Republican Senator Kenneth Keating, of New York, charged here tonight that Administration efforts to curry Arab favor has resulted in a policy of “ignoring Israel’s needs.” “Economically and politically,” he said. “we may be beginning to take Israel for granted.” “As a free country, we may be assuming that Israel will always be on our side, no matter how we slight her,” Mr. Keating warned. He spoke here at a rally celebrating the 14th anniversary of the founding of modern Israel.
Mr. Keating said that American failure to press vigorously for an Arab-Israel peace, continued refusal to do anything about Arab boycotts of Israel, the recently announced stepped-up aid program to Egypt, and U.S. sponsorship of the United Nations resolution censuring Israel for the Lake Tiberias incident, indicate that U.S. principles “have been set aside for expediency.”
“Our basic interest in helping a nation which shares our outlook has been overshadowed by the temptation of trying to outbid the Communists,” the Senator asserted. He said the U.S. “must not have one set of principles for those hesitant countries that are trying to pressure us and another set for those that have been with us through thick and thin.”
He warned that, if the U.S. persists along its present path in the Middle East, Israel’s economy could suffer greatly as a result of imminent expiration of German reparations payments. “which have played a vital role in keeping Israel’s economy on an even keel,” and the impending implementation of the European Common Market trade barrier to whose member countries Israel now ships about 50 percent of its exports.
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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.
