Presidents Conference Launches Campaign to Underscore Israel’s ‘major Sacrifices for Peace’

The Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations has embarked on a riationwide campaign to underscore Israel’s “major sacrifices for peace” and to protest current Administration policies in the Middle East that could damage the peace process and imperil U.S. strategic interests in the region.

Howard Squadron, Conference chairman said seven regional meetings had been scheduled at which current concerns of the Presidents Conference over the “dangerous drift in U.S. policy” would be explored. These meetings will culminate in a National Leadership Conference, highlighting the dangers confronting Israel, now being planned for April 20 in Washington.

Speakers at the meetings, co-sponsored by the National Jewish Community Relations Advisory Council and the local Jewish Community Relations Council in each community, include Squadron; former Conference chairmen Theodore Mann and Rabbi Alexander Schindler; and Yehuda Hellman, executive director of the Conference of Presidents.

The schedule of meetings, some of which have already taken place, are: Miami, March 24; Chicago, March 30; Atlanta, April I; Baltimore, April I; Boston, April 2; Las Angeles, April 2; and New York, April 12.

SAYS PUBLIC OPINION MUST BE ALERTED

In a statement. Squadron said that Israel’s imminent withdrawal from Sinai made it “particularly timely” that public opinion be alerted and informed concerning the “genuine concessions and major sacrifices for peace” made by the government and the people of Israel. He declared “Israel has invested some $17 billion in the Sinai airfields and other military bases, in oil well exploration and development and in building roads and settlements. Another $4 billion has been spent on replacing the modem airbases built by Israel in the Sinai — a cost to which the United States is contributing only 20 percent.

“Israel would have approached oil self-sufficiency if it had not returned the Sinai oil fields. Last year Israel spent $2.4 billion — equivalent to Israel’s entire civilian balance-of-payments deficit.

“Incalculable in dollar terms is the military and political effect of Israel’s withdrawal. Israel has waived strategic depth, relinquished needed airspace for airforce operations and training, abandoned control of the Strait of Tisan, surrendered the traditional invasion route in Israel through Northem Sinai and forsaken the years of pioneering by Israeli settlers who turned the sand dunes of Sinai and the Rafah salient into flourishing farms and towns and tourist attractions.”

Continuing, Squadron stated: “We want the makers of public opinion and public policy to understand and appreciate what Israel has done — and continues to do — for peace. At the same time, we want to alert these same public officials to recognize the dangers in current U.S. Middle East policy, which in our judgment does not enhance American interests against the Soviet threat and provides no incentive for moderation by the Arab world.”

Squadron said that “Two erroneous assumptions underly current U.S. policy: first, that Saudi Arabia is the key to our country’s interests in the region; and ‘second, that military sales to Arab states are the key to winning friends for America.”

Among the results of these policies. Squadron noted, are the sale of AWACS and F-15’s enhancements to the Saudis; “flirtation with the alleged Saudi ‘peace plan’; Defense Secretary (Caspar) Weinberger’s encouragement of Jordan’s request for arms; and the apparent Administration willingness to permit Syrian missiles to sit in Lebanon and to permit build-up of PLO arms in southern Lebanon.”

To protect American interests and to protect the peace already in existence between Israel and Egypt, “our country must revise its relationship with Saudi Arabia by insisting that the Saudi regime must enter the peace process if it wishes to continue to receive American support and protection,” Squadron said.