4 Harvard Profs Declare Support for Kissinger’s Mideast Efforts

Four Harvard professors today declared their support for Secretary of State Henry A. Kissinger’s diplomatic efforts to achieve peace in the Middle East and declared their concern over opposition to these efforts by some segments of the American Jewish community.

The four, all Jews, are David Landes, national chairman of the American Professors for Peace in the Middle East; Martin Peretz, chairman of the editorial board of the New Republic and a member of the board of governors of Hebrew University; Henry Rosovsky, chairman of the Commission on International Affairs of the American Jewish Congress; and Michael Walzer a member of the board of trustees of the Institute of Jewish Policy, Planning and Research of the Synagogue Council of America.

The statement declared that while the four scholars “have had and continue to have various differences with Dr. Kissinger on other issues,” they were “distressed by the fact that he has become the target of an unwarranted and baseless campaign questioning his fundamental motives vis-a-vis Israel.”

Citing the “common sense” understanding of “what is at risk in the Middle East currently,” the scholars asserted that “the loose talk, the pseudo-psychology, the ad hominem attacks” on Dr. Kissinger were “particularly dangerous” because “they play on our worst fears and make rational argument increasingly difficult.” They added that such attacks “weaken Dr. Kissinger’s position at a time when no imaginable successor would be more concerned for Israel’s security than he has been.”

ANOTHER INTERIM ACCORD IS VITAL

Declaring they were “not in complete agreement” about “the best American or Israeli strategy over the coming months,” the professors said they all believed that another interim agreement between Israel and Egypt was “a vital precondition of further negotiations, at Geneva or anywhere else.”

“Such an agreement necessarily entails further concessions from both Israelis and Egyptians” as the only “quid pro quo” for creation of an “organic structure of peace” they said was Kissinger’s purpose. They declared that success for Kissinger’s current mission would make renewal of war in the Sinai “less likely, protecting Israel from a surprise attack” like the Yom Kippur War.

They also said success “might begin to generate confidence on both sides about the possibilities of a full peace” and involve the United States “even more deeply in peace-making and peace-keeping in the Middle East, an involvement” they declared “serves America’s interests and also Israel’s.”