As President Bush grapples with how to revive anything like a peace process in the Middle East, Congress is closing in on a narrower objective: to make its support for Israel as visible and compelling as possible.

The official congressional line had been to wait for Secretary of State Colin Powell to return from the region before introducing new legislation or resolutions on the issue. But for weeks, members on both sides of the aisle have been pushing the White House to soften its calls for an Israeli withdrawal from the West Bank and to define the Palestine Liberation Organization as supporting terrorism.

The latest nudging typifies the strong stand lawmakers on Capitol Hill have traditionally taken on the Israeli-Palestinian issue.

Since the founding of the Jewish state more than 50 years ago, support for Israel in Congress has run deep, sometimes acting as a check on administration policy.

Now, as the violence in the Middle East makes the Israeli-Palestinian conflict a central issue again – complicating the war on terrorism – Congress is trying to expand its influence over US policy in the volatile region.

One reason is that many on Capitol Hill see the events of Sept. 11 and the American war on global terrorism as a historic opportunity to reframe the terms of the Mideast debate.

At the same time, the failure of Secretary of State Colin Powell to secure a cease-fire and withdrawal of Israeli forces from West Bank villages and camps could open up a new struggle within the administration over how to proceed, and Congress wants to have a say in how it is resolved.

For many members, the goal is to push the White House toward granting Israel the same freedom that the US claims for itself to wage an all-out fight against terrorism – and to declare that the Palestinian Liberation Organization is a terrorist group.

Support for Israel has never been more intense on Capitol Hill, even as criticism mounts in Europe and the Arab world over the largest Israeli incursion into Palestinian villages and refugee camps since the 1982 invasion of Lebanon.

At issue in Congress is more than a historic friendship with Israel or empathy for the only democracy in the region. Since the Sept. 11 attacks, many members make the case that Israel faces the same terrorist threat as Americans, only it has faced it much longer. A massive lobby effort in recent weeks by Jewish and other pro-Israeli organizations on the Christian right reinforces those claims.

"Americans do not want to be victims again," says Sen. Harry Reid (D) of Nevada, speaking Monday at the largest rally ever held in the US in support of Israel. "Nor can we expect Israel to stand idle while her citizens are being slaughtered."

Page: 1 | 2