American public opinion is growing increasingly anti-Israel because of Israel’s increased requests for economic aid, Douglas Bennet, head of the U. S. Agency for International Development (AID) yesterday told Adi Amorai, coordinator of the Labor Alignment faction in the Knesset Finance Committee. Bennet is in Israel to review Israel’s economic requests for 1981.
He met with Finance Minister Simcha Ehrlich on Monday, who outlined Israel’s economic needs. Ehrlich told Bennet that the peace agreement with Egypt paradoxically made it necessary for Israel to increase its defense spending. But Bennet maintained that Israel had chosen a difficult time to make her increased request. Inflation and growing unemployment in the U. S. made it difficult to raise the aid, he said.
Ehrlich admitted that the government’s economic policy had partially failed. But on the other hand, he said, Israel was making an effort to cope with the energy crisis on her own and would not exercise her right to ask the U. S. to honor its commitment and supply her with oil.
JTA has documented Jewish history in real-time for over a century. Keep our journalism strong by joining us in supporting independent, award-winning reporting.
The Archive of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency includes articles published from 1923 to 2008. Archive stories reflect the journalistic standards and practices of the time they were published.
