As gasoline prices went up 40 percent in Israel today, the Senate was told the United States should refrain from commitments on supplying oil abroad as it is committed to Israel.
Sen. Barry Goldwater (R.Ariz.) raised the matter of the Carter Administration’s commitment to Israel in a floor speech in which he set forth a report that noted the National Association of Arab-Americans are fighting the commitment and tied part of its opposition to Jewish settlements on the West Bank and Gaza Strip.
Americans sweating it out in gas lines and being asked to turn up their thermostats,” Goldwater said “will be interested to know that President Carter’s ill-timed promise to guarantee Israel’s oil supply for 15 years is going ahead on schedule.” Goldwater said that “legislation to accomplish this part of the deal for an Israeli-Egyptian peace agreement has been quietly slipped into legislation which is now pending before both Houses.
He was referring to the legislation which would authorize the Export Administration to exempt the Israeli oil guarantee from a general ban on the export of Alaskan oil.
Goldwater did not directly urge elimination of the guarantee but noted that “the chances are that the U.S. will soon have to start making good on the promise President Carter mode” and he said “it is long past time that this country (the U.S.) faced up to the fact that it cannot take care of all the needs throughout the world that happen to come to our official attention.”
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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.
