[Congressional Record Volume 143, Number 33 (Friday, March 14, 1997)]
[Senate]
[Pages S2315-S2316]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                          A TRAGEDY IN JORDAN

  Mr. SPECTER. Mr. President, I came to address the subject of 
independent counsel and, en route, I picked up the morning newspapers. 
I am horrified by what has occurred in Jordan. The headline is blaring: 
``Jordan Soldier Kills Seven Israeli Schoolgirls.''
  The lead report from the Philadelphia Inquirer is:

       A group of Israeli schoolgirls was standing on Peace Island 
     yesterday, overlooking the Jordan River and fields of wild 
     yellow flowers, when a Jordanian soldier opened fire with an 
     assault rifle, killing seven students. Six other pupils were 
     wounded, as girls dove into the bushes and screamed for help.

  After seizing a comrade's M-16 rifle, the soldier fired from an 
observation tower, then descended and chased the screaming junior high 
school girls down a hill firing wildly.
  According to a report in the Washington Post, Rosa Himi, a teacher of 
the Orthodox Jewish school in Beit Shemesh, near Jerusalem, that the 51 
students attended said:

       At the beginning, Jordanian soldiers didn't overpower him 
     and didn't do anything. . .. They even pushed one of our 
     teachers and wouldn't let him near the injured girls to care 
     for them. It is only when he failed to put his second 
     [ammunition] clip in the gun that the other soldiers took 
     him.

  It is really a very shocking turn of events, Mr. President, in 
circumstances where one would almost think we were beyond the point of 
being shocked. There is a sequence of violence that has occurred--
candidly, with both sides--like the event at the tomb of Abraham some 
time ago, where an Israeli fired on people. I suggest that it really 
requires a new level of sober examination as to what is going on in the 
Mideast and what the so-called ``leaders'' in the Mideast are doing 
which is really inflammatory. King Hussein had sent a letter to Prime 
Minister Netanyahu, saying that Prime Minister Netanyahu was engaged in 
the deliberate humiliation of Arabs and was accumulating tragic 
accidents leading to bloodshed and disaster brought about by fear and 
despair. There have already been suggestions from a number of quarters 
that King Hussein was inciting a riot by those inflammatory statements.
  I think it is inappropriate to join that chorus. But I do think that 
King Hussein and others have to tone down the rhetoric and have to be a 
lot more thoughtful than they have been. I know King Hussein--not well, 
but I have had occasion to talk to him when he has been in Washington. 
I talked to him when I have visited in Jordan. I do believe that King 
Hussein is sincere in his efforts for peace.
  The morning press comments about the Crown Prince of Jordan coming to 
the scene and that he was stricken with remorse and grief, as King 
Hussein's statements issued after this tragedy reflected his own view. 
But what is happening in the Mideast requires that there be more 
restraint by people like King Hussein. That, of course, is easy to say 
after the fact. But I think it has to be said.
  We are now seeing a conference in Gaza, sponsored by the Palestinian 
Liberation Organization and Chairman Arafat, where the United States 
has agreed to participate and Israel has been excluded. I joined a 
large group of Senators in writing to President Clinton yesterday, 
urging the President to change his policy on that. In my judgment, and 
in the judgment of many of my colleagues far beyond this Chamber, there 
is a strong view that there ought not to be a conference where Israel 
is excluded. There will be no peace process in the Mideast to which 
Israel is not a party. For Chairman Arafat to convene a group of 
representatives of nations of the world to meet and talk about the 
peace process, which will inevitably involve charges of impropriety by 
Israel because they appear in the international media daily, without 
having Israel as a party to that process and allowing Israel an 
opportunity to reply, it seems to me to be absolutely inexcusable.
  We ought not to be saying that parties in interest, like the 
Palestinians and the PLO, ought to be gathering international strength 
to attack, impugn, or otherwise move against a party to the peace 
process. If there is going to be peace, it is going to have to be 
worked out between the Palestinians and the Israelis. To have this kind 
of conference compounds the tragedy in Jordan, and I do hope, yet, that 
the administration will rethink what it has undertaken to do.

  I know that a good many of these issues come before the Congress, 
come before the Senate, come before the Appropriations Committee, on 
which I serve, and before the Foreign Operations Subcommittee, where we 
are asked to appropriate money. We are now about to be asked to 
appropriate additional funds. The Congress does not have the power that 
the President has to conduct foreign affairs, although we do have 
considerable power in the appropriations process, the power of the 
purse. We are looking at requests for aid to Jordan. In fiscal year 
1997, we gave Jordan $67.1 million. In fiscal year 1998, the President 
has made a request for $74.2 million, an increase of $7.1 million. 
Jordan is also asking for an additional $250 million in funding per 
year over the next 5 years. I have already been lobbied, individually, 
about supporting that increase in funding for Jordan.
  The initial reaction that I had goes back to Jordan's conduct during 
the gulf war, where I and many others in this body, many other 
Americans, and many others around the world were very unhappy--to use a 
very mild term--with what Jordan did in aiding and abetting Iraq and 
Iraq's President, Saddam Hussein. They were complicitous in helping 
Iraq in that war, where American lives were laid on the line and 
American lives were lost.
  A GAO report in February 1992 found specifically that Jordan gave 
Iraq access to American technology, that Jordan shared intelligence 
from the American-led coalition. When that happened, it seemed to me 
that there were strong reasons not to continue to give

[[Page S2316]]

foreign aid to Jordan. Jordan was giving aid and comfort to Saddam 
Hussein at a time of international crisis and war--a war which was 
authorized on this floor in debate that I very well remember back on 
January 10, 11, and 12, 1991--where notice had been given by the U.N. 
resolution that a war would be started on January 15.
  So, speaking for myself on the Appropriations Subcommittee--and we 
make the first cut on aid, and that usually stands up with what the 
Appropriations Subcommittee does--I have grave reservations about aid 
to Jordan, and certainly about increasing aid to Jordan. And now to 
find the sequence of events in Jordan as to what has happened, and it 
follows in sequence, King Hussein's statement, I think that we have to 
be very reflective as to what aid and what American dollars we are 
going to give to Jordan.
  One of the press reports contains a notation that a woman identified 
as the mother of the individual who fired the shots said that her son 
is mentally ill. Now, I don't know whether that is true or not, but I 
do know that if there is an indication of that, it requires an 
investigation and a determination by Jordanian officials, and perhaps 
by an international group, as to why you have somebody identified as 
being mentally ill in a situation to acquire the firepower which led to 
this tragedy. Those are all questions, Mr. President, that I think need 
to be answered.
  When we look at the appropriations process, a commitment has been 
made by the United States to give some $500 million to Palestinian 
authorities. Senator Shelby and I offered a resolution which requires 
as a precondition to that funding that the Palestinians do two specific 
things: No. 1, change their charter which calls for the destruction of 
Israel and exercise efforts to stop terrorists. And I think, Mr. 
President, there is good reason to believe that the Palestinians have 
not fulfilled those requirements. What the Palestinians did was have a 
convention and say that everything in their charter inconsistent with 
the declarations of September 13, 1993--when Chairman Arafat was 
honored at the White House--would be null and void. But that is a long 
way from picking up the charter and specifically rejecting provisions 
of the charter which call for the destruction of Israel. This is 
something which Senator Shelby and I discussed with Chairman Arafat in 
January 1996. This is something that Senator Brown and I discussed with 
Chairman Arafat in Gaza in August 1995. And this is something which a 
group of Senators, including this Senator, discussed with Chairman 
Arafat downstairs in the Capitol last week.
  When these matters are called to Chairman Arafat's attention, he 
brushes them aside. He pooh-poohs them. He says, ``Well, we have 
already done all that needs to be done.'' And the reality is that they 
have not done what the Specter-Shelby amendment calls for.
  When it comes to the issue of fighting terrorism, I think again there 
has been insufficient action. There are terrorists who have been 
identified by Chairman Arafat and the Palestinian authorities who have 
not been turned over to Israel. I personally took a list of those which 
I had obtained and verified. I discussed them with Chairman Arafat. He 
had one excuse after another why that was not done. There are weapons 
in Palestinian-controlled territory which are supposed to have been 
identified and turned over. And that has not been done.
  The President has certified that there has been sufficient compliance 
with the Specter-Shelby amendment. The President can make a 
certification. There is nothing that the U.S. Senate can do about that 
short of the appropriations process. But these are issues which I 
intend to bring to the subcommittee when we take a look at the moneys 
we appropriate this year.
  The President has great authority, but he cannot appropriate money. 
He can veto appropriations bills, but he cannot appropriate money. That 
has to come from the Congress. That has to come from the House and from 
the Senate. When it comes to the funding for Jordan, or when it comes 
to the funding for the Palestinians, and we see them holding this 
meeting this weekend, the President may think that is fine. If he 
thinks that is fine, he can send a U.S. representative. But if the 
appropriators disagree with him, if the Congress disagrees with him, we 
don't have to appropriate money. That has to be taken into account by 
the President when he sets U.S. foreign policy.
  So I make those comments. It is really very, very sad what has gone 
on, for the bloodshed of these seven girls and for the bloodshed which 
previously has occurred. I believe that we need some sober leadership 
to defuse the situation and to understand that there are very, very 
difficult problems facing the parties there. When Prime Minister 
Netanyahu takes steps that he has to withdraw a certain percentage from 
the West Bank, and he does so after a closely contested vote in the 
Israeli Parliament and the Israeli Cabinet, that is about as far as he 
can go. When those actions are rejected by Chairman Arafat, and 
Chairman Arafat gets aid and comfort from the President who criticizes 
what Israel did and from King Hussein who criticizes what Israel did, 
then I suggest that those matters really have to be worked out by the 
parties, and not by long-distance advice from the United States, or 
even short-distance advice from Jordan. But we had better tone down the 
rhetoric.
  We had President Mubarak this week in Washington. He met downstairs 
in the Foreign Relations room. President Mubarak gave some good advice 
to those of us who were listening. It is worth repeating. President 
Mubarak said that the rhetoric ought to be toned down about Jerusalem. 
You have declarations by the Palestinians that Jerusalem is the 
inviolate capital of the Palestinians and that the Palestinians are 
going to assert and succeed in that. And you have rhetoric at a high 
level by the Israelis saying that Jerusalem will be undivided and will 
not be a matter for Palestinian influence.
  What President Mubarak was saying is, let's stop the rhetoric. Let's 
stop the declarations which incite people in the area. Let's tone down 
that rhetoric. And I think that is very good advice, indeed.

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