November 6, 2000 Vol. 2, No. 37

This Week in Washington...

For more information, contact Reva Price, Washington Representative at rprice@thejcpa.org

Middle East Peace on White House Agenda: President Clinton will meet this week with Palestinian Authority Chairman Yasser Arafat on Thursday and Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak on Sunday to see whether it is possible to pursue the three-part agreement reached at the Sharm el-Sheik summit (an end to the violence, establishing an American-supervised committee to examine recent events and exploring ways to get back to the negotiating table). With the Senate in recess for another week, there is still time to contact Senators and urge support of the "Peace Through Negotiations Act." We hope that the legislation, which opposes a unilateral declaration of statehood by the Palestinians, will come to the Senate floor next week. The legislation has gone through several incarnations as well as bill numbers and currently has 54 cosponsors. Call your Senators and urge them to vote for the bill (now S.3250) when they return! Contact rprice@thejcpa.org for more information.

If It Walks Like a Duck…It Must Be the 106^th Congress: So that legislators could make it home for midnight hour campaigning, Congress last week put off the completion of their work until after the election. The newest continuing resolution keeps the government operating until November 14^th. The first order of business on their return from election recess (the House on November 13, the Senate November 14 ) will be yet another "CR" to keep the government functioning until the appropriations process is completed. At stake in the "lame duck session" are five still unsigned fiscal 2001 spending bills. The President has threatened to veto the Commerce, Justice, State Appropriations bill because it did not contain several of his priority initiatives including immigration and hate crime provisions. Funding for Education priorities including new teachers and school construction is one of the provisions keeping the Labor, HHS, Education Appropriations bill from completion.

This Week in New York…

For more information, contact Benita Gayle-Almeleh, Senior Community Consultant at bga@thejcpa.org

Get out the Vote…Get on the Phone for Analysis and Insight: After you’ve pulled the lever or punched your computer ballot, join us for a coast-to-coast conference call offering analysis and insight on Election 2000. This joint JCPA/ UJC call will be held Wednesday, November 8th at 2:30 pm EST. The call in number is 877-797-1770 (toll free) and the password is "post election" or "Jewish Council for Public Affairs".Our reference number is 2263748. Hannah Rosenthal and Diana Aviv will be the moderators.

GA News: A host of JCPA leaders and professionals will be participating in next week’s GA in Chicago. For a quick summary of events of particular interest to the community relations field, contact bga@thejcpa.org. In the meantime, mark your datebooks and join us at JCPA’s reception on Monday, November 13^th at 4:30 p.m. in the Monarch Suite, East Tower, Room 3475. Many thanks to Jewish United Fund of Metropolitan Chicago for their assistance.

October Meeting Followup: Do you need copies of the the JCPA statements on Anti-Jewish Rhetoric and Violence and on the Middle East Crisis adopted at the October 30^th Board meeting? Contact bga@thejcpa.org.

Plenum 2001 brochures are available….have you sent in your registration yet? February 24 – 28 2001 in Washington, D.C. is the place to be. Already confirmed: Knesset Speaker Avraham Burg…Red Cross President Dr. Bernadine Healy.