Senator John F. Kennedy of Massachusetts, who won the Democratic nomination for President last night at the Democratic national convention, believes that the United States must try to “hasten the inevitable Arab acceptance of the permanence of Israel. “
This was one of the views the Senator expressed last month in a programmatic address on the Middle East delivered in the Senate. He told the Senate:
“We must formulate, with both imagination and restraint, a new approach to the Middle East–not pressing our case so hard that the Arabs feel their neutrality and nationalism are threatened, but accepting those forces and seeking to help channel them along constructive lines, while at the same time trying to hasten the inevitable Arab acceptance of the permanence of Israel.”
He also urged that the United States “give our support to programs to help people instead of regimes–to work in terms of their problems, not ours–and seek a permanent settlement among Arabs and Israelis based not on an armed truce but on mutual self-interest. “
“Guns and anti-Communist pacts and propaganda and the traditional piecemeal approach are not enough–refugee resettlement and a regional resources development fund in full partnership with the Middle East nations, all are parts of a long-range strategy which is both practical and in the best interests of all concerned, ” he said in his Senate speech.
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