Senate Majority Leader Robert Dole (R. Kan.) said last night that Congress postponed President Reagan’s proposed sale of arms to Jordan until March 1 to leave “all the options open” and give the Middle East peace process a chance to work.
“If between now and March 1 there is an honest effort by King Hussein … to sit down with the Prime Minister (Shimon Peres of Israel) and try to work out some kind of agreement, then we believe we will have a chance to take another look,” Dole told the closing plenary of the 54th General Assembly of the Council of Jewish Federations (CJF) at the Washington Hilton Hotel.
“The one thing we did not want to do is torpedo the peace process,” Dole stressed. “If there is a glimmer of hope, as the Prime Minister indicates, we want to encourage that hope. So when next March 1 comes, who knows. It may be postponed again, we may decide to reject it out of hand.” He added that “We thought the worst thing we can do is approve such an arms sale before we even have negotiations.”
On the peace process itself, Samuel Lewis told the 3,200 delegates to the General Assembly that when he left Israel last June after serving as U.S. Ambassador there for eight years, most Israelis did not take the peace effort with Jordan seriously. But, he added, when he returned there for a visit earlier this month he found “surprising readiness” by Israelis to believe that “something might just happen.”
Lewis said that while this was seen as an “encouraging development” by the Labor Party, it has caused Likud to stake out its opposition with a “renewed vigor” because of a belief that new elections may not be far off.
However, Lewis said, he does not believe that negotiations between Israel and Jordan are yet at hand. “I’m not wildly optimistic myself because I see the obstacles on both the Arab and Israeli sides as very great,” he said. “But there is something happening and that something has given a new sense of hope to alot of Israelis.”
Lewis said he also found on his visit that Israel is making progress in solving its economic difficulties. But, he said, this progress has caused problems of deepening recession, unemployment, bankruptcy for many companies and hardships for the Israeli people. But, he said, the Israeli people are accepting these difficulties as necessary and if the government can stick to its present course, the measures will work.
UNSWERVING COMMITMENT TO KEEP ISRAEL STRONG
Dole noted that there is a “bipartisan,” “deep” and “unswerving” commitment in Congress to do what is necessary to keep Israel strong militarily and economically. But he said Israel’s economic independence depends in the long run on building up its export industries and he is proud of his efforts in putting through the Free Trade Agreement with Israel.
The Senate leader reiterated his promise that the Senate will ratify the Genocide Convention. He said if it cannot be done in the few weeks left to Congress before it adjourns for the holidays, it will be the first thing on the agenda when the Senate returns in January.
Dole also said he welcomed the summit conference this week in Geneva between President Reagan and Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev because “you cannot settle your differences without sitting down with your adversaries.”
But, he said, “if the Soviets are serious about improving relations with the U.S. there are three concrete steps they should take.” He said these were “resume diplomatic relations with the State of Israel, disavow the UN resolution equating Zionism with racism because it is an abomination, and let all Soviet Jews who want to join their families in Israel go.”
WORK FOR PEACE AND ARMS REDUCTION
A third speaker last night was Max Kampelman, head of the U.S. delegation to the Geneva Negotiations on Nuclear and Space Arms, who stressed that “we must work for peace and the reduction of arms.”
But he said, this effort must be based on “reality” and the U.S. cannot “ignore” such Soviet international violations as the continuation of its troops in Afghanistan, the abuse of psychiatry for political punishment, State-sponsored anti-Semitism, the severe cutrailment of Jewish emigration and the persecution of religious believers.
“There can be no international order and stability if any country reserves the right to decide which of the agreements it signs it is prepared to accept,” Kampelman said.
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