The subcommittees have been assigned for the House International Relations Committee and Senate Foreign Relations Committee of the 109^th Congress, and are posted for your convenience on CMEP’s website at: http://www.cmep.org/GovContacts.html. While these members, and those on the Foreign Operations subcommittees of the House and Senate Appropriations Committees, are most engaged in Israel-Palestinian issues, each member of Congress is or can be important. The House International Relations Committee held a hearing last Thursday on "The Way Forward in the Middle East”. The comments, posted below, by Rep. Jim Leach (R-IA) show the refreshingly new climate in Congress.  

I realize that most of you are not able to come to Washington for the March 11-14 Advocacy Days.  CMEP encourages meetings with Representatives and Senators in their local office during the Spring District Work Break March 18-April 4.  Advocacy meetings at local offices are considered to be very effective, and an advocate is more likely to actually meet with the Member. CMEP’s Email Network will receive (on Wednesday March 16^th) the same talking points and advocacy message that is used in Washington on March 14 so that your advocacy will reinforce the advocacy done on Capitol Hill. Below is guidance on preparing for a meeting and scheduling an appointment.

Holding a meeting at a Representative or Senator's local office:

Identify at least two other church leaders (lay or clergy) who are also committed to Israeli-Palestinian peace and are willing to join a meeting with your member of Congress or staff.  Check schedules with each other.

Only one person should set up the meeting.  Here are step-by-step instructions to do so:

1. After finding the information for the local offices of your Representative and/or Senators, call the office and find out the fax number for the office and the name of the person who schedules appointments for the member.  (Alternatively, you may be able to check their website for contact information.)

2. Fax a brief letter to the scheduler's attention requesting an appointment.  It could read something like the following:
"On behalf of several local church leaders and Churches for Middle East Peace, I write to request a meeting with you while you are at home during the Spring Work Break.  At this meeting we would like to discuss the importance of Congress showing support for the steps that both the Palestinian Authority and Israeli government are making. Besides myself, the persons who would like to discuss this with you are (names, titles and church affiliations or other credentials.)  I will be in touch in the next few days to see what time might work best.  If you or your scheduler have any questions or require additional information, please contact me at xxx-xxx-xxxx.  My colleagues and I look forward to meeting with you on this very timely issue."

3. Follow up a day later by calling and asking to speak with the scheduler.  Tell him or her who you are, your affiliation and that you are calling to follow up on the request you faxed the previous day for meeting with Sen./Rep. Xxxxx.

4. If after your attempts, the scheduler states that the member will be unable to meet with you, request that a senior staffperson in the office meet with your delegation.
 

Rep. Jim Leach comments at the House International Relations Committee hearing:

Following are closing comments made by Rep. Leach (R-IA), acting at that time as Chair of the Feb. 10 House International Relations Committee hearing on "The Way Forward in the Middle East," and following presentations by Henry Kissinger and panelists Dennis Ross (Washington Institute for Near East Policy), Ziad Asali (American Task Force on Palestine), and Danielle Pletka (American Enterprise Institute):

"At the risk of presumption, let me sum up briefly, not exactly from the committee but from one member's perspective. We've had three very forceful presentations about the need for action today. We've had some very interesting and topical observations from Ms. Pletka that indicate some skepticism.
 
 "I would just like to stress, foreign policy is a conjunction of good timing and good policy. When this administration came into office, it was very concerned that [at] the end of the Clinton Administration, an effort was made that was very well intended, but on the president's time table to make an agreement, it didn't work, and this administration felt it was premature.
 
 "My own view was that they were half right.  That the president tried to do an arrangement on his timetable, but he wasn't premature; he was tardy. And he was late.  For whatever reasons, right now is an opportunity. I think it is as Secretary Kissinger said, as Ambassador Ross says, as Dr. Asali says, it is an opportunity that shouldn't be missed, and if it's missed, the consequences are terrifying for Israel and Palestine, and they're very bad for the United States of America. This is an issue principally between Israel and Palestine, but there should be no doubt the United States has a vested interest in resolving this issue for our sake as well as people of the region.
 
 "And there's grounds for skepticism, but to be cynical misreads the times. We have no choice but to move with a great deal of [wariness], but also with some sense of doing the right thing in the right kind of way.
 
 "Finally, let me just stress, in America to borrow phraseology from a corporation, process is our most important product. We have to lead the process. We cannot abandon it. Now it may be very interestingly that one of the awkwardnesses of the late Clinton efforts that we respect so much was we didn't involve the Arab world as much as we should have. And it is quite possible that was a mistake we made, and so how we integrate the Gulf States is critical. How we integrate Egypt is critical, and having just been to Cairo, I will tell you I'm impressed that Egypt is moving very forthrightly to help the process, and we should commend that.
 
 "What the role of the so-called Quartet is, nobody knows, but hopefully it can be positive. But this process issue must be dealt with, and if we were to abandon it or not lead it, the difficulties would be horrendous. In any regard, I think we've received seminal testimony today. I think the parameters of what Dr. Kissinger outlined are extraordinary, and they betoken prospects for hopefulness, and the Congress has to be part of it, and whether or not some funds are imperfectly distributed, for the Congress not to act, to assist Palestine at the administration's request, would be a mistake of seminal proportions. This Congress is committed to peace, and that is the way it has to be. And it's in our interest; it's in the interest of people in the region; and hopefully the parties will think it. And if this opportunity is lost, we all suffer."