“If Israel’s war is over, then the battles which Israel’s friends must now fight are only beginning.” This view was expressed by Sen. Walter F. Mondale (D. Minn.) during his address here this weekend before the Synagogue Council of America’s Statesman Award Dinner.
He told the several hundred synagogue leaders that the battles must include: a “fight for genuine peace, a permanent settlement born of direct negotiations”; immediate release of Israeli POWs; a new definition of detente “which will be free from the apparent dishonesty which characterized Soviet behavior in the early days of the war”; “no return to 1957 when the United States insisted on Israeli withdrawal”; no Rogers plan “with territory carved up in advance”; and no imposed peace.
Mondale, who was one of 67 Senators to introduce a resolution in the first days of the war urging the Administration to resupply Israel with weapons, declared that he wholeheartedly supports the passage of the $2.2 billion emergency assistance program which President Nixon urged Congress to pass to help Israel defray the cost of military equipment delivered to Israel during the war and equipment still to be delivered.
He noted that during the past 25 years the U.S. “extended $309 million in military grants to nine Arab countries (while) Israel was compelled to go deeply into debt to pay for her defense needs. Although more than 90 percent of all U.S. military assistance to many countries has been in the form of grants, Israel has never been the recipient of such grant aid.” he said.
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.
