[Congressional Record Volume 144, Number 60 (Wednesday, May 13, 1998)]
[Senate]
[Pages S4837-S4839]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                CELEBRATION OF ISRAEL'S 50TH ANNIVERSARY

  Mr. FEINGOLD. Mr. President, during the last few days, both in Israel 
and around the world, Jews and millions of others have been celebrating 
the 50th anniversary of the birth of Israel. A celebration of Israel is 
a celebration of democracy, prosperity, faith and the fulfillment of 
the dream of a Jewish homeland.
  It was on May 14, 1948, that David Ben-Gurion announced Israel's 
birth to the world. Fifty years later, Israel is a mature state--a 
survivor of wars, assassinations and painful regional conflicts. And 
Israel has not only survived, it has prospered and thrived.
  It has bloomed in the desert, taking root against seemingly 
impossible odds.
  But it does not surprise us, for we know that overcoming the 
insurmountable is the story of the Jewish people. Examples of Israel's 
achievements abound: it is a world leader in developing agricultural 
techniques for arid climates, and in harnessing the power of solar 
energy.
  Ben-Gurion believed that Israel could lead the world to a better 
future by marrying the ethical teachings of the ancients with the 
discoveries of modern science. ``It is only by the integration of the 
two,'' he wrote, ``that the blessings of both can flourish.''
  Israel ranks among the most advanced economies in the world, and is a 
vigorous democracy in a region of largely authoritarian regimes. Voter 
turnout for Israel's 1996 elections were about 80 percent, a high 
turnout by any standard, and one that surpasses and challenges the 
United States, which had just 49 percent turnout that same year. And 
Israel has successfully resettled Jewish immigrants from the former 
Soviet Republics and across the globe, including absorbing 680,000 
immigrants during a three year period. The culture of Israel is equally 
vibrant, as Israelis have drawn on their dramatic personal and national 
histories to create invaluable contributions to the arts.
  At 50, Israel has character, strength and dignity. Of course, like 
anyone who reaches 50, Israel is also experiencing something of a mid-
life crisis.
  As Israelis take stock of their achievements at this important moment 
in their history, they find problems yet to be solved and many goals 
yet to be reached. Israel has not yet made peace with all of her 
neighbors, and difficult decisions about how to achieve peace, or 
whether to continue to, at this point, seek peace at all, are causing 
painful rifts in Israeli society.
  Personally, I look at Israel from many perspectives--as an American, 
as a Jew, as a United States Senator and as a member of the Senate 
Foreign Relations Committee.
  As an American, I see Israel as a staunch ally and friend. As a Jew, 
I see a spiritual homeland, a place where all Jews have a claim, a 
right to belong. Israel is an oasis of faith for Jews in every corner 
of the world. As a United States Senator and member of the Senate's 
Foreign Relations Committee, I take a deep interest in Israel and the 
Middle East peace process.

[[Page S4838]]

  I first visited Israel when I was 19 years old. My father and mother 
took me as a way to educate me about the importance of Israel, and the 
trip had an enormously powerful impact on me. I returned two more 
times, in 1976 and 1977, while I was a student at Oxford University.
  My strongest memory of that last trip was our visit to the Western 
Wall, when I brushed up against a soldier carrying a machine gun under 
his jacket. It was then that I felt for the first time, through the 
cold steel of a weapon, what it was like to exist in a society where 
the threat of violence was a constant. At the time, I hoped upon my 
next return to Israel that there would be peace in the region--never 
realizing that we would find ourselves in the stalemate we are in today 
so many years later. For these 21 years since then, I was unable to 
return to Israel except for one time and one time only--and then only 
for 10 hours--for the sad occasion of Yitzhak Rabin's funeral in 
November 1995.
  I went as a very young man and returned much changed--I had become a 
Senator, a husband and a father--but was still awed by the powerful 
presence of faith and hope, violence and conflict that still 
characterize the Jewish state today.
  In between these visits, I had the opportunity to study the evolving 
relationship between Israel and the United States for a paper I did for 
a history course at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. To research 
this paper, I read all the comments of Members of Congress in the 
Congressional Record concerning Israel for the years 1948, 1956, 1967 
and 1973, and analyzed how those comments reflected a changing 
definition of U.S. interests in the region from the birth of Israel, 
through the Suez Crisis, the Six Day War and the Yom Kippur War.
  In 1948, most of the talk was about the need for a homeland for the 
Jewish people, especially after the Holocaust. In 1956, that talk 
shifted to describing Israel as a blooming democracy; a small outpost 
of democratic values in the midst of a non-democratic region. In 1967, 
Israel was the non-aggressive dove who triumphed in a hostile 
environment. By 1973, my predecessors had shifted to speaking of Israel 
in a very positive geopolitical and national security terms.
  Today, I add my own remarks about Israel to the long chronicle of the 
American-Israeli relationship in the Congressional Record to those of 
my predecessors who came to speak in times of crisis and triumph for 
Israel.
  The U.S. has played a pivotal role in Israel's history, and our 
relationship has been a strong one from the beginning. Within minutes 
of Ben-Gurion's announcement of the birth of Israel, President Harry 
Truman recognized the fledgling state. Prior to Israel's founding, 
between the end of the Second World War and May 14, 1948, official U.S. 
support for a Jewish state was largely grounded in the desire to help 
re-settle hundreds of thousands of Jewish refugees, displaced people 
and survivors of the Holocaust.
  From May 14, 1948, until today, America could always count on Israel 
as an island of democracy and stability in an area of the world not 
altogether familiar with either concept.
  The presence of a secure and vital Israel, in and of itself, is in 
America's interests.
  For many years, those interests included containment of Soviet 
expansion into the Middle East, securing access to the region's oil for 
the industrialized nations of the West, promoting market economies and 
democratic institutions and safeguarding Israel's national security. As 
the inter-relationship between Israel and the United States has 
developed, matured and adapted to political and economic developments, 
so too has American policy. During the tenure of President Jimmy 
Carter, for example, America was very active in the Middle East peace 
process, culminating in the signing of the Camp David accords.
  During the first Reagan term, the administration's priorities of 
combating terrorism, promoting cooperative security and confronting 
Soviet expansion found common ground with the perspectives of Prime 
Ministers Begin and Shamir, and, in general, those closer relations 
survived the policy differences arising over the Lebanon war in 1982. 
Ties between Israel and the United States grew stronger during 
President Reagan's second term, including the signing of several 
precedent-setting strategic and cooperative defense agreements.
  During the early Bush years, U.S.-Israel relations were marked again 
by tension caused by some policy disagreements, but tension eased in 
1990 when--amid Iraqi threats against Israel generated by the Persian 
Gulf crisis--President Bush repeated the U.S. commitment to Israel's 
security. Confidence in U.S. support was a primary factor in Israel's 
decision not to retaliate against Iraq for its Scud missile attacks.
  Of course, the first year of the Clinton administration saw the 
historic signing on the White House lawn of the Declaration of 
Principles establishing the goals and framework for peace talks. On 
September 13, 1993, the world watched with hope and trepidation as 
Prime Minister Rabin and Yasser Arafat inaugurated a new era in the 
Middle East. This would soon be followed by two other major peace 
agreements: the May 1994 Gaza-Jericho Agreement that provided for 
Palestinian control over the Gaza Strip and the environs of Jericho 
after an Israeli withdrawal, and the September 1995 Interim Agreement 
that set a timetable and an agenda for final status negotiations.
  The Palestinians and Israelis have also agreed to other arrangements, 
such as the Israeli withdrawal from six Palestinian cities in December 
1995, and the Palestinian elections in January 1996.
  As much as we hoped the historic moment on the White House lawn would 
bring an end to terrorism, bloodshed and occupation, we all knew just 
as well that the road to peace would not be that simple. Years of 
bitter experience also told us the road would not be that short.
  But 1994 and 1995 were relatively good years. The peace process was 
progressing, and, by late 1995, it seemed relations between Rabin and 
Arafat were warming. Then, of course, as we can never forget, extremism 
struck again with the assassination of Yitzhak Rabin by a Jewish 
radical. It is important to note that this was a terrorist attack like 
so many in the new Middle East, where extremism and violence of every 
stripe lashes out against any sign of peace and tolerance.
  Today, this extremism and violence present perhaps the greatest and 
most persistent threat to peace.
  Just before he died, Rabin said, ``Peace is the future.'' We must 
remain faithful to the memory of Rabin and all those who had the 
courage and the abiding discipline to put ancient hatreds aside and 
made peace their priority, because Rabin had no illusions about the 
difficulty of the peace process.
  Someone who witnessed Rabin in a meeting on the peace process said to 
the prime minister, ``I can see I'm talking to the converted.'' Rabin's 
reply was, ``You're talking to the committed, not the converted.'' It 
was commitment that peace required of him and requires of all of us.
  As we look forward to Israel's next 50 years, we must be able to look 
forward to a future that gives every Israeli, and every Jew, a peaceful 
homeland. But the Palestinians are also clearly key to peace in the 
region, and that is why it is so important to get the current 
negotiations back on track.
  Although our priorities and perceptions on the path to peace 
sometimes differ, America and Israel have, by and large, moved forward 
together, and I believe that partnership will continue. Earlier this 
month, in honor of this 50th anniversary, Congress unanimously passed a 
resolution which read, in part, ``The United States commends the people 
of Israel for their remarkable achievements in building a new state and 
a pluralistic democratic society in the Middle East in the face of 
terrorism, hostility and belligerence by many of her neighbors.'' The 
resolution reaffirmed the bonds of friendship between Israel and the 
U.S., and extended best wishes for a peaceful, prosperous and 
successful future.
  The key to continued success and prosperity in Israel will be a 
lasting peace, and the United States clearly has an interest in taking 
an active role in the peace process, as it has done throughout the 
years.
  Helping facilitate the peace process is one facet of U.S. relations 
with

[[Page S4839]]

Israel, and another is foreign assistance. Since 1976, Israel has been 
the largest recipient of U.S. foreign assistance. Over the past 10 
years, Israel has annually received about $3 billion in economic and 
military grants, refugee settlement assistance, and other aid, from the 
United States.
  Recently, we have seen a movement to gradually reduce that level of 
aid, beginning with the declaration by Prime Minister Netanyahu that 
Israel should reduce its dependence on the United States when he 
addressed a joint session of Congress two years ago. Negotiations have 
since been conducted with the goal of reducing the overall level of 
American assistance and to gradually phase out economic aid while 
increasing military aid.
  Specifically, the Clinton administration and the Congress are 
currently reviewing an Israeli proposal to reduce the $1.2 billion in 
U.S. economic assistance to Israel to zero over 10 years, and to 
increase U.S. military aid to Israel from $1.8 billion to $2.4 billion 
per year. I am intrigued by this idea, and am glad to see Israel taking 
the lead in this regard. Israel has recognized that in its 50-year 
history, it has made enormous strides in economic development and, as a 
result, now boasts a relatively healthy economy. At the same time, 
Israel recognizes--as I think we all do--that it still faces a 
substantial security threat, and so must maintain a robust military and 
access to state-of-the-art weaponry.
  The proposal to change our aid relationship reflects this reality. It 
is an Israeli plan, and as such reflects Israeli priorities, including 
a desire to decrease its dependence on the United States, and boost its 
own self-sufficiency. I am concerned about potential unintended 
consequences of hasty action by the Congress, and so, I, along with 
others in this body are still considering our legislative response. But 
by and large I believe these are worthy goals that we should support, 
just as we have supported Israel in the past.
  Ben-Gurion envisioned many achievements for Israel, including one I 
mentioned earlier, the idea of building a successful nation by marrying 
scientific advances with ancient Hebrew traditions. He believed that by 
drawing on the strength, wisdom and skill of a nation of faith and 
accomplishment, Israel could build a lasting peace with its neighbors.
  Israel deserves that peace at last.
  Just over 100 years ago, the First Zionist Congress convened in 
Basel, Switzerland. Under the leadership of Theodore Herzl, the 
participants announced their desire to reestablish a Jewish homeland in 
the historic land of Israel. Herzl once said that ``If you will it, it 
is not a dream.''
  Israel is a testament to the will of a people who believed those 
words and proved them true.
  It would be 51 years until the dream expressed at the First Zionist 
Congress would become reality, until Holocaust survivors and other Jews 
persecuted around the world could have a homeland where they could seek 
refuge and build a life. And 50 years after that founding, Israel has 
taken root in the desert soil and it has thrived.
  The United States has built an alliance and friendship with Israel 
that has enriched American life and helped Israel thrive, and I hope 
that partnership will continue for the next 50 years and beyond. But as 
Israelis well know and all of us must recognize, the dream of those at 
the First Zionist Congress and of other Jews for centuries, to have a 
homeland, cannot be truly fulfilled until peace is attained.
  Violence and conflict are a constant threat to the people of Israel, 
and to the Nation of Israel itself. As we celebrate the 50th 
anniversary of the birth of Israel, we have every right to wish for 
something more. Not just for a Jewish homeland, but a homeland at 
peace.
  As Theodore Herzl said, ``If you will it, it is not a 
dream.''

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