— A warning that a “bitter fight is inevitable” if the Reagan Administration implements plans to enlarge its arms package to Saudi Arabia highlighted expressions of deep concern among Jewish leaders about those plans.
The warning came from the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations in a statement by its chairman, Howard Squadron, which noted “with alarm” reports that the National Security Council had recommended to the President sale to Saudi Arabia of air-to-air re-fueling capacity, Airborne Warning and Command Systems (AWACS), “in addition to Sidewinder missiles and additional fuel tanks for the F-15 airplanes sold to Saudi Arabia” after a sharp Congressional battle in 1978.
Squadron added that “if the report is accurate and the recommendation is acted upon, and even more bitter fight is inevitable. The Jewish community will oppose such a proposal vigorously.”
Rabbi Alexander Schindler, president of the (Reform) Union of American Hebrew Congregations, denounced the proposal, charging that a resulting arms race would bring the area closer to war and jeopardize Israel’s security.
He said that “all the arms we provide the Saudis will not save Prince Fahd any more than American arms saved” the throne of the Shah of Iran. He said the “real danger” to Saudi Arabia is that providing “the most sophisticated weapons” to a state “so vulnerable to internal subversion” tempts “a takeover by revolutionary groups.”
MIDEAST PEACE PROSPECTS ENDANGERED
The American Jewish Committee urged the Reagan Administration to cancel the scheduled sale, on grounds the weapons transfer would “endanger American interests and prospects for peace in the Middle East. ” Maynard Wishner, AJCommittee president, also urged both houses of Congress “to vote resolutions of disapproval” if the Administration went chead with the sale.
Wishner said the AJCommittee favored U.S. strategy to counter the threat of Soviet expansion in the Mideast but, he added, “this is quite different from selling the Saudis advanced weaponry” which would then be outside U.S. control, or from selling the Saudis special equipment transforming the Saudis’ F-15s “into weapons of attack.”
The American Jewish Congress said the reported National Security Council recommendation “represents not only a breach of prior assurances that such weapons would not be provided to the Saudis, but constitutes a reckless repudiation of the traditional, long-standing commitment to Israeli security.”
In the statement, Henry Siegman, AJCongess executive director, also asserted that the weapons would give the Saudis “a military potential that goes far beyond anything genuinely related to internal security or defensive purposes. “He called the proposal “an irresponsible escalation of the Middle East arms race.”
ARMS WILL NOT DETER SOVIET AGGRESSION
Ivan Novick, president of the Zionist Organization of America, stressed that no amount of armaments provided to Saudi Arabia would serve “as a deterrent to Soviet aggression in the Middle East. ” He added that the “stockpiling” of “huge arsenals of destruction” by Saudi Arabia and other Arab states “does constitute a direct threat to Israel and to American Middle East interests. “Novick warned that the AWACS would make it possible for Saudi Arabia “to penetrate Israel’s security structure, placing America’s most dependable ally in a precarious position.”
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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.
