Lincoln Chafee: “I would like to explain to my colleagues why I will be voting against this legislation. As chairman of the Foreign…”

“I would like to explain to my colleagues why I will be voting against this legislation. As chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee's Near East Subcommittee, I have come to appreciate the great importance of U.S. leadership in working to restart the Middle East peace process. In recent visits to the region--the West Bank, Jordan, Iraq, Turkey and Afghanistan--I heard a uniform chorus in these Arab and Muslim nations that active United States involvement was urgently needed to halt the continuing violence between Israel and the Palestinians. I regret that this administration has not actively responded to these pleas for peace. I have also learned that our disinterest in becoming involved in Middle East peace has contributed to the sharply declining image of the United States in the Arab/Muslim world. Indeed, according to the recently released report of the Advisory Group on Public Diplomacy for the Arab and Muslim World--``the Djerejian report''--hostility toward America has reached shocking levels, and the bottom has fallen out of Arab and Muslim support for the United States.”