Lawmaker Says Israel at Pinnacle in Its Foreign Relations, Cautions There May Be Shift in U.S. Polic

Sen. John V. Tunney (D. Calif.) said here last night that Israel “is at an international pinnacle” in its foreign relations because she enjoys American support and the options of her principal adversaries “have been progressively narrowed.” But, he cautioned, “Israel faces only one significant danger as we move into a new year. That is a shift in American policy.”

The California law-maker, addressing the Southern Area Jewish Federation Conference of Greater Los Angeles on the subject of “Israel’s role in the world–1973,” observed that the danger of an American shift stemmed precisely from the outstanding success achieved by American support of Israel and Israel’s own policies which have all but eliminated the possibility of a military confrontation as a viable option for Israel’s Arab neighbors or the Soviet Union.

Tunney noted that even the Soviet Union appears “to have concluded, at least for now, that the price they had to pay for their continued interference in the Middle East was too high in terms of the American reaction it provoked.”

However, Tunney continued, a feeling among American foreign policy makers that America must continue to act as a problem-solver throughout the world could lead to trouble in the Middle East because it “would stimulate those in the Arab world and perhaps elsewhere who would seek to add tension and uncertainty to the affairs of the region.” He added, “we should recognize that we cannot, through ‘Rogers Plans’ and rejuvenated Jarring missions, see that a solution is imposed on others.”