Congress Racing to Isolate a Hamas Regime

WASHINGTON - Congress is moving quickly in the face of Hamas's victory in the Palestinian elections to slash American funding for the Palestinian Authority and the United Nations and ensure that America moves to isolate the new regime.

Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, a Republican of Florida, will introduce House legislation this week to slash American funding to the Palestinian Authority and the United Nations; designate the Palestinian Authority as a "terrorist sanctuary," and close down some Palestinian Authority offices in America as part of a reduction of Palestinian-American diplomatic ties.

The bill would be the first official move in Washington toward cutting funding to the Hamas-controlled Palestinian Authority, as concern about the terrorist organization's electoral victory has prompted increasingly vocal calls on Capitol Hill to stop aid to the Palestinian Arabs.

The bill is expected to be introduced tomorrow when the House reconvenes for President Bush's State of the Union address, and will start in the House International Relations Committee. Ms. Ros-Lehtinen is chairwoman of the committee's Subcommittee on the Middle East and Central Asia, which has congressional jurisdiction over the Palestinian Authority.

"Abu Mazen and the PA leadership were given numerous opportunities to prove what they're made of - to prove that they're committed to peace and security," Ms. Ros-Lehtinen said yesterday of Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas of the Fatah Party, also known as Abu Mazen. "They showed their stripes. Even after Israel withdrew from Gaza, they refused to disarm Hamas and other terrorists, and they allowed them to gain strength.

"We must ensure that taxpayer funds are not used to assist, directly or indirectly, those who carry out terrorist attacks and those who allow these attacks to continue by doing nothing to combat terror," the congresswoman said.

According to senior congressional staff familiar with the legislation, Ms. Ros-Lehtinen's bill is a comprehensive crackdown on American aid to and interactions with a terrorist-controlled Palestinian Authority or Palestinian Legislative Council. The bill would "prohibit direct assistance to the PA, the PLC, municipalities, and other constituent elements that are 'governed' by individuals associated with Hamas or other terrorist entities," according to a "Dear Colleague" letter obtained by The New York Sun that will begin circulating in Congress today as an invitation to potential co-sponsors. America is contributing about $150 million in aid to the Palestinian government this year.

The legislation would also "audit all committees, offices, and commissions focused on the Palestinian agenda at the United Nations and recommend for their elimination," according to the letter. Ms. Ros-Lehtinen's bill would slash American U.N. contributions proportional to the amount spent by the United Nations on aid to Palestinian Arabs, and on Palestinian Authority-related programs. The Sun reported last week that the U.N. spends about $3.5 million a year on such activities; America shoulders about 22% of the U.N.'s operating costs.

Requests for comment yesterday from the United Nations about the proposed funding cut were not responded to immediately.

According to staff, the House legislation also would reduce America's ties to and interactions with a Hamasled Palestinian Authority, in order both to signal America's unwillingness to deal with terrorists and to protect America from possible terrorist activity conducted under the guise of official Palestinian Authority business here.

The bill would, for example, prohibit the State Department from issuing visas to all members or agents of foreign terrorist organizations, eliminating loopholes that might allow Hamas leaders to enter America to conduct diplomatic business as elected officials. The bill also would call for a reduction in America's diplomatic ties with the Palestinian Authority, and call for its diplomatic offices in Washington to be shut down, urging that American diplomatic business be conducted either in the Palestinian territories or through the Palestinian U.N. mission in New York.

In addition to slashing aid and severing some diplomatic connections, the bill would designate the Palestinian Authority a "terrorist sanctuary," under the terms of the 2004 "9/11 Recommendations Implementation Act." The act, pursuant to the recommendations of the 9/11 Commission, adds to the State Department's state sponsors of terrorism list a separate designation for countries that knowingly harbor terrorists. "Terrorist sanctuaries" are subjected to sanctions applied against state sponsors of terrorism, in cluding prohibitions against foreign aid and restrictions on trade and financial transactions.

"You are either with us or against us on the war on terror," Ms. Ros-Lehtinen said yesterday. "I think the response of Abu Mazen and the PA leadership relating to Hamas clearly shows where they are."

A New York Democrat who has long advocated de-funding the Palestinian Authority, Rep. Anthony Weiner, told the Sun yesterday that he thought some of the measures articulated by Ms. Ros-Lehtinen would enjoy broad, bipartisan support in Congress as more lawmakers come to recognize that America's "propping up" the PA has been "wrongheaded."

"The only thing surprising about this is how unsurprising this is - that we're in the problem with this aid," Mr. Weiner said. "It has been based on the wrong foundation ever since it started back in the days of Oslo. It hasn't brought us a more pro-U.S. state of mind there. It hasn't brought us a more peaceful region. It hasn't brought us, arguably, improved services to the Palestinian people."

Yet Mr. Weiner cautioned that while support for cutting funding to the Palestinian Authority is high on Capitol Hill, it is uncertain whether the authority to slash diplomatic aid and ties rest with Congress as part of its power of the purse, or with the White House as part of the executive's power to set foreign policy.

"At the end of the day, the State Department has to come around on this stuff," Mr. Weiner said. The congressman added that he has begun circulating a letter to Mr. Bush requesting that his budget proposal next month exclude any funding for the Palestinian Authority.

Ms. Ros-Lehtinen and Mr. Weiner have been joined in their calls by Rep. Vito Fossella, a Republican of New York, who last week urged America to stop funding the Palestinian Arabs until Hamas pledges to disarm its militant wing. And yesterday, in a series of statements on political talk shows and in other press outlets, Republican Senators Hagel and Frist, of Nebraska and Tennessee, and Senator Obama, a Democrat of Illinois, all said American aid to the Palestinian Arabs should be cut until and unless Hamas disarms and ceases its support for the destruction of Israel.

The chairman of the Democratic National Committee, Howard Dean, too, said Mr. Bush should be supported in reducing aid. The president has indicated that American assistance to the Palestinian Authority should be withheld after last week's elections, in which Hamas won 76 of the 132 seats in the Palestinian Legislative Council, until the terrorist organization disarms.

A scholar of Israel and the Middle East, and a former board member of the United States Institute of Peace, Daniel Pipes, said yesterday that while it is important for America to cut funding both to protect taxpayer money and signal its unwillingness to recognize terrorist authority, he doubts that any withholding measures by the federal government will affect the Palestinian Arabs' anti-Israel mind-set.

"I'm skeptical that given the type of momentum that exists, that it will make much difference," Mr. Pipes, who also writes a column for the Sun, said. "I see the Palestinian body politic as deeply radicalized, deeply hostile, and deeply problematic. I note, for example, that virtually every delegate elected to the legislative council rejects the existence of Israel."

"There are more fundamental shifts that need to take place. And I see a hiccup here," Mr. Pipes said of the calls to slash aid. "I don't see a fundamental shift."