Zbigniew Brzezinski, chairman of the National Security Council, said today, “If Israel was mortally threatened, especially by an external power, the United States, even now, without a security treaty, would certainly go to its aid.” The Presidential advisor on national security made his remarks in an interview taped yesterday and broadcast in Canada by the Canadian Television Network as a crisis brewed in U.S.-Israeli relations over last night’s joint U.S.-Soviet declaration.
Brzezinski stressed that the U.S. was committed to bring about peace in the Middle East. He said that in addition, “the United States has indicated that it is prepared to work toward the creation of a variety of bilateral as well as international security arrangements which would further enhance the security of Israel.”
With respect to peace prospects, he said, “I think all of the parties have realized that they need peace. The Israelis know that if they don’t have peace their economy will stagnate, their neighbors will get more radical and more modern at the same time and the Soviets will re-enter (the Middle East) and therefore the threat to Israel will grow.” He said “The Arabs realize that they don’t have the power to destroy Israel, that their repeated efforts have backfired.”
JTA has documented Jewish history in real-time for over a century. Keep our journalism strong by joining us in supporting independent, award-winning reporting.
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.
