Support is brewing from a powerful new quarter — American Jews stepped up efforts this week to persuade a sceptical US Congress.
Jewish support is aided by the growing alliance between India and Israel
NEW YORK: The US business lobby has mobilised as never before over the Indian nuclear deal. So have Indian Americans who are working overtime to win passage of the nuclear pact. Now support is brewing from a powerful new quarter — American Jews stepped up efforts this week to persuade a sceptical US Congress of the benefits of the deal.
Leaders of the influential American Jewish Committee focused their efforts on four key players — Holocaust survivor Congressmen Tom Lantos, a ranking democrat on the House International Relations Committee, Richard G Lugar who is the chairman of the Committee on Foreign Relations, Henry J Hyde who is the chairman of the Committee on International Relations and Joseph R. Biden, a ranking member on the Committee on Foreign Relations.
The backing is important as Jewish financiers, industrialists and media barons have enormous influence over leaders on Capitol Hill. Jewish voters traditionally lean Democratic although President George Bush has gone on a limb to woo the powerful and moneyed Jewish community in the US during his two terms.
In addition to lobbying individual Congressmen, the American Jewish Committee also sent letters to members of the House and Senate urging them to green-light the “pragmatic and forward-looking” bilateral nuclear agreement.
“We believe the overarching benefit of this agreement is strategic. After almost fifty years of misunderstanding, India and the United States are on a path of rapidly increasing cooperation… The US-India nuclear agreement will advance this growing relationship, and is profoundly in America’s national interest,” said the letter signed by Robert Goodkind and D.A Harris from the American Jewish Committee. Indian diplomats immediately read the support as a boost for the nuclear deal as the Jewish lobby in the US has always managed to be forceful as ever in seeing Israel’s interests pursued without serious hindrance in the corridors of American power, especially Congress.
The American Jewish support for the Indian nuclear deal is no doubt aided by the growing alliance between India and Israel which is based predominantly on military and intelligence cooperation. Israel has become the second-largest supplier of arms for India, next only to Russia.
Lobbying efforts have been stepped up across the board by Indian Americans and business groups after Democrat Tom Lantos touched on the Bush administration’s worst fears last week by pointing out at a crucial nuclear hearing in the House International Relations Committee that the current agreement lacked the wide support it needs to move through Congress this year. Acknowledging the resistance, Lantos told the hearing that he “strongly supported” the passage of the nuclear deal but wanted to bridge sharply “polarised views” in Congress by coming out with a “legislative compromise.
Lantos is scheduled to take up his proposal with Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice this week. Lantos’ draft legislation would assure an expedited up or down vote on the agreement only after the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) safeguards agreement with India is finalised.
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