Sen. Clark Recommends U.S. Pressure on Israel to Readmit Arabs

Sen. Joseph S. Clark, Pennsylvania Democrat, in a report today to the Senate Foreign Relations Committee on his recent study mission to the Middle East, stressed the Arab refugee problem and urged that the United States “utilize diplomatic pressure on Israel to repatriate a substantial number of refugees who might be persuaded to return to their own villages inside Israel.”

He meanwhile suggested also that the United Nations “break up the camps gradually, paying the Government of Jordan a sufficient international subsidy to move families on to arable lands or into communities where employment opportunities can be found in Jordan and elsewhere — possibly to some extent on arable land soon to be irrigated closer to the Jordan River.”

Sen. Clark said the policy he recommended, including repatriation to Israel, “has its dangers and should be carried out gradually and with great care. But a continuation of the present policy may hold even greater dangers.” He pointed out that the numbers of Arab refugees were increasing and that the camps were breeding hate and trouble.

Israel was subjected to criticism by Sen. Clark who went even further by terming Egyptian President Nasser a “pharaoh.”

He charged that he found in Israel “little internal democracy within the many political parties.” He alleged that the original drive which founded the country and built its political and economic structure has pretty well petered out. There is a good deal of apathy and cynicism in the new generation, both of Sabras (born in Israel) and immigrants.”

ASSERTS ISRAEL NEEDS NO MORE IMMIGRANTS; CITES UNEMPLOYMENT

Sen. Clark maintained that “there is no real economic need for more immigrants” to Israel. He charged that “as of last fall almost the entire class of spring graduates from the engineering school of the technical university was unemployed. Unemployment is becoming chronic and persistent in the urban areas.”

Sen. Clark found it “disturbing” that the Israeli “press is tame and censored on security matters, a phrase given, as in the United States, the broadest of meanings.” The Senator asserted that “a few vigorous hawkish military leaders tend to exercise an undue influence on politico-economic decisions. Moreover, the country has remained in a state of military alert for so long that Israel seems to have become a modern Sparta in its political-military attitudes.”

“The status quo in politics, military policy, economics, and sociology may well be breaking down in Israel,” he stated. “What will replace it is anybody’s guess; but it can be hoped that the drive which founded the country can be communicated to new leaders who will maintain a secure and prosperous state oriented toward peace.”

WANTS STRICTER U.S. POLICY ON NASSER’S ACQUISITION OF ARMS

Sen. Clark reported his conviction that there would be no peace or disarmament in the Mideast until “the United States and the Soviet Union agree, together with their respective allies, to stop the arms race; England, France, and West Germany and other Western powers are persuaded that their own national self-interest is not in permitting their citizens to make a fast buck by selling arms, but in peace in the Mideast; and the Arab nations, unable to purchase or manufacture weapons required for modern warfare, accept the inevitable and make permanent peace with Israel.”

According to Sen. Clark “primarily this is a problem of dealing with Nasser, for if he should disappear from the scene or be brought around to a civilized attitude there are no insoluble barriers to such a course of action in the other Arab states, most of which are too weak to be aggressive externally.”

Sen. Clark recommended that “the United States should promote the formation of an international consortium to rescue the Egyptian economy from impending disaster on condition that Nasser should substantially reduce his armed forces.” He urged conditioning of further food shipments to Egypt on “cessation of Nasser’s acquisition of arms from the Soviet Union or elsewhere and the return of his troops from Yemen.”

In other recommendations, Sen. Clark said the United States should take the initiative in eliminating the Arab refugee camps and the assimilation of the refugees into the economics of Israel and the Arab countries where the camps are located.” He urged, too, that “the United States should continue to uphold the political independence and territorial integrity of the State of Israel.