A delegation representing the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations, led by Conference chairman Kenneth Bialkin, met this week in Washington with Defense Secretary Caspar Weinberger and other Pentagon officials to review “military cooperation and strategic matters” between the United States and Israel.
The delegation, consisting of a dozen major American Jewish leaders, met for one hour Tuesday with Weinberger and later with the Defense Secretary’s principal aides on the Middle East, according to Bialkin. He told the Jewish Telegraphic Agency that the meeting was requested by the President’s Conference.
Bialkin said that among the various issues discussed with Weinberger was the status of Israel’s request for additional U.S. military aid. The Conference stressed their support for the increased aid request, Bialkin told the JTA, adding that Weinberger said the matter was still under consideration by the Administration.
The increased aid request was raised in view of what Bialkin said was Egypt’s apparent expectation that there should be some degree of parity or equivalence between the aid granted to Israel and Egypt. This point was raised last week by Egyptian Prime Minister Kamal Hassan Ali when he told an interviewer that Egypt would ask for increases in aid from the U.S.
Bialkin claimed, however, that Egypt “has not shown itself committed in the same manner with regard to cooperation with the United States” as Israel, “and thus cannot be equated in the same strategic and tactical fashion” as the Jewish State. According to Bialkin, “parity is not and should not be a rule.”
ARMS TO ARAB STATES DISCUSSED
Bialkin said the delegation also expressed its view that the transfer of sophisticated military weaponry to Arab states in the region is a threat to the security of Israel. The sale of U.S. arms to Arab countries hostile to Israel “would increase the risk of upsetting the balance of Israel’s qualitative edge” in the sphere of military weaponry, Bialkin said.
Weinberger’s view, Bialkin said, remains that weapons sales to Arab states friendly to the U.S. remain in the best interests of the U.S. and help offset the potential threat the Soviet Union has for greater influence in the Middle East. The Conference delegation retorted, Bialkin said, that the interests of the U.S. were not served by a further expansion of arms sales “in a substantial way.” (By Kevin Freeman)
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