Mr. President. 3 weeks ago. the senior Senator from Hawaii and I discussed an amendment that would relieve the plight of Soviet and Ethiopian refugees in Israel. The amendment is cosponsored by 68 of our colleagues. meaning with Senator INOUYE and myself we have 70 sponsors of this amendment. This represents overwhelming support for this proposal. There can be no doubt: Our amendment deserves this support. After all. for two decades. it has been a key goal of American foreign policy to liberate Soviet Jewry from Communist oppression. The bipartisan policy calling for free immigration of Soviet Jews was begun by the late Senator Henry Jackson with his historic JacksonVanik amendment. and has remained a foreign policy cornerstone for every administration since Nixon. At long last. with the collapse of the Soviet Union and its Communist tyranny. our 20year effort has succeeded. Since 1989. nearly 350.000 Soviet Jews have immigrated to Israel. and it is estimated that the total will reach 1 ml. lion by the end of 1995. "Next year in Jerusalem" is no longer merely a noble wish. it is a reality. the result of longstanding American policies. Now that we have succeeded in achieving our bipartisan goal. it would be unconscionable for us to flinch from our responsibility for the consequences. The scope of this current immigration is unlike anything Israel has seen since World War H and the creation of the State of Israel in 1948. It represents an increase of almost 25 percent over the current population. For the last two decades of the cold war.
Keywords matched
immigration immigrated refugees