Kirk goes to Israel, comes back with new policy approach

As the Obama administration struggles to find common ground with the Israeli government and the Palestinian leadership grapples with internal squabbles, one U.S. senator is proposing a host of ways to deepen cooperation between the United States and Israel.

Sen. Mark Kirk (R-IL) spent last week on what he calls "an intense fact-finding mission to Israel, the Palestinian Authority and Jordan," where he met with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Palestinian Prime Minister Salam Fayyad, Jordan’s King Abdullah II, and many others. In a soon-to-be-released report, obtained in advance by The Cable, he proposes a path forward for increased U.S.-Israeli defense cooperation and lays out his views on how Congress should deal with the thorniest issues of the U.S. approach to the Middle East.

Kirk is proposing an increased role for the Israeli Navy in global anti-piracy operations in the Indian Ocean in cooperation with India. He wants to vastly expand U.S.-Israeli cooperation on cyber security, beyond the suspected cooperation on the Stuxnet worm that has delayed Iran’s uranium enrichment program. Kirk is also calling on the Joint Chiefs to review the possibility of adapting Israel’s "Iron Dome" short-range missile defense system for use by the United States and NATO.

"We are stretched quite thin in the Indian Ocean and to have Israeli support will be critical in managing and reducing the pirate threat," Kirk said in a Tuesday interview with The Cable.

Regarding the stalled Middle East peace process, Kirk maintains that the United States should reaffirm President George W. Bush‘s 2004 letter on borders, which somewhat contradicts Obama’s May 17 statement that borders should be based on 1967 lines with agreed swaps. Obama’s new language for the first time made it official U.S. policy what had long been the Palestinian goal of using the 1967 lines as a basis for new borders.

Kirk’s report also states that U.S. funding should not go to a Palestinian government that includes Hamas, nor should the United States give aid to the Palestinian Authority if it seeks a unilateral declaration of statehood at the United Nations in September or fails to curb anti-Israel incitement in Palestinian schools.

"It just seems extraordinarily difficult in the middle of deficits and debt that we should borrow money from China to fund a Hamas-supported government," Kirk said. "We would still support Palestinian schools and hospitals, but the approximately $200 million in direct support to the PA would be in jeopardy."

Kirk also wants the United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) to start transferring its management of Palestinian health and education services over to the Palestinian government, and for the State Department to designate the Turkish aid organization IHH, which organized the flotilla of ships that tried to breach Israel’s Gaza blockade in May 2010, as a terrorist organization.

On his trip, Kirk also met with Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak, IDF Chief of Staff Benjamin Gantz, Mossad Chief Tamir Pardo, senior advisor to the Israeli Prime Minister Ron Dermer, Israeli Navy commander in chief Vice Admiral Eliezer Marum, Israeli Ministry of Defense Political-Military Bureau Director Amos Gilead, Deputy Israeli Prime Minister and Minister for Strategic Affairs Moshe Ya’alon, Israeli Prime Minister’s Office spokesman Mark Regev, Israeli opposition leader Tzipi Livni, Jewish Agency Chairman Natan Sharansky and Jerusalem Post Palestinian Affairs correspondent Khaled Abu Toameh. 

Human rights in Iran were also a big focus for Kirk on the trip. The senator made a video with Sharansky, a former Soviet dissident, in which Sharansky recited a list of dissidents who are currently imprisoned by the Iranian regime.

You can watch that video here: