Israel is on freshman lawmakers' to-do list

This story ran on nwitimes.com on Sunday, December 3, 2006 12:11 AM CST

By Alana Y. Price and Lindsay Blakely
Times Washington Bureau

WASHINGTON | New office on Capitol Hill? Check. Orientation to congressional protocols? Check. All-expense paid trip to Israel? Add that to the freshman lawmaker's calendar.

Next year first-term members of Congress could be initiated into an unofficial Washington tradition -- flying to Israel, one of the top foreign destinations for privately sponsored congressional travel. Every two years -- the years between elections -- the American Israel Education Foundation invites House and Senate members to gain firsthand knowledge about a region they will influence through legislation.

The education foundation is a nonprofit arm of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee -- AIPAC, one of the most powerful lobbies in Washington. A 2005 National Journal survey of congressional insiders ranked AIPAC second most influential lobbying group among Democratic lawmakers and fourth among Republicans.

The pro-Israel organization made headlines in August when two of its former lobbyists were charged with conspiring to pass on national defense information to the Israeli government.

AIPAC's education foundation is the third largest private sponsor of congressional travel, having spent more than $1.5 million sending lawmakers and their staffers on trips since Jan. 1, 2000, according to a Medill News Service analysis of travel disclosure forms from 2000 through mid-August 2006. Most of the trips -- worth nearly $1.4 million -- were to Israel.

"Being on the ground in Israel, seeing the terrain, being there in person provides the perspective that one can't get from being in classrooms and reading media coverage," AIPAC spokesman Josh Block said.

Block declined to provide a full itinerary for any trip, saying AIPAC does not customarily release such agendas to the public. But he said a typical trip would include meetings with Israeli and Palestinian elected officials, academicians and journalists.

A trip three years ago included an afternoon at a Holocaust Memorial and visits with then-Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, then-Palestinian Authority Prime Minister Mahmoud Abbas and the U.S. ambassador to Israel, according to Block.

Rep. Steve Israel, D-N.Y., who went on the trip, said that new members of Congress who accompanied him were shocked by Israel's small size.

"Many realized for the first time that their districts were bigger" than Israel, he said. "Why would Israel [ever] want to give up land? They could never see that unless they went."

The American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee urges lawmakers to go see what life is like for Palestinians, but generally can't afford to pay for the congressional trips, said spokesman Tony Kutayli.