The Democratic Party’s National Platform Committee was urged today to adopt planks on the Middle East promising the sale of American supersonic jet planes to Israel to offset the Soviet re-armament of the Arab states and supporting the principle of direct Arab-Israeli peace talks as the only way to resolve the Middle East conflict. The proposed planks were presented to the committee at the opening of its hearings by Rabbi Philip S. Bernstein of Rochester, N.Y., chairman of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, a non-partisan organization representing a cross-section of American Jews. The presentation had the endorsement of the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations, which has 22 affiliated national bodies, and of the American Jewish Committee.
Senator Clairborne Pell, Rhode Island Democrat, chairman of the platform subcommittee on foreign policy, today called for a plank that would provide Israel with necessary weapons until such time as an arms control agreement with Russia can be reached.
Rabbi Bernstein noted that the Republican platform adopted at Miami Beach earlier this month had dealt positively with both points and emphasized that it was important for American political leadership “to unite to make it clear to all nations that the people of the United States want a negotiated Arab-Israel peace and are prepared to take the necessary action to prevent another Middle East war.” He observed that his proposals were consistent with the stand taken by Congress and by the major Presidential candidates.
Rabbi Bernstein said that the Arab countries now have a five-to-one preponderance in supersonic jets which “presents a grave danger not only to Israel but to moderate Arab states which have been armed by the West.” He warned that there can be no effective disarmament proposals in the Middle East without an Arab-Israel peace treaty and unless the Soviet Union is ready to stop using weapons as currency to buy favor with the Arab states. He said that the Soviets have supplied Egypt, Syria, Iraq. Algeria and Yemen with more powerful weapons than they had had before the 1967 Middle East war. The Public Affairs Committee criticized the Administration’s hesitation to comply with Israel’s request to purchase 50 F-4 Phantom jets and warned that a political and military vacuum in the Middle East would embolden the Soviet Union to carry on “militant and aggressive policies” there.
The platform committee also heard testimony from Sen. Abraham Ribicoff, Connecticut Democrat, who appeared on behalf of 25 national Jewish organizations to urge the Democratic Party to go on record against Soviet anti-Semitism. He said “the Democratic Party has the responsibility to protest in the name of human decency.” He said that such an expression of concern could help alleviate the plight of Russian Jewry. Urging a plank addressed to the Russian Jewish problem, the Senator said no other ethnic or religious group in Russia was subjected to similar discrimination and deprivation.
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