News
Port Deal Slammed By Jewish Groups
By Marc Perelman
February 24, 2006
The Bush administration’s decision to hand over control of American ports is drawing criticism from three Jewish organizations generally aligned with the White House on foreign-policy issues.
B’nai B’rith International essentially reprised the arguments raised by many Democratic and Republican lawmakers who argue that the decision puts the country at risk by granting control to a country with a mixed record on terrorism. The Jewish Institute for National Security Affairs took a wider approach, arguing that no foreign-owned firms should be permitted to run American ports. After reports emerged that the Dubai company taking over the ports has backed the Arab boycott of Israel, the Anti-Defamation League also spoke out against the bill.
In a statement released Wednesday, Tom Neumann, Jinsa’s executive director, said that such foreign control amounted to a “fox guarding the henhouse” and should be avoided altogether.
“It’s a terrible political decision, and it’s a terrible security decision,” Neumann told the Forward.
In an effort to head off criticism, the White House’s public liaison office sent a memo out to “Jewish leaders.” The memo detailed the bilateral ties between America and the United Arab Emirates, quoting Bush’s earlier description of the UAE “as an ally in the War on Terror.”
Last week, the ADL said it did not have a position on the issue. But Tuesday, the ADL’s national director, Abraham Foxman, said that “Dubai continues to be an active partner in the economic boycott of Israel” and that is “reason enough to suspend or even cancel the implementation of the contract [for the operation of the seaports].”
Foxman said that “even if solutions are found for the other problems, the administration and Congress must demand that Dubai formally renounce its participation in the boycott of Israel in order to be worthy of a contract with the American government.”
In its statement, B’nai B’rith echoed the most prevalent lines of criticism being raised against the deal.
“In this post-9/11 age of terrorism, the United States can’t take any chances with its assets,” stated the group’s president, Joel Kaplan. “When you allow a foreign nation — and a nation known to have harbored anti-American and anti-Israel terrorists — to take control of one of your most valuable resources, you leave your country and the world vulnerable. There is no compelling reason to take this risk.
“Surely there are American companies capable [of] and interested in managing these ports. We need to look internally first, to better ensure the security of our nation in these tenuous times.”
Jinsa also expressed concern over the general lack of attention to the issue. But instead of calling for additional funding, it objected to the “lack of concern” over foreign control. It noted that the Department of Homeland Security still was trying to determine the ownership of terminal management in all 361 American ports, and that Chinese companies were running terminals at two major West Coast ports and in New Orleans — where America imports most of its fuel. The organization questioned why there hadn’t been scrutiny of the original British company “when there are probably as many jihadists in Britain today as there are in Dubai?”
“The issue of Dubai Ports World owning the firm running U.S. ports has led me to conclude that it is time to have a real policy to protect the management of our ports from all foreign ownership,” Neumann said in the Jinsa statement.