Few observers believe the current Israeli-Palestinian peace push will amount to much, but a powerful Republican congresswoman wants to make sure the Bush administration does not push too hard.

Late last week the office of Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen (R-Fla.) – the ranking Republican on the House Foreign Affairs Committee – floated new legislation imposing sanctions on the Palestinian Authority.

And in an alert to colleagues, Ros-Lehtinen's staff made the goals of the expected bill explicit: "To counter attempts by [Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and the State Department] to deal with unity [government] and send assistance to non-Hamas members of unity government," according to a memo by a top aid to the lawmaker.

Last year, Congress adopted a version of the Palestinian Anti-Terrorism Act passed by the Senate, which included greater flexibility for the president in dealing with the Palestinian government than a tougher House bill.

Now, Ros-Lehtinen plans to introduce legislation that will take "current law and bring it to the threshold of the House-passed PATA," according to the memo.

That's fine with some pro-Israel groups that worry about slippage in the strong U.S. opposition to Hamas involvement in the Palestinian Authority, and it comes after reports that U.S. aid to humanitarian projects in Gaza and the West Bank has increased despite into sanctions.

U.S. humanitarian assistance to the Palestinians has increased from 2005 levels, from $400 million to $460 million. Palestinian finance minister Salam Fayyad is scheduled to travel to Europe early this month to press for a resumption of European Union aid in the wake of the creation of a Hamas-Fatah unity government in March.

But groups on the Left say the proposed legislation is really aimed at undercutting U.S. peace efforts, which have been ratcheted up a notch with Rice's fourth trip to the region last week.

"It's a pointless exercise designed to do nothing more than try to thwart Secretary Rice," said MJ Rosenberg, Washington director for the Israel Policy Forum. "The Senate rejected this language last year, when the Republicans were in control, and they will certainly reject it this time around."

Jewish groups are focusing on preserving funding for a handful of key programs as congressional appropriators get serious about hammering out a budget for the next fiscal year without ruffling the feathers of too many voters.

Late last week the House passed a $2.9 trillion Democratic budget outline that increases both military and domestic spending but still predicts a budget surplus by 2012. The Senate has passed a similar proposal.

A broad coalition of groups are insisting that Congress not cut the beleaguered Social Services Block Grant and Community Services Block Grant programs, food stamps, the State Children's Health Insurance Program, and the Low Income Heating Energy Assistance Program.

Those programs, according to a letter to Congress signed by a long list of Jewish groups, are "critical to the elderly, refugees, children, and persons with disabilities."

William Daroff, vice president for public policy of the United Jewish Communities, said his group is also fighting $10 billion in cuts to Medicare home-healthcare providers called for in the Bush administration budget proposal and cuts in skilled nursing reimbursements that would have "a devastating impact on Jewish aging facilities across the country."

At the same time, few Jewish groups are wading into the fray over broader policy debates that will determine whether there is enough money in the federal budget to pay for maintaining those programs.

That includes the fight over extending recent tax cuts and the Democratic proposal for PAYGO (pay-as-you-go) budgeting, which requires cuts to offset any spending increases.

"It's an exceedingly difficult job for the Democrats – trying to support the domestic priorities they've outlined, but also being committed to pay-as-you-go rules," said Hadar Susskind, Washington director for the Jewish Council for Pubic Affairs. "There needs to be an understanding among advocacy groups that we won't get everything we want."

Jewish groups are zeroing in only on key programs, not on what could be a seismic shift in budget policies.

But the National Council of Jewish Women has said publicly what many Jewish leaders believe privately: Recent tax cuts have created a situation in which big program cuts will be difficult to avoid.

"Tax cuts are draining federal funding," said NCJW Washington director Sammie Moshenberg. "But the good news is that while we'd like to see more money available for human service spending, this budget includes a lot more than previous ones."

Daroff of the UJC pointed to another thing missing from the current budget debate.

"The real question is the extent to which the budget process did not address in any meaningful way the coming avalanche of baby boomers as they edge toward retirement," he said. "This is a bipartisan failing, a bicameral failing, and a failing at both ends of Pennsylvania Avenue."

The implications for an already-overburdened Jewish social service network are huge, he said.

Now that the House and Senate have passed their broad budget outlines, the hard work of hammering out appropriations bills and working with a White House that has very different budget priorities begins.

A top Jewish Republican won't be getting a plum ambassadorial post after all.

Last week the White House withdrew the nomination of Sam Fox, a St. Louis businessman and a longtime leader of the Republican Jewish Coalition, as ambassador to Belgium. The reason: mounting Democratic opposition to the nomination because of Fox's $50,000 contribution to Swift Boat Veterans for Truth, the group that claimed in ads that Sen. John Kerry (D-Mass.), running against President Bush in 2004, had exaggerated his Vietnam War record.

That campaign may have helped ensure Kerry's defeat, but to many critics and most Democrats it represented a new low-water mark in the partisan wars.

The White House yanked the nomination just before a scheduled vote by the Foreign Relations Committee, of which Kerry is a senior member.

As the Senate debate over the nomination neared, a group of Kerry's former Vietnam comrades wrote to members of the committee saying that "those who finance smears and lies of combat veterans don't deserve to represent America on the world stage."

Sen. Chris Dodd (D-Conn.), himself a contender for the 2008 Democratic presidential nomination, said he would oppose Fox's confirmation.

"U.S. ambassadors need to be both responsible and credible, and Mr. Fox's support for an organization known to have spread falsehoods illustrates neither," Dodd said in a statement.

White House spokeswoman Dana Perino said that "the president believes that Mr. Fox is qualified to serve as ambassador to Belgium. He has a proven record of leadership and a strong willingness to serve our country. He has a long list of accomplishments, including one of them being named the St. Louis Citizen of the Year.

Perino blamed the failed nomination on "partisan politics," and said that Bush did not know about the controversial contribution to the political hit group.

In response to continuing complaints from Jewish students about intimidation and bias at colleges across the country, the Israel on Campus Coalition last week issued a report arguing that academic freedom must be balanced by a "responsibilities-based approach to ensuring the rights of all campus constituents."

The report argues that the current intellectual framework for discussing controversial topics on campus "is not effective" because it focuses only on academic freedom and avoiding legal repercussions for not granting it to all.

"A campus that places either academic freedom or legal compliance above all other concerns gives short shirt to its self-imposed values," the report argues.

Instead, students, faculty and administration must all recognize that "the way to ensure their rights is to accept accompanying responsibilities," according to the report.

The report calls for the creation of "local academic freedom task forces" and for the creation of "clear, workable guidelines for filing grievances."

And the report tries to carve out a role for "off campus constituencies" – such as pro-Israel groups that want to offset the influence of an active pro-Palestinian presence.

ICC director David Harris called the report a "tool box to help fashion an academic space that is as free of bias as possible, but that allows the discussion of a number of controversial, highly charged issues. Israel is only one of them."

He said the document will be "shared with every university president in America, with our Jewish community partners, and with other academic stakeholders."

He said he hopes it will serve as a "stepping off point for starting discussions at academic conferences and elsewhere; it's meant to raise the conversation up a notch or two in academia."