State Department officials clashed today with Congressional critics of U.S. financial aid to Syria at a hearing before a special International Relations Subcommittee on investigations concerned with the “current situation of Syrian Jewry.”
Harold M. Saunders, Assistant Deputy Secretary of State, contended that the question of Syrian Jewry should be submerged and handled with “quiet diplomacy” in the interests of the “overriding objective” of a peace settlement in the Middle East. Saunders was supported by Robert H. Nooter, assistant administrator of the Agency for International Development (AID), who interpreted the U.S. law on aid to Syria being contingent on improvement of the lot of the 4500 remaining Jews in Syria as being “not a legal prohibition” but a sense of Congress and should be dealt with as such.
U.S. MAKES ‘PRAGMATIC MISTAKE’
Rep. Benjamin S. Rosenthal (D.NY), declaring that “principles are very far down on the list of State Department priorities,” told Saunders that “the fundamental difference between us is that when the United States engages in pragmatic opportunism, at the moment, it deals in a grey area of law violations” and when it “practices quiet diplomacy…we (the U.S.) make a pragmatic mistake.” He said “When we stand on principle, we gain significant advantage for the United States” but “when we do the opposite, we tarnish the reputation of the United States.” Rosenthal said that when the State Department gave Syria $25 million in aid last February, “none of us resisted” because “we expected improvement” in Syrian emigration policies,” But, he added, there has been no “measurable” improvement.
CLAIMS LOT OF SYRIAN JEWS HAS IMPROVED
Saunders contended, under pressure from Rosenthal to discuss the issue in public and not in private session as Saunders had requested, that there had been improvement. He said that journalists and others have stated on television and in the public prints that the situation of Syrian Jewry had improved. The subcommittee agreed without dissent to accept Saunders’ request that the details of the Syrian Jewish problem be discussed in executive session. Saunders said also that “our purpose” in providing aid “is to draw Syria into the peace-making process.”
Rep. Steven Solarz (D.NY) contended U.S. aid to Syria was really futile if it was intended to outbid the Russians. He said that the Soviet Union and the Arab states had contributed more than $3 billion to Syria in economic and military aid between 1954 and 1973 while the U.S. is providing about $109 million. Noting that the Soviet-Arab aid to Syria is 27 times as much as what the U.S. is prepared to give, he asked how the U.S. could expect “any kind of meaningful leverage in the direction of a peace settlement” in the Middle East.
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