HR 4681
I have mentioned this (HR 4681) inhumane bill before. Looks like there is some action on the bill.
It would be helpful if you could take the suggested action(s) listed below.
You can also click here. (Scroll to bottom of page).
UPDATE
I should add that it is not just the inhumanity of this bill that is so troubling, although that should be enough for you to oppose the bill.
What is also troubling is the costs the bill, and other bills like it, will inflict on the US. This bill will just confirm the US’ bias towards Israel and our inhumanity towards the Palestinians in the eyes of the international community. It will just create more animosity towards the US and towards Israel itself, if that is possible.
This animosity will create costs ranging from the need to invade countries so that they won't be able to attack us (or at least that is the Bush theory) to the safety of the average American tourist. It imperils our access to oil and our ability to trade internationally.
The costs are astronomical. The bill clearly does not serve the interest of the US as a whole.
We should not take the punitive measures proposed in the bill. These measures have virtually no chance of improving negotiations towards a peaceful resolution. Nil.
The provisions of the bill are almost certain, however, to further erode the US' international standing, particularly within the one billion large Islamic community.
This bill makes absolutely no sense when US interests are considered.
There is more information about the bill here.
It would be helpful if you could take the suggested action(s) listed below.
You can also click here. (Scroll to bottom of page).
UPDATE
I should add that it is not just the inhumanity of this bill that is so troubling, although that should be enough for you to oppose the bill.
What is also troubling is the costs the bill, and other bills like it, will inflict on the US. This bill will just confirm the US’ bias towards Israel and our inhumanity towards the Palestinians in the eyes of the international community. It will just create more animosity towards the US and towards Israel itself, if that is possible.
This animosity will create costs ranging from the need to invade countries so that they won't be able to attack us (or at least that is the Bush theory) to the safety of the average American tourist. It imperils our access to oil and our ability to trade internationally.
The costs are astronomical. The bill clearly does not serve the interest of the US as a whole.
We should not take the punitive measures proposed in the bill. These measures have virtually no chance of improving negotiations towards a peaceful resolution. Nil.
The provisions of the bill are almost certain, however, to further erode the US' international standing, particularly within the one billion large Islamic community.
This bill makes absolutely no sense when US interests are considered.
The House International Relations Committee is likely to mark-up House Resolution 4681, the Palestinian Anti-Terrorism Act, in the near future. A mark-up session is when committee members offer and vote on amendments to legislation before it goes to the floor for a full vote.
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Despite the best efforts of AIPAC to push forward this resolution, it is faltering, according to news reports, due in part to your efforts to oppose it.
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On Wednesday, the U.S. Campaign and CNI will deliver a petition to Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen (R-FL), sponsor of H.R. 4681, from people who have written their Members of Congress opposing this resolution. To date, more than 3,000 of our supporters have written their Members of Congress. Our goal is to deliver the petition with at least 5,000 names. Please help us reach our goal by sending a letter to your Members of Congress by clicking here.
Letters must be sent by 9 AM Eastern on Wednesday, March 29, to be included in the petition.
There is more information about the bill here.
posted by Brian at 12:11 PM
1 Comments:
HR 4681 For Terrorism -
Against The Palestinian People
By Terrell E. Arnold
3-28-6
The House of Representatives is about to begin markup on House Resolution 4681, the so-called Palestinian Anti-Terrorism Act of 2006. This bill would prohibit the United States from providing direct assistance to the Palestine Authority unless the President certifies that the Authority has met the subjective and ambiguous conditions outlined below. Markup is the usual step that precedes sending a bill to the floor for a vote. One can ask why this bill is bound for the House floor, when it has no known organized support from the American public, addresses no issue of impact on the welfare of Americans, and flies in the face of the considered views of many American allies.
This bill is moving because it has almost 200 sponsoring members of Congress who have been cozened, promised campaign contributions or intimidated into supporting it by the American Israel Political Affairs Committee and other Israel support groups. AIPAC's immediate weapon is all members of the House are up for reelection in November. For any Member of Congress, the assurance of votes or of campaign funds will be critical in the next few months. An about equal incentive, however, is the fact that AIPAC has funded the defeat of several members of Congress who in the past refused to cooperate by supporting Israeli interests.
HR 4681 is one of the most mischievous pieces of legislation to appear in the Congress in years.
That becomes obvious as its eight stated objectives are examined.
This bill starts by declaring that "It shall be the policy of the United States to support emergence of a democratic Palestinian governing authority that"
1. *denounces and combats terrorism.* The target of this legislation, Hamas, declared and has maintained a truce for more than a year, campaigned successfully in a free and fair election and won a majority in the Palestinian parliament? Isn't that at least a significant step in the desired direction?
2. *has agreed to and is taking action to disarm and dismantle any terrorist agency, network, or facility*. Hamas is supposed to have the authority and will to do those things while under a publicly announced Israeli threat to assassinate its leaders, including the newly designated Prime Minister of Palestine.
3. *has agreed to work to eliminate anti-Israel and anti-Semitic incitement and the commemoration of terrorists in Palestinian society*. And this must be done while Israel continues to confiscate lands, hog water, create roads that are for Israelis only and divide Palestine into fragments where Palestinians are forced by Israeli occupation to live in sub-human conditions. It would be a supreme act of will not to be anti-Israel in these circumstances. Since the Palestinians are Semites, while the Ashkenazi Zionists who persecute them are not Semites, anti-Semitism is actually being practiced on the Palestinians.
4. *has agreed to respect the boundaries and sovereignty of its neighbors.* The only boundary between Israel and Palestine that has international standing, the 1967 Green Line, is constantly violated by Israelis who continue to take additional lands for settlements, while harassing Palestinians to leave the areas of Jerusalem and the Jordan Valley. The likely winners of Israel's March 28 elections have touted their intent to act unilaterally and take all of Palestine.
5. *acknowledges, respects, the human rights of all peoples. *The human rights shoe is on the other foot.* *The Palestinians are expected to accept willingly the status of second class citizenship in Israel for those who live there, and to live under the sub-human conditions imposed by Israeli occupation. By any objective standard, Israel is guilty of continuing war crimes against the Palestinian people.
6. *conducts, free, fair, and transparent elections in compliance with international standards. *In January the Palestinians actually did that, but HR 4681 is designed to undercut a democratically elected Palestinian Authority. The bill declares that because the Palestinians elected leadership that the neighbors or the American Congress do not like, the Palestinian people shall be punished.
7. *ensures institutional and financial transparency and accountability. *The leadership that has a proven track record for doing this happens to be Hamas, but HR 4681 gives no credit.
8. *has agreed to recognize the State of Israel as an independent, sovereign, Jewish, democratic state. *The Palestinians can do nothing to assure Israeli independence, sovereignty, Jewishness, or democracy*; *they can only agree to Israel's right to exist, but in a world of even minimal fairness, Israel would have to give the Palestinians equal recognition.
In short, the entire purpose of HR 4681 is to impose by American legislative fiat a Middle East peace settlement that serves Israeli interests while giving the Palestinians nothing. If the Palestinians comply with this act, they get only a small order of freedom from American harassment. They will remain under the sub human conditions of continuing Israeli occupation and face continuing theft of their lands, no matter what they do.
The most striking feature of this bill is not the electoral support members of Congress undoubtedly have been promised to pass it. The truly nasty feature of the bill is the use of the US Congress by Israeli lobbies to keep Israeli leadership from having to negotiate fairly with the Palestinian people. It is clear to serious Palestine watchers that, if given the chance, Hamas has some ability to push the Israeli-Palestine relationship toward genuine negotiations for the first time ever. Meanwhile, the Israeli elections, whoever wins, are unlikely to yield new Israeli leadership that is willing to negotiate. The more likely outcome is an Israeli leadership that is dedicated to unilateral actions meant to assure eventual Israeli possession of all of Palestine.
Those prospects contain no recipe for Palestinian reform or prosperity. If this bill is passed, and the Palestinian people are subjected to hardships that cause them to reject Hamas--the clear purpose of this act--then the Palestinian/Israeli conflict will continue and eventually grow worse. Frustration will drive more Palestinians into terrorism. Sympathy for them will drive others into support for terrorism or active involvement in terrorist attacks. The international terrorism generator that Palestine has been for decades will be reignited full blast. Under cover of that conflict, Israel will continue to confiscate Palestinian lands until it reaches the Jordan and the Palestinian people are all expelled.
Shame on the US Congress for being a willing party to such a plan.
**********
The writer is the author of the recently published work, _A World Less Safe_, now available on Amazon, and he is a regular columnist on rense.com. He is a retired Senior Foreign Service Officer of the US Department of State whose immediate pre-retirement positions were as Deputy Director of the State Office of Counterterrorism, and as Chairman of the Department of International Studies of the National War College. He will welcome comment at wecanstopit@charter.net
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