Sen. George McGovern (D.SD), chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations subcommittee on Middle Eastern Affairs, and Sen. Charles H. Percy of Illinois, the senior Republican member of the subcommittee, said yesterday that the United States should make major, urgent efforts to find as overall settlement to the Arab-Israel conflict early next year no matter who is elected President in Nov.
The two senators appeared to be expressing a consensus reached during six days of hearings on Middle East policy conducted by the subcommittee which have just ended. Testimony was given by 26 witnesses. Nearly all of them agreed that Secretary of State Henry A. Kissinger’s step-by-step diplomacy in the Mideast has reached the end of its usefulness and many asserted that the outlines of an eventual settlement must be made explicit if further progress is to be achieved.
McGovern and Percy said that most witnesses had agreed that a general settlement would require Israel’s withdrawal from Arab territory it occupied in the Six-Day War, the creation of a Palestinian entity on the West Bank and in the Gaza Strip, outside security guarantees for both sides and Arab acknowledgement of Israel’s right to exist.
McGovern likened the shift from automatic support for Israel to “a more thoughtful interpretive view” to the early political shifts on the Vietnam war when opposition to that conflict spread from one or two senators to a larger group of 18-20. “Israel,” McGovern said, “is one country I’d have no trouble fighting to defend. But in my perception, Israel’s own interest depends on moving toward an overall settlement,” he added.
WARNS AGAINST PEACE BY PROXY
One of the witnesses, Marver Bernstein, president of Brandeis University, agreed that a general settlement should involve Israeli withdrawals in return for Arab recognition of Israel’s right to exist. But he warned against “peace by proxy.” meaning that direct Israeli-Arab negotiations will be required to make the settlement process work. The type of settlement outlined at the hearings is similar to proposals made last year by a group of prominent Americans brought together by the Brookings Institution.
Edward R. F. Sheehan, of Harvard University, a writer on Middle East policy, told the subcommittee that something akin to the Brookings plan was privately favored by most American officials involved in the Mideast. He said, “I don’t think there is any question that (the Arabs) are prepared for normal relations provided Israel withdraws from the territories.”
McGovern and Percy disagreed over U.S. intervention in the Lebanese civil war. McGovern said yesterday that the U.S. should consider sending troops to Lebanon as part of an international force if such a means could be effective in ending the bloodshed in that country. Percy said, however, that he could not endorse McGovern’s suggestion because Soviet forces might be introduced if U.S. forces participated in an intervention.
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