Israelis Concerned That Nixon’s Watergate Crisis May Have Adverse Affect on Israel-arab Relations

President Nixon’s deepening Watergate crisis and the snowballing impeachment proceedings are beginning to evoke concern among Israeli public opinion leaders, including its governmental officials, that it may result in new pressures for Israel to move more quickly under United States prodding toward additional negotiations with the Arab states, observers reported today. They also suggested that Israeli officials may respond to the President’s worsening plight by a more cautious approach to such negotiations.

Israeli newspapers, previously circumspect in their coverage of the President’s steady loss of public confidence and abandonment by leaders of his own party, are now reporting extensively on the widespread anti-Nixon mood in the United States among both the people and Republican leaders. The government has continued to maintain its policy of strict silence, in effect since the Watergate scandal began.

Some newspapers expressed surprise editorially that at a time when the Nixon Administration may be near its end, the State Department was continuing its activities as though its motto was “business as usual.” There have been no direct comments in any Israeli media on whether the President is guilty or not guilty or on whether he should be impeached or whether he should resign, but the implication of the Presidential crisis is getting growing attention among Israelis, the observers indicated.

One of the sharpest media comments was made by Eli Eyal in Maariv, the influential daily, who warned Israeli political leaders should respond with caution to any United States urgings for speedy action in negotiations with the Arab states. Israel should move ahead on “the political road,” he wrote, but should realize that Nixon “who was a friendly President to Israel–and apparently still is, in his heart–whose balance on Israel is absolutely positive, in arms shipments and political support–is today a damaging President for Israel.

Eyal declared that he did not believe that Nixon had “changed his mind against us” but that the circumstances in the United States “force him to weigh American foreign policy not according to pure American interests but as it is motivated by his own personal interests.”

Eyal asserted that foreign policy was Nixon’s “excelling sphere” and that, to “keep his head above the Watergate swamp, he must demonstrate diplomatic achievements. Hence the insistence of the Americans for a speedy Israeli move.” Eyal argued that, “at this moment,” Nixon’s “own existence may be more important” to him “than Israel’s existence.”