Aj Committee Urges Us Not to Be Swayed by Soviet Rejection of American Proposals

The American Jewish Committee urged the United States Government Tuesday night to “make clear that the repeated Soviet rejection of American proposals for settlement of the Middle East conflict will not prompt this country to present new proposals yielding to Arab and Soviet demands,” according to Philip Hoffman, AJ Committee president.

Pointing out that the United States had presented a series of proposals to the recent two-power and four-power talks on the Middle East, and that each of these proposals had been rejected by the Soviet Union, the AJ Committee declared that these proposals, together with recent statements by Secretary of State William P. Rogers, “may well lead the Arabs to believe that If they remain intransigent, the great powers will eventually impose a settlement on Israel without requiring the Arab states to make a genuine peace.” “American aid to Israel becomes all the more urgent.” the committee said, “in the light of the announcement that France has agreed to supply large quantities of Mirage jets and tanks to Libya and substantial quantities of arms to Iraq — two states militantly hostile to Israel — while continuing its embargo on arms shipments to Israel.”