Sen. Frank Church (D. Idaho), chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, said last night that it was “disturbing” that “some European nations have flirted with recognizing the Palestine Liberation Organization and changing United Nations Resolution 242.”
But he blamed this on “confused and contradictory signals” from the State Department where, he charged, “some policy makers have still not decided whether the path to peace goes through Jerusalem and Cairo or through the PLO, Jordan, Syria and Saudi Arabia.”
Church addressed the National Womens Division of the American Jewish Congress at a convention banquet here honoring the division’s outgoing president, Mrs. Leona Chanin of New York. The Idaho Democrat told the 300 convention delegates:
“Last week, the European community issued a statement which called for ‘Palestinian self-determination,’ one interpretation of which was recently articulated by the PLO when it demanded self-determination not only on the West Bank but in Tel Aviv and Haifa as well. Yet the fact remains that as long as Israel is not explicitly recognized and as long as savage terrorism continues against Israel, any major concessions toward the PLO is naive and reckless. it encourages them to believe that intransigence will beget concessions. It deprecates the vital security interests that Israel seeks so earnestly to protest.”
MISCONCEPTIONS OVER ISRAELI SETTLEMENTS
Church also said: “Misconceptions have developed over the issue of Israeli settlements in the occupied territories. The fact that only 6000 Israelis live on the West Bank belies the assertion that Israel seeks to evict the Arab residents. Many of the settlements were established by the Labor government and served two strategic purposes of paramount importance: to prevent terrorism and to guard against an Arab invasion across Israel’s thin waistline. The Camp David accords explicitly provide for a continuing Israeli security presence on the West Bank after the five year time frame.”
Church stated that “If we truly want to see peace expanded in the Middle East, there is only one formula to remember, the one that has brought peace – the formula hammered out at Camp David.” Unfortunately, he observed, “there are some in this Administration who would seek to undermine this very principle for the sake of a larger, grandiose design. How else can one explain voting for a Security Council resolution on March 1 that was clearly inconsistent with the Camp David accords?”
Although that vote was later disavowed, Church said, “the resolution apparently was looked upon with favor by those who believe that only Israel stands in the way of a closer alliance between the U.S. and the Arab world.”
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