The Carter Administration’s general approach towards solving the Arab-Israeli conflict is expected to undergo close scrutiny and criticism Wednesday from members of the Senate Foreign Relations subcommittee on the Middle East following the severe questioning of Administration policy by Sen. Clifford P. Case (R.NJ). While the subcommittee’s hearing was not directly linked to the Case statement issued Friday, the criticism in it is known to be shared by many of the Senate’s leading figures and the responses to it will be closely examined, Capitol sources told the Jewish Telegraphic Agency today.
Appearing before the subcommittee behind closed doors will be the State Department’s top Middle East specialists–Ambassador-at-Large Alfred L. Atherton and Assistant Secretary of State for Near Eastern Affairs Harold Sounders. The hearing will take place virtually on the eve of Vice President Walter Mondale’s visit to Israel and Egypt, starting Friday. Saunders will be in the Mondale party.
Case, the ranking Republican member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, urged in his statement that neither Israel nor the Arab countries should be pressed to state their ultimate positions but should be asked only to deal with the issues “without preconditions. The suspicions between the Israeli and the U.S. governments have reached an all-time high,” Case told the Senate. “So has the concern of the American Jewish community, not only about Israel’s future but even about their own status in America.
“It seems to me that a major cause of these difficulties has been the increasing effort of the United States to shape the actual terms of a final settlement in the Middle East, contrary to our long-standing position and to the dictates of wise statesmanship. We had better drop this approach and start again. That means leave such matters to the parties directly involved and insist only that negotiations take place between the parties without preconditions of any kind,” Case said.
He said he was making the statement with respect to the “U.S. reactions to Israel’s answers to questions put to it by the Carter Administration on the future status of the West Bank and Gaza Strip.” The U.S. said Israel’s answer did not “fully respond” to the questions and sharp attacks on Israel followed from sources within the Administration although the State Department’s statement was relatively calm.
CASE POSES OWN QUESTIONS
Case put the following questions to the Administration and said that by finding answers to them the larger issues “may be far easier to resolve.” He asked: “Shall the borders between Israel and the West Bank and Gaza remain open borders? Will thousands of Palestinians be permitted to continue to earn their living working in Israel but living on the West Bank and Gaza Strip? Will Israelis be allowed to travel and live on the West Bank and if so under what rule will the border between Jordan and the West Bank remain open? And if so, who will control the border? Will Israel be permitted to Keep a strategic presence in the area, and if so for how long and under what conditions? How will threats of terrorism be controlled and who will have responsibility for it? How will the different groups cooperate and what will be the ground rules?”
Case said that “however the Israelis may differ among themselves on details, no Israel government is going to make concessions that would prevent it from defending itself so long as hostile forces demand Israel’s extinction. It is futile to demand from Israel or from the Arabs for that matter, an immediate solution to the question of the Palestinians, or their ultimate destiny. It does no good to proclaim that the United States would not press for a Palestinian state on the borders of Israel if the practical result of the concessions the United States currently demands of Israel could result in nothing less. We must neither press Israel for concessions she cannot make without self-destruction nor the Arabs for concessions no moderate Arab can presently make and survive. Let us drop the search for ultimates and concentrate on practical issues that can be dealt with now,” Case said.
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.
