Republicans Assert Johnson Made American Jewish Support Condition of Aid to Israel

The Republican Congressional Committee, in an official expression of party opinion, criticized President Johnson this weekend for deferring action on the P-4 Phantom jet fighter-bombers sought by Israel to maintain a deterrent force. The committee charged that the President asked as his “price” that Prime Minister Levi Eshkol of Israel help persuade American Jewish leaders to support the President’s Vietnam policies and his re-election bid.

An editorial in the Republican newsletter asked: “What was LBJ’s price for 50 Phantom jets? Not only Eshkol’s support of the President’s Vietnam policy but the Prime Minister’s pledge to use his influence to help win votes among Jews in the country for LBJ’s re-election bid. The jets, Johnson, in effect, told Eshkol, would be forthcoming after the election this Fall.”

Citing a report in Newsweek Magazine and other information, the newsletter asserted that Mr. Eshkol was “pressured” into acceptance of this arrangement and later asked a closing meeting of Jewish leaders in New York to support Mr. Johnson.

Either the decision to make Phantom jets available to Israel is sound or it is not,” the Republicans asserted. “If it is, the planes should be made available now – not after the election. We believe the decision is sound. And we believe Mr. Politics’ blatant efforts to put Israel and her prime minister on the spot will be resented by Americans generally, but particularly by our citizens of Jewish faith who will recognize that the voice is the voice of Jacob but the hand is the hand of Esau.”

The editorial noted that “by the best intelligence estimates, including U.S. military leaders. NATO experts and others, the Russians are embarked on a massive military and naval buildup in the Mediterranean and Middle East. Israel needs new weapons, particularly U.S. Phantom jets, to meet the challenge posed by the Soviet presence there and by the Soviet MIGs supplied to the Arab nations.”