Forster: Weakened Stability of Jordan Should Not Be Excuse by U.S. to Veto Jets to Israel

An American Jewish leader declared that the weakened stability of the Jordanian government “should not become the excuse for the U.S. State Department to continue its veto of the sale of jet planes to Israel.” According to Arnold Forster, General Counsel of the Anti-Defamation League of B’nai B’rith. Israel needs the planes “not because of the guerrillas in Jordan and Lebanon, but because of the Soviet intrusion” in the Mideast conflict. Addressing three thousand delegates to the 118th convention of District Number One, B’nai B’rith, which represents New York and the New England area, Mr. Forster observed that “The Palestinian guerrilla movement (in Jordan) is generally more pro-Soviet and pro-Chinese than the Hashemite kingdom and is far more intractable in respect to the right of Israel to exist.” Pointing to “the daily murders of civilian Israelis, the shelling of schools filled with children, and the destruction of civilian planes in the air over Europe as “the work of these same guerrilla organizations,” Mr. Forster said that “no one can expect such people to negotiate peace.” He told the delegates “the shaky character of the Hussein government is a serious setback to peace in the Middle East. Mr. Forster described the situation in Lebanon between the established government and the trespassing guerrillas as being substantially the same as in Jordan. The guerrillas, he asserted, “boast that there is no place at all on the Mideast map for the State of Israel.”