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Congressional Record—Senate S11834 S11834 CONGRESSIONAL RECORD Ð SENATE September 30, 1996 we cannot, I hope our leadership will tention to that so we do not get into a This makes us pause as we see a dem- keep us throughout the week until situation where at the last minute we onstration of what might occur if the each of these vitally important initia- have no alternative but to say yes or peace process goes forward and if there tives has become the law of the land so no to such a massive bill. Or, when the is great authority for the PLO, the Pal- we can go home and tell the American extraordinary procedure is used of hav- estinian Liberation Organization, now people we have started to change the ing a conference report, either to say known as the Palestinian Authority, as course in which this country is going. yes or no without any amendment to what they may hope or seek to ac- We are shifting it to a better and more there. complish with a separate Palestinian responsible and more responsive direc- I have spoken on this at some great state. That certainly is not part of the tion, but we need more than 2 years to length on Saturday, the day before yes- agreement on the Oslo Accords. make up for all of the follies of the last terday, Mr. President, and at that time A few months after the signing on two to four decades. With that, I rec- expressed my concern about a proce- the White House lawn of September 13, ommend the passage of this bill. dure which blurred the lines of separa- 1993, I and others from this body went I yield the floor. tion of powers between the Congress, to take a look at what was happening, Mr. SPECTER. Mr. President, I have which is supposed to do the appropria- and we had a chance to meet with sought recognition to comment on the tions, then sending a bill to the Presi- Chairman Arafat, had a chance to visit pending legislation as we approach in dent for his consideration, and a proce- Jericho and Gaza, and we saw the flags the course of some 11 hours the end of dure in which the Chief of Staff, rep- of a Palestinian state which was al- the fiscal year at 12 o'clock midnight. resenting the executive branch, was ready being assumed when the ink was We are faced with an appropriations party to negotiations with Congress be- barely dry on the Oslo Accords signed a process which I believe has severely un- fore the bill was passed. This was an few months earlier. That was not what dermined what we are supposed to be aberration, really a corruption, of the was intended. doing as legislators. constitutional process of separation of Now we have a de facto Palestinian I just heard my distinguished col- powers, where each House acts, there is state with a police force estimated be- league, Senator GORTON, make a com- a conference, we send a bill to the tween 30,000 and 40,000, which is a veri- ment about the price we are paying for President, and he makes the decision, table army. That context, I submit, what he considers to be extra appro- signing or not, and then the Congress Mr. President, is simply an intolerable priations on certain lines because we has the power to override. situation. have not had an opportunity to con- What we have really seen, as I said at Going back to September 13, 1993, sider the items in detail. I agree with great length on Saturday, is a proce- when I saw Arafat honored on the him about that. My suggestion is we dure where we have had the delegation White House Lawn, it was a very, very are paying even a higher price because of the President's authority to the difficult day considering that this was we have not permitted the appropria- Chief of Staff, with it being impossible the man who was implicated in the tions process to run its course because for the President to know what was murder of the United States charge in of the political differences and the very being agreed to on his behalf, again, I the Sudan in 1974. This is the man who deterioration of our Senate process. think, raising serious constitutional was implicated in massive killings and It was illustrated on the Interior ap- questions as to whether the President terrorism against Israel. This is the propriations bill where the majority may delegate the authority in that man who led the hijacking of the leader had to take down the bill be- way. Achille Lauro leading to the murder of cause of maneuveringÐone side trying f Mr. Klinghoffer, who was pushed off the deck of the Achille Lauro in his to gain an advantage on some politi- FOREIGN AID cally popular items like education, wheelchair. It was pretty hard to sit on Mr. SPECTER. Mr. President, I now the White House Lawn and watch that something I have long supported in my want to comment for a moment or two capacity as chairman of the Appropria- man honored. about one aspect of the appropriations It seemed to me that if Prime Min- tions Subcommittee which deals with process. That is the issue of foreign ister Rabin and then Foreign Minister appropriations. Then the bill which I aid, which is tied into U.S. policy in Peres were willing to shake Arafat's have the chairmanship of, Labor, the Mideast, and what is happening hand, considering that Israel had suf- Health, Human Services, and Edu- today in Israel and the conflict be- fered the most at the hands of PLO cation, was never brought to the floor tween Israel and the Palestinians, the atrocities, then the United States because of insufficient time and be- PLO and the forthcoming summit with ought to try to be helpful. cause of the determination that the leaders from the Mideast, which is to But now we see that a summit is bill could not be enacted in due course. be held in Washington tomorrow and planned. And, as this morning's press Instead, we have come to a situation the day after. quotes, Arafat is betting that Prime where everything is rolled into one om- I commented on this issue on Satur- Minister Netanyahu will come under nibus appropriations bill, which is a day as well, Mr. President. It is my pressure from President Clinton. If this take-it-or-leave-it proposition, with hope that the parties, Israel and the is the case, I think it is time to rethink the alternative being to close down the Palestinian Authority, will be able to precisely what we are doing. Government. The procedural posture work out their problems. They are now Israel voted for the Likud-Netanyahu today is that there is a second measure coming to Washington with additional government this past election express- which can come before the Senate leaders from the Mideast in an over- ing their concerns for security. It is which is the Department of Defense tone which may suggest pressure on very easy for people thousands of miles conference report where the omnibus the parties, pressure specifically on away from the locale to say, ``Well, appropriations bill has been rolled in, Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu. there ought to be pressure, and there as well as the immigration bill, which It is my view, Mr. President, that it ought to be in effect a determination, would not even allow an opportunity is intolerable to have a situation where if not a dictation, as to what the Is- for amendment during consideration of the Palestinians are firing on Israeli raeli elected officials ought to do.'' any of the individual items if that is to soldiers. The Palestinians are firing on It is my sense that Prime Minister be called up as the order of the day. Israeli soldiers with rifles and ammuni- Netanyahu can hold his own and make It is my hope, Mr. President, when tion provided by the Israelis, pursuant decisions for himself. But it is also my we reconvene for the 105th Congress, to the Oslo Accords, so that the Pal- sense that there ought to be a state- we will take a look and change the estinian police can contain the areas in ment made that the situation is intol- rules of the Senate to prohibit bringing Gaza and the other areas in which they erable with the Palestinians firing on up extraneous, nongermane matters on have been given a limited amount of Israeli soldiers, and that the United appropriations bills. If that were to be local authority. There was never any States ought not to exert pressure as the case, when we consider Interior, it intention that those Palestinian police to what the Israelis are to do in terms is an Interior bill alone. When we con- were to be an army to engage in what of their own security. sider Labor, Health, Human Services, is, in effect, virtual warfare against the I had a chance to meet with Chair- and Education, we then direct our at- State of Israel. man Arafat last month in Gaza. And September 30, 1996 CONGRESSIONAL RECORD Ð SENATE S11835 when he asked about aid from the Unit- we go through that quite often and were eight rows. Back in those days, ed States, I reminded him about the quite often we vote on things that we every time you missed a spelling word, provisions of our law which require the have not read in their entirety.
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