Rep. Sonny Callahan, who died Friday, helped stabilize the Middle East

MOBILE, Alabama — All too often, once-powerful U.S. representatives are less remembered in history books than their Senate counterparts. Republican former Alabama Rep. H.L. “Sonny” Callahan, who died Friday at age 88, is one worth remembering.

Because the East Coast cognoscenti tend to look down on Alabama, very few Washington know-it-alls would have predicted that a former 18-wheeler driver from the heart of Dixie would have been the driving force behind a major, successful shift in the U.S. foreign aid packages to Israel (especially) and Egypt. Yet, that’s what Callahan did from his perch in the mid-1990s as the chairman of the House Appropriations Subcommittee on Foreign Operations.

The shift involved phasing out long-running U.S. economic aid to Israel while increasing (by a somewhat lesser amount, but still increasing) U.S. military assistance. The key goal of the concentration on military assistance was to keep building Israel’s “qualitative military edge” over surrounding nations — an edge Israel uses to discourage attacks in the first place, thus maintaining peace with otherwise hostile nation-states.

“The Israeli military is more digitized, mechanized, and advanced in large part due to America’s commitment to supporting Israel’s QME,” said Jonathan Schanzer, the senior vice president of the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, in a Saturday interview. “Israel’s is a small military, but it punches well above its weight relative to other militaries in the region.”

As numerous news accounts noted at the time, Callahan largely worked out the shift in direct dealings with then-and-future Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. As Callahan’s chief of staff (and later, congressional successor) Jo Bonner recounted in a 2010 tribute, one time this entailed Callahan making a late-night flight all the way to Israel to meet with Netanyahu despite President Bill Clinton’s doubts that the plan was achievable. Another time (as I remember being told contemporaneously), it involved Callahan staying up past midnight (due to the time difference between Washington and the Middle East) for the key, three-way call with Netanyahu and a top negotiator for Egypt, which also needed to buy in to the new approach.

Callahan was dogged. Then again, he was also a congressman known for spreading fun and making others laugh. Hence another story from Bonner, who noted in a television interview Friday that Callahan had been an avid card player. Callahan was in a game with the Supreme Court chief justice and several House and Senate members when Secretary of State Madeleine Albright and Netanyahu called from Israel for more discussions. It fell to Bonner to interrupt the game so his boss could talk to Albright — but when he did, Callahan had a “really good hand” that Bonner remembers as perhaps a royal flush. Callahan showed Bonner his cards and said, “Tell her I’ll call her back.”

In sum, though, the new approach to aid was finalized, and it has been one of the factors that has worked through the years to protect Israel and, despite flare-ups involving the Hamas terrorists, stabilize the Jewish state’s relationships with much of the Arab world.

In all, Callahan, a Navy veteran, served for 12 years in the Alabama Legislature and 18 years in Congress, where he followed his stint heading the foreign operations subcommittee with one chairing the subcommittee on energy and water development. A solidly conservative Republican, he nonetheless was gregarious in a way that helped him work well with Democrats, too, to pass appropriations bills.

As one of the congressmen most popular with colleagues and staff, he just flat-out “got things done.” R.I.P. to Sonny Callahan, a good man who served his state and country well.