘surely heal’ the ill, not to speed their departure from this earth.”

Diament said the ruling “merely opens a new chapter in the debate over the legitimacy of assisted suicide.”

“We are determined to join with our coalition partners and those in Congress who recognize the dangers of assisted suicide,” he said, “and work to enact legislation which will promote the values of caring properly for the ill.”

New Peace Group In Town

Another Mideast peace group has set up shop in Washington.

On Tuesday Brit Tzedek v’Shalom, the Jewish Alliance for Justice and Peace, held a Capitol Hill reception marking the opening of its office here. The group had actually opened for business six weeks ago.

Brit Tzedek has expressed opposition to Israel’s security barrier and says it favors direct peace negotiations, not unilateral actions like last summer’s Gaza withdrawal.

With Americans for Peace Now and the Israel Policy Forum already established in Washington, where does Brit Tzedek fit in?

“We feel there is a real niche for us by virtue of being a genuine grassroots group,” said Rob Levy, the group’s Washington representative, claiming Brit Tzedek has more than 30,000 members in 32 chapters.

Levy said one goal of the office here is to “mobilize the Jewish community to be effective advocates for vigorous U.S. involvement in bringing Israel and the Palestinians back to the negotiating table.”

He said the group has been generating grassroots support for a congressional letter by Reps. Henry Hyde (R-Ill.) and Lois Capps (D-Calif.) thanking Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice for her intervention in winning an agreement on Gaza border crossings.

That resolution was first promoted by Americans for Peace Now; Capitol Hill sources say all three Jewish peace groups have made the letter a priority.

Levy said he foresees strong cooperation with the other peace groups.

“We’re working with IPF and APN,” he said. “Together we’re building an American Jewish peace movement and taking it to the next level.

“An overwhelming majority of American Jews support a two-state solution and greater U.S. par5ticipation. We’re just trying to give a microphone to that silent majority.”

Levy is a South Jersey native who previously worked for the Religious Action Center of Reform Judaism and former New Jersey Sen. Jon Corzine, now that state’s governor.