Speaker. I join my colleagues this evening in strong support of the loan guarantee request. I find it deeply regrettable that Congress has so far failed to act on the request by Israel to the United States for $10 billion in loan guarantees to assist that nation with the absorption of refugees from Eastern Europe. the former Soviet Union. and Ethiopia. and I am saddened and angered by the administrations posture on this matter. The Israeli loan guarantee request was made on humanitarian grounds. and it should have been treated as such. Instead. last September. the President unwisely linked this humanitarian program with the issue of settlements and the Middle East peace talks. Those who subscribe to this view risk subjecting tens of thousands of Jewish refugees to further persecution and hardship. My question to the President and to my colleagues at this point in history is. have not the Soviet Jews suffered long enough? The rescue of Soviet Jewry is a cause to which just about every Member of this House subscribed during the 1970s and 1980s. It is unfortunate. indeed tragic. that we are now turning away from the commitments that this Congress made when all of us passed the resolutions and signed the letters and did all the things that we did in order to bring to pass this happy day when Jews are able to emigrate more freely. For us to go back on that commitment. by failing to act as we are now doing. is a sorry day indeed for Congress and for the President. Over the past 2 years. Israel has absorbed more than 400.000 immigrants. Clearly. that nation alone cannot shoulder the costs of such a massive population influx. Through the loan guarantee program. Israel is not seeking direct aid. but rather. a costeffective way to meet the immense challenge of providing for the refugees. My Appropriations Subcommittee on Foreign Operations recently held a hearing to assess what costs. if any. might face the U.S. taxpayer if the loan guarantees were approved. The economic witnesses at that hearing. while disagreeing on some aspects of the guarantee request. were unanimous in agreeing that Israels ability to pay back the loans was not in question.
Keywords matched
emigrate immigrants refugees