Senator Robert F. Kennedy called on the United States Government last night to affirm this country’s commitment to peace and stability in the Middle East by assuring a reasonable arms balance between Israel and “those who threaten her security.”
The New York Senator addressed a dinner of the American Friends of the Hebrew University at which Mrs. Abraham F. Wechsler was named an honorary fellow of the Hebrew University in Jerusalem. Asserting that Israel was now facing a critical period, “one as full of danger and promise as any Israel has yet seen,” he noted the growing threat to Israel from the Arab states.
“The Egyptian Army,” Sen. Kennedy declared, “supplied for the first time with money from the rich Shiekdom of Kuwait, continues to grow. The unified Arab command has forced Jordan to double the size of its army. Sophisticated weapons — jets, guided missiles, submarines — continue to flow in from the Soviet bloc.” The frequency of border raids, he added, “has increased over their level even a year ago, and new organizations have been set up with terrorist objectives.”
Citing the attempts by the Arab states to make Israel appear as the aggressor in the dispute over Arab plans to divert the Jordan River water sources, Sen. Kennedy said that “Israel is not the aggressor, but is trying to live in peace and harmony with her neighbors.”
In urging the American Government to assure a Mideast arms balance, Sen. Kennedy said that Israel’s arms must be equal to any challenge. “In 1962,” he declared, “we righted a previous imbalance by sending Israel our Hawk missiles. If the balance has since changed, it should be righted by a similar act.”
Sen. Kennedy also called on the United States to intensify disarmament efforts in the Middle East. “It would be far better for Israel and for every nation in that part of the world if resources now devoted to arms were spent instead on bringing a better life to all the region’s children,” he declared. “Equality of armaments is preferable to imbalance; but absence of armaments under appropriate safeguards is better still.”
Sen. Kennedy also hailed the contributions of the Hebrew University to the development of Israel, declaring that the University’s “research and scholarship have always focused directly on the practical problems which have faced the people of Israel in their struggle for progress.” Eliahu Elath, president of the Hebrew University, presented Mrs. Wechsler with an illuminated parchment scroll designating her as an honorary fellow. She is the eighth woman — the fourth American woman — in the University’s 40-year history to be so honored.
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.
