Sen. Henry M. Jackson (D.Wash.) said tonight that he expected to vote in support of the “substance” of the Israeli-Egyptian interim agreement in Sinai when it is presented to Congress. But he said he had serious “misgivings” that the presence of American technicians in Sinai, called for in the agreement, “could become the precedent for a most dangerous and unwise conviction that somehow an American presence can substitute for secure borders for Israel.”
Jackson, a severe critic of Ford Administration policies in the Middle East, offered that observation in a speech prepared for delivery at a Brandeis, University dinner in New York. He warned, “Should this notion gain currency it could well become a source of pressure on Israel to accept indefensible borders that would somehow be protected by an American presence.”
Such an approach, Jackson contended, would “be a mistake of historic proportions which would rob Israel of its security and independence and put off, perhaps indefinitely, the genuine accommodation between Arabs and Israelis that we are all seeking.”
Jackson, a member of the Senate Armed Services Committee, said he would vote for the interim accord nevertheless because “the issue is now essentially black and white, yes or no.” He stressed, however, that “the greatest chance for a durable peace in the Middle East lies in agreements that the parties themselves oversee and defend.” He said that “even the meager understandings on movement toward a political settlement have been relegated to a secret letter” from Secretary of State Henry A. Kissinger to Israeli Foreign Minister Yigal Allon “rather than an open accord between Israel and Egypt.”
Jackson charged that “The American’ side was unwilling to take the time and lacked the inclination to pursue” an agreement that would permit Arabs and Israelis to “see for themselves the truth about their neighbor.” The “result of American impatience was sustained pressure on Israel that, in the end, Israel could not resist.”
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