The offensive capability of the enhanced F-15 fighter planes makes them even more of a threat to Israel than the AWACS involved in the Reagan Administration’s proposed arms sale to Saudi Arabia, according to Chaim Herzog, former Israeli Ambassador to the United Nations, and one-time director of Israel’s military intelligence.
Herzog, now a Labor Party member of the Knesset, expressed this view in a speech here before 700 delegates to the 27th biennial convention of Pioneer Women.
He placed the proposed arms sale in the context of “widespread instability, warfare and enmity toward Israel among Arab nations and the fact that Saudi Arabia, with a population of six million, has on order $30 billion worth of weapons, not counting the $8.5 billion U.S. arms package.
“This developing arsenal is enough to arm all of Africa and six European countries, including France and Germany,” Herzog said. “This vast and sinister influx of arms raises two fears. One is that Saudi Arabia would make them available to other Arab nations, who could simultaneously use them against Israel. The other is that the weapons will find their way to the USSR.”
In a ceremony preceding Herzog’s speech, Sister Ann Gillen, executive director of the National Interreligious Task Force on Soviet Jewry, was pressented with the Pioneer Women’s Golda Meir Human Rights Award for her outstanding contributions to Jewry. The award, a statue of Mrs. Meir holding a child, was presented by Edythe Rosenfield, of Trumbull, Conn. One of the leading human rights activities in the United States, Sister Ann in recent years has been mobilizing support for Soviet Jews seeking to emigrate.
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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.
