Three Congressmen Say Administration Pursuing Policies That Would Lead to the Destruction of Israel

The Ford Administration has come under heavy fire from some members of Congress for allegedly “punishing Israel,” turning “the screw” on Israel and pursuing policies that would lead to the “diplomatically expedient destruction” of Israel.

Those charges were contained in remarks by Rep. Benjamin Rosenthal (D.NY) today, and Rep, Jonathan Bingham (D.NY) yesterday on the dis- closed agreement to sell a $100 million “Hawk” anti-aircraft missile system to Jordan, and by Sen. Lowell Weicker (R,Conn.) in connection with the Administration’s reassessment of U.S, policy in the Middle East.

Rosenthal made public a letter to Rep. Dante B.S. Fascell (D.Fla.), chairman of the House International Relations Committee’s subcommittee on political and military affairs, demanding a hearing on the agreement to ship “Hawk” missiles to Jordan at a time when military shipments to Israel have been suspended pending the outcome of the reassessment.

“I am convinced more than ever that the so-called reassessment of U.S, policy in the Middle East is a thinly veiled disguise for a program of punishing Israel for the failure of American diplomacy in arriving at a Middle East settlement,” Rosenthal wrote. He said that such a program was contrary “to every expression of popular opinion in the U.S,” and would “lead to military political and economic disaster.”

Bingham said yesterday that “the only possible conclusion is that this sale (of “Hawks” to Jordan) is the latest turn of the screw in the Fore Administration’s increasing pressure campaign designed to force Israel to agree to a settlement on Arab terms.”

REASSESSMENT RESULT OF ‘PERSONAL EMOTION’

Addressing a regional meeting of Associated Press editors and subscribers in Bridgeport, Conn, today, Weicker divorced himself from the Ford Administration’s Mideast policies which he said would lead to the “diplomatically expedient destruction” of Israel and that “I will not be part” of it, Weicker claimed that the reassessment ordered by the President following the suspension of the bilateral talks between Israel and Egypt in March was the result of “personal emotion” stemming from Kissinger’s attempt for a second-stage interim agreement “that came unglued.”

Weicker declared, however, that “unglued is not failure” and credited Kissinger with having “constructed the cradle of peace if not the end product,” He said that was to Kissinger’s credit but “what stands to no one’s credit is a personally emotional reassessment of a national commitment as valid today as when made.”