Norton Found Help for Homeland Security on Mid-East Trip (1/17/08)

Washington, DC--Fresh from a 10-day trip to the Middle East, Congresswoman Eleanor Holmes Norton (D-DC) issued a statement summarizing her view of a trip that was especially fertile in providing ideas for legislation, assisting her on active homeland security issues, and informing her judgment on important foreign policy issues, particularly President Bush's proposal for an agreement between the Palestinians and Israelis, announced during his recent visit.

Norton traveled, as part of a congressional delegation, to Jordan, Oman, and Egypt, as well as Israel, where she met with Israeli officials and also to Ramallah, the Palestinian capital in the West Bank, to meet with Palestinian Prime Minister Mahmoud Abbas. The motivating principle of the trip was homeland security, with an emphasis on port security in the major trans-shipment (international) ports in Oman and Egypt that are preparing for inspections of all cargo headed for the United States. The inspections are now required by recently enacted homeland security legislation initiated in the Homeland Security Committee, on which Norton serves. However, the six-member delegation was in the Middle East at the same time as President Bush earlier this month, and many geopolitical issues affecting the troubled region assumed equal importance for the delegation. In a trip packed with eye-opening issues, Norton said that the high points for her were discussions in Jerusalem, Ramallah, and the Arab countries concerning the Israeli-Palestinian peace talks proposed by President Bush; the security briefings at the Ben-Gurion Airport; and briefings by United Nations officials concerning Iraqi refugees who seek to relocate to the United States. Since returning, Norton has spoken with Michael Chertoff, Secretary of Homeland Security, concerning the shallow numbers of Iraqis being admitted to the U.S.

Trip's Homeland Security Positives Dimmed by Prospects of Peace on the Ground

Discussions with officials in Egypt and Oman revealed the high value of these allies to our country's homeland security interests. Both countries have pilot programs for screening 100 percent of U.S. bound cargo, much of which converges at the Egyptian port of Alexandria and the Omani port of Salàlah. Exceptional economic relations, friendship, and U.S. aid continue with Oman, Egypt, Jordan and Ramallah, but meetings with foreign ministers in each country cast doubt on the possibility of quick success for a U.S.-led Middle East peace initiative now. Norton was particularly concerned to hear of some deterioration in relations between Israel and Egypt, the two major powers in the region, both parties to the historic peace treaty that emerged under the leadership of President Jimmy Carter. Egyptian Foreign Minister Ahmed Aboul Gheit expressed frustration at an Israeli announcement of new settlements on the West Bank just days after President Bush's recent Arab-Israeli peace summit in Annapolis and at increasing Egyptian-Israeli tension over tunnels between Egypt and Hamas-controlled Gaza, where small arms and other contraband are shipped.

Prospects of a Peace Treaty

In light of what she learned from Arab, Palestinian and Israeli leaders, Norton was surprised that the President used the word "treaty" to describe his goals in the region before leaving office. Beyond criticism in the region's press about the Bush administration's virtual disengagement from the Arab-Israeli conflict for seven years, conditions on the ground are far more complicated than in 2000, when President Clinton came close to negotiating a treaty between the Israelis and the Palestinians before Prime Minister Yasser Arafat rejected it. For example, the delegation was briefed about a surprisingly large number of terrorist incidents that have caused injuries and loss of life in Israel and the details concerning others that were thwarted and not reported. Moreover, information presented in briefings suggested that the Ehud Olmert government is barely held together by a weak coalition, with open threats appearing in the Israeli press from a major right wing provincial leader to leave the government if peace talks proceed, in light of security issues. For Israel, security remains the sine qua non, where compromise would seem impossible, particularly considering that a much stronger Israeli government led by former Prime Minister Ariel Sharon succeeded in withdrawing Israeli settlements from Gaza only to see a takeover there by its most bitter enemy, Hamas, which had been engaged in continuous rocket attacks. At the same time, Israeli settlement expansion in the West Bank Palestinian territory is the parallel, sine qua non, red flag issue for the Palestinians.

The Congresswoman is not sanguine about the next steps in light of current challenges to moving forward. Among the most serious are the absence of a high level diplomatic envoy to prod movement by the parties (only a military "monitor," General William Frasier has been appointed), and the exclusion of Hamas, the source of much of the violence in the region, as a terrorist organization. Nevertheless, the Congresswoman believes that the current effort for peace is an important development, even if it no more than halts backward sliding and especially if small steps of progress result.

Much More Attention Necessary for Israeli Airport Security to Prove Useful

The Congresswoman said that on this trip she learned what she believes is the key to the much-admired Israeli airport security. All airport screeners are part-time Israeli university students. The screener workforce is taken from a specially selected elite educational group, who otherwise would be unavailable to the Israelis for such work. The judgment successfully assigned to Israeli screeners benefit from the innovative idea for obtaining a high level workforce, not likely to be replicated here. At the same time, Norton was disappointed to learn that an important U.S.-Israeli Memorandum of Understanding on airport and other security that could prove useful has not been permanently implemented by the U.S. Department of Homeland Security or assigned permanent staff for its administration. At a recent meeting with Democratic members of the Homeland Security Committee, Norton asked Secretary Chertoff to assign the necessary high level staff.

U.S. Defaults on Iraq's Refugees

Particularly disappointing to the Congresswoman was a briefing in Jordan that showed only token acceptance of refugees and asylum seekers (those who face personal danger if they return to Iraq) by the United States. Because prescreening by the United Nations High Commission on Human Rights (UNHCR) is specifically designed to closely match U.S. refugee requirements in order to avoid rejections, the United States, on average, accepts 80 percent of the UNHCR's recommendations. Nevertheless, the number of refugees considered by the U.S. for entry is remarkably low. For example, Jordan, a very poor country, hosts temporarily 500,000 displaced Iraqis. The United States deserves special credit for its financial assistance that is helping Jordan cope with a temporarily 10 percent increase in population. Most of this increase is due to Iraqis who overstay their visas. However, of the 5,968 Iraqi's submitted by UNHCR from the region, only 1,608 departed for the U.S. in 2007. Norton said that, in effect, the U.S. effort is "virtually non-operational, and considerably below that of our allies." Particularly in light of the U.S. invasion of Iraq and the resulting unique responsibility to accept refugees, the Congresswoman found these figures disheartening. Even considering that the United States, of course, must do its own investigation of refugees, particularly for security reasons, the UNHCR-U.S. refugee match suggests large problems in U.S. operations when measured against the small numbers of refugees accepted. The 2008 budget number for acceptance of Iraqi refugees to the U.S from the region is 12,000. Norton is working on a legislative initiative which she believes may be necessary to come even close to this number, considering the existing shallow Iraqi refugee acceptance record to this country.