Israel, with “substantial technical and financial assistance from abroad” is engaged in the development of “atomic power and other media of mass destruction, ” Jordan’s King Hussein declared in a speech here today at a luncheon in his honor by the anti-Israel Citizen’s Committee for American Policy in the Near East. He charged that Israel’s alleged action is “opening the floodgates of the Middle East” before an accelerated arms race, both in quantity and quality.
In justifying Arab opposition to Israel’s Jordan River water project, Hussein cited international law. He said Israel’s irrigation project would enable it to bring in masses of new immigrants, there by increasing “the mortal danger to Arabs created by Israel’s very existence.”
The King urged the United States to “take a fresh look” at its Middle East policies, and claimed that Arab policy was not anti-Semitic, only anti-Israeli. Hussein called upon American Jews “to make an agonizing reappraisal” of their attitude toward Zionism and Israel.
At a press conference yesterday, following his first talk with President Johnson at the White House, the King said that it was “too late” to accept the 1955 Eric Johnstonplan for division of the Jordan River waters on a regional basis between Israel and the Arab states. He also said there was no possibility of compromise on the issue between the Arabs and Israel. He added that Israel’s plans to divert a portion of the river for a huge Negev irrigation project was “a violation of international law.”
He said that Arab farmers were suffering from “damage” caused by Israel’s present limited use of the river waters, and that this would continue until “we succeed in getting back part of the water that goes out. ” Asked how the Arabs proposed to repair the alleged damage, he said only the Arabs want to “make sure that water denied to us will come back to us.”
Asked about the Arab refugees, the young King said that they insisted on a right to make a choice between a return to their former homes and other alternatives.
He made an indirect but unmistakable threat that, unless the West provided him with more military equipment he would look “elsewhere. ” Asked whether he meant the Soviet Union, he replied he hoped that would not become necessary.
The Archive of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency includes articles published from 1923 to 2008. Archive stories reflect the journalistic standards and practices of the time they were published.
