We, at EMET, sincerely express our deep gratitude to 15 US Senators, including Senators Ted Cruz (R-TX), Marco Rubio (R-FL), John Cornyn (R-TX), Lindsey Graham (R-SC), Rick Scott (R-FL), Bill Hagerty (R-TN), Ted Budd (R-NC), Pete Ricketts (R-NE), Tim Scott, (R-SC)Tom Cotton (R-AR), Marsha Blackburn (R-TN), Mike Braun, (R-IN), John Barrasso (R-WY), Jim Risch (R-ID), and Roger Wicker, (R-MS) who had written to President Joe Biden and Secretary of State Antony Blinken on July 11th about discriminatory practices against the state of Israel.
In it, the Senators write: "The guidance does something America has never done before unilaterally impose territorial restrictions on U.S. scientific research aid to Israel. Decades ago, the U.S. and Israel bilaterally agreed to such limits against the backdrop of unique regional conditions, but in 2020, both sides rescinded and rejected them as discriminatory."
The letter comes about as a result of "guidance" for our US agencies to halt any scientific funding or collaborative research between the United States and Israel, if the institutions are based in Judea and Samaria, (the "West Bank"), East Jerusalem, or the Golan Heights. These territories had been captured in Israel's defensive war of 1967. The letter also calls out the administration for not informing Congress about this, and for the fact that they had to learn about this through journalists.
The letter also states that this "guidance", as written, "constitutes an antisemitic boycott against Israel". It goes on to state "The American people and Congress broadly and deeply oppose boycott efforts against Israel, which have been repeatedly defined in U.S. law as efforts to limit commercial with persons doing business in any territories controlled by Israel (see, e.g., 19 USC § 4452(f)(1) and 19 USC § 4201(b)(20)). It goes on to state that according to the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance working definition of antisemitism, this policy holds Israel to a "double standard", which is one long-held example of antisemitism.
Many of these institutions are deeply engaged in medical, scientific, and technological endeavors that not only serve to benefit all of humanity but also employ thousands of Israeli Jews, Palestinians, and Israeli Arabs. As the letter states, "This guidance, in particular, puts Americans' safety, security, and prosperity at risk because it politicizes and undermines cooperation on science and technology, including in areas such as defense and medicine where also our Israeli allies have proven themselves critical partners. It vitiates the neutral, objective criteria that relevant organizations are required by their charters and the law to use when evaluating grants, and potentially force them to act illegally – broadly endangering their ability to continue funding such research on behalf of Americans and Israelis."
This decision had been in effect prior to the previous administration but was reversed by the Trump White House. The letter calls upon the administration to "rescind this discriminatory guidance", and it emphasizes that "any effort to deepen American policies that discriminate between territories Israel controlled before and after June 1967 will risk a full rupture in my/our ability to engage the Department of State on these issues." It goes on to state that "Candidly, it is untenable for State Department officials to continue testifying to Congress that they support the U.S.-Israel relationship and then – once out of view – to push policies designed to undermine that relationship. Without a reversal in these trends, Congressional oversight and the expeditious vetting of nominees would become intractable."
Says Sarah Stern, Founder and President of EMET, "The Biden White House refuses to acknowledge that the Oslo paradigm of "land for peace" is irrevocably broken and that all of the many offers made by the Israelis to the Palestinians have been summarily rejected by Palestinian interlocutors. Today, we are seeing a failed Palestinian leadership and that America's enemy, Iran has taken hold of the major Palestinian resistance groups in the disputed territories. The failure of the State Department to honestly and objectively examine whether or not this paradigm is working indicates a total deficiency of creativity imagination, intellectual honesty, and objectivity."
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