President Carter and his National Security Advisor, Zbigniew Brzezinski, were bitterly attacked for their Middle East policies and, in turn, were personally defended in an unexpected confrontation of national political figures at the 19th annual policy conference of the American-Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) at the Washington-Hilton Hotel last night.
The attack was launched by Sen. Lowell Weicker (R. Conn.) who, in effect, accused the Administration and Brzezinski in particular of using Jews as scapegoats. “We know from history,” he said, “that time and time again, when national leaders run into difficulties, they found it convenient to blame their problems on the Jews and we know the results. If there is a meaningful distinction between those historical proclivities and the signals which Brzezinski is sending, I don’t know what they are.”
Weicker’s remarks were interrupted 26 times by applause from the 1000 AIPAC members and guests. It was especially thunderous when he declared: “If I were President and I had a national security advisor who singled out American Jews as an impediment to my policies, I would have his resignation before sundown and his reputation for breakfast.”
LIPSHUTZ BOOED FOR HIS DEFENSE
A round of boos greeted White House Counsel Robert Lipshutz who, on the dais but not scheduled to speak, took the podium to respond to Weicker. He declared his “deep sorrow” over the Senator’s remarks, some of which, he said “go beyond the bounds of criticism” and “impugns the character of the President of the United States and other officials of this Administration, including my own. The Senator is dead wrong and he knows it and you know it,” Lipshutz said. He added that “America will never abandon Israel, never,” a remark that drew applause.
Sen. Daniel P. Maynihan (D.NY) also defended the integrity of Carter and Brzezinski and the intentions of the Administration in the Middle East. It was Weicker’s contention that Brzezinski believes “that world order politics” should “replace balance of power politics” and that this “requires that the U.S. disengage from its historic alliance with Israel.”
According to Weicker, “the Carter Administration, from its inception, has deliberately pursued a policy of confrontation with the government of Israel” that began before Premier Menachem Begin took office. He charged that Administration policy included a “blatant effort to divide both the American people and even the people of Israel on the matter of the government of Israel” while “our relationships with the Arab states carry the unmistakable odor of appeasement and the arms package is only the latest evidence of it.”
MOYNIHAN DEFENDS ADMINISTRATION
Responding to Weicker, Moynihan prefaced the prepared speech he was scheduled to deliver with a defense of the Administration’s integrity. “The great difficulties” between Israel and the U.S., he said “is not the sincerity of Carter or (Secretary of State Cyrus) Vance or Brzezinski nor the weakness of their desire” to achieve a Middle East settlement. “They are men of transparent honor,” Moynihan said, recalling Carter’s pledge to Begin on the White House lawn last week that America’s friendship for Israel “will never waver.”
Moynihan also referred to Leonard Fein’s comments in Moment magazine, of which he is editor, that Brzezinski holds U.S.-Israeli ties to be “deeply binding morel ties.” In his prepared speech, Moynihan was generally critical of the Administration policies.
Morris Amitay, executive director of AIPAC who presided, summed up the exchange by remarking that “we are certainly engaging in a spirit of give and take….We hear from both parties, as always and we shall continue to do so.”
Another speaker of the evening was Israel’s recently retired Chief of Staff, Gen. Mordechai Gur, who accused Egypt of precipitating and perpetuating the present Middle East negotiations impasse and warned that the Carter Administration’s aircraft sales package to Israel, Egypt and Saudi Arabia would create “a shift in the balance of power in the Middle East.”
In addition to the AIPAC delegates, the audience last night included a dozen Senators, about 30 members of the House of Representatives and the national chairmen of the Republican and Democratic parties, William Brock and John White.
ISRAEL IS A FORCE FOR PEACE
Addressing today’s session of the AIPAC conference, Israel’s Ambassador to the U.S., Simcha Dinitz, said his country has been seeking peace for 30 years. “Only a people like Israel that craves peace can win wars as we have done,” he said. “If Israel were not the strongest power in the Middle East, there would not be any peace process at all.”
He said that Israel would have been able to match the “dramatic turnabout” of Egyptian President Anwar Sadat if it had been Israel that waged war against Egypt for 30 years, Israel that threatened to throw the Egyptians into the sea, Israel that blockaded Egypt and organized boycotts against it. Then, he said, Premier Menachem Begin could have gone to Cairo and offered peace to Egypt.
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