EDITORIAL
Guilt of 'Re-Assessors:'
An Appeal to Reason
to the American People
After four months of secretly conducted negotiations on the
status of the disengagement of military forces in the Sinai desert,
the haze is vanishing and it is becoming clearer by the day that
diplomatic blundering has increased rather than diminished ani-
mosities in the Middle East.
After four months of pressures on Israel to keep making con-
Pr–sion upon concession, with little evidence that similar ap-
_ches for amicable agreements have been pursued in dealings
the Egyptian ruler, it has become apparent that the "even-
handedness" that became a vehicle for compulsions broached to
Israel and the claims of a necessity for "reassessment" have mul-
tiplied blunders.
The experiences of the last two weeks have begun to cast
doubt on the sincerity of the friendship-makers in our nation's
capital.
Now it has become a vital necessity to re-examine the atti-
tudes of the White House and the State Department and to
challenge the policy of reassessment which began with the
Ford-Sadat meeting in Salzburg.
President Gerald Ford now owes an explanation to those seri-
ously affected by the developments in the Middle East why a reas-
sessment was being imposed in dealings with Israel without a
similar reassessment of the attitudes applied to Egypt and other
Arab states.
This newspaper has refrained, consistently, from giving cred-
ence to suspicions that stem from the "anger" which had begun to
affect White House views after the meeting with the charmer An-
war el Sadat in Salzburg. The President's sincerity is not ques-
tioned. But his judgment has become suspect and it is now una-
voidably necessary to acknowledge the blunders, stemming from
the White House and State Department, which must be held re-
sponsible for the dangers that are holding Israel captive in an
embattled and agonized state of insecurity.
White House and State Department policies of condoning
excessive arming of Arab and Moslem states, which have com-
bined an Islamic union of threats to Israel's existence, spell
danger for the entire Middle East and perhaps all mankind.
The proposals for arms provisions for Hussein who has asked
for them as a basis for his being able thereby to join Syria in
another war on Israel can no longer be viewed as a blunder. It is
sheer immorality, and it must be linked with the immorality of
one-sided reassessment which has developed as a nucleus for a
strangulation of Israel and prevention of an accord that might
lead to an assurance of a cessation of warfare, even if a peace
agreement remains temporarily hopeless.
While consummation of the Jordanian proposal by the Ad-
ministration has been delayed for some weeks, anticipation of its
renewal after the congressional recess does not augur well for
concern that added war threats be eliminated on Israel's borders.
The mere fact that. King Hussein has given warning that he will
not concede to reduced military aid and that he'll "turn else-
where" — meaning the USSR — for an added arsenal points to an
escalation of a menacing situation that can and should be averted.
Sadat's speech, at a time when he still hesitated to comply
with the United Nations Security Council request that he agree to
the retention of the UN Emergency Force in the Sinai buffer zone,
in which he spoke of Israel as a dagger in the Arab back, should
have elicited a Presidential rebuke on a par with rebukes report-
edly hurled at Israel. It was not forthcoming. Israel a dagger in
the Middle East? Little Israel with a population of 3,500,000
amidst 150,000,000 enemies, in some 10,000 square miles of terri-
tory in a vast continent of millions of miles, strewn with wealth,
as Arab possessions? Israel an empire when it is hardly visible on
the world map?
But the words not to be forgotten, those of Sadat: as spo-
ken to the only political party functioning in Egypt, the Arab
Socialist Union, (Democracy, where is thy sting?) were: "If
negotiation is in our interest we will do it. If war is in our
interest, then we shall fight."
If Israel had spoken in this vein, how would the White House
sess it? Since Israel pleads only for peace and keeps offering
ce after slice of occupied territory, is reassessment still the one-
sided policy imposed upon Israel by President Ford? When will U.
S. assessment be truly even-handed and fair? How can President
Ford and Secretary of State Kissinger defend their plan to arm
Jordan so that Hussein may provide an army and munitions for
Syria?
Fair play and justice as the basic American ideals demand
adherence and respect and are not the prerogatives for diplomatic
expediency. Justice in an embattled area, fairness to Israel, reten-
tion of American-Israel friendship provide an appeal to reason to
all Americans to demand an end to the kind of assessment that
leads to war. A partisanship in the Middle East could spell disas-
ter for the American position rin assurance of genuine demo-
cratic statesmanship is vital for the nations involved, for peace
urgently needed by Arabs as well as Israel, and for the American
position in that part of the world. Let there be an end to vacilla-
tions and to one-sided politicizing, and may the power of public
opinion by Americans of all faiths serve to guide the present
administration in Washington and the heads of our government
to avoid blunders and to enforce a positive program of fairness
rather than a one-sided reassessment that has increased the ago-
nies on an unnecessary battlefront.
Warnings against escalating indifference and com-
placency over threats to Jewry marked the address of
Robert St. John, noted author and lecturer, at the 46th
annual convention of the National Federation of Jewish
Men's Clubs at the Concord Hotel, Sunday, in Lake
Kiamesha, N.Y. The text of his address and his propos-
als for survival are on Page 56.
Complacency Deplored
in Robert St. John's
Proposals for Solidarity
THE JEWISH NEWS
tx 4
A Weekly Review
VOL. LXVII, No. 21
of Jewish Events
17515 W. 9 Mile Rd., Southfield, Mich. 48075
August 1, 1975
Concessions Appear at End;
Pressures and UN Threats
Draws Firm Israel Stance
TEL AVIV (JTA) — Foreign Minister Yigal Allon said Tuesday that if the Arabs and their allies
succeed in having Israel expelled from the United Nations he would propose to the government that
all UN activities in Israel and in all areas concerning Israel, be suspended. He said this would include
the role of the UN at Geneva, the United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA), all UN activi-
ties in the administered territories and the presence of the UN High Commissioner's house in
Jerusalem.
A move to oust Israel from the UN should concern Israel's neighbors and the Soviet Union, Allon
declared in a television interview. He said the USSR cannot expect that Israel would agree to its
playing any part in the Geneva peace conference or any other arena if it is not openly against the
exclusion of Israel from the UN.
According to Allon, although the Russians loudly support the Arab outster move in their
Arabic propaganda, they have privately expressed a negative attitude toward the Arab-spon-
sored move against Israel in the world organization.
Allon said that although the Arabs and their Communist bloc and Third World allies command
the preponderance of votes in the General Assembly, their ouster moves are far from assured of
success.
He disclosed that Israel has approached friendly nations and Third World nations with which it
has connections and was given assurances, some in the form of official communiques from govern-
ments, that they would act against any attempt to exclude Israel from the UN.
In Washington, the State Department reaffirmed that the U.S. would be angered if the Or-
ganization for African Unity (OAU) adopted a resolution for Israel's expulsion from the UN at its
meeting in Kampala, Uganda. State Department spokesman Robert Anderson said that, as Secretary
of State Henry A. Kissinger has stated, "We are completely against the expulsion of any nation from
the UN." Uganda's bitterly anti-Israel President Idi Amin told the OAU delegates that Israel must be
expelled from the UN.
UN Secretary General Kurt Waldheim, on his way to at-
tend the meeting of the OAU, warned the 46-member group
against seeking to oust Israel from the UN.
Waldheim during a brief stopover in Khartoum said that
the campaign to evict Israel from the UN was a very serious
matter. He added that a United States withdrawal, provoked by
Congressmen
Warning UN
(Continued on Page 6)
See Story on Page 13
Jordan Arms
Sale Blocked
Golda Meir Files Suit
Against AJCommittee
WASHINGTON (JTA) — The State De-
partment announced Tuesday that it will
resubmit without change to Congress in
September its notification that the Ad-
ministration plans to sell Jordan a $350
million air defense system. "We are going
to be resubmitting the same notification
on the Hawk missile sale that has been
before the Congress and there has been no
change," Department spokesman Robert
Anderson told reporters.
But Anderson indicated that the Ad-
ministration will try to negotiate with
Jordan to reduce the amount of arms she
will receive to meet congre4sional objec-
tions that the proposed deal is too large.
"We will continue to discuss this question
with the Jordanian government and with
the Congress when it returns froni its re-
cess in the hope that this problem will be
resolved," Anderson said. U.S. Ambassa-
dor Thomas Pickering returned to Jordan
over the weekend.
NEW YORK (JTA) — An editor of Commentary, the maga-
zine published by the American Jewish Committee, said Monday
he had "no comment" on a $3 million libel suit filed against the
periodical by former Israeli Premier Golda Meir. He explained
the issue was now in the hands of the lawyers. Mrs. Meir filed a
suit in Manhattan Federal Court last Friday charging that an
article in the August 1974 edition of Commentary was "false and
malicious" when it claimed that she turned over a list of Jews to
Stalin more than 25 years ago.
In the article, "Notes on American
Innocence," the author, Lev Navrozov, a
Soviet Jewish emigre, alleged that while
Mrs. Meir was Israel's Ambassador to the
Soviet Union in 1948-49 she gave Stalin, at
his request, a list of Soviet Jews who
wanted to serve in the war of independ-
ence. Navrozov said that those on the list
were arrested by the secret police and
sent to concentration camps where many
died. He said his information was based
on interviews with concentration camp
GOLDA MEIR
survivors.
(Continued on Page 5)
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