Israeli Minister of Commerce and Industry Haim Barlev affirmed today that he was given a personal promise by Secretary of Commerce Rogers C.B, Morton to intervene with American firms that yield to Arab boycott pressures because “American Industry should be educated that the Arab boycott is amoral economically and politically.”
Interviewed by Hughes Rudd on the CBS television network morning news program, Barlev said he would supply Morton with a list of American companies that have “succumbed to Arab blackmail” or are in the process of succumbing to enable him to fulfill that pledge. He said that Morton also promised that he would personally influence such American firms to invest in Israel and in Arab countries simultaneously.
Barlev’s remarks this morning confirmed what Morton’s special assistant and Commerce Department communications director William Rhatican told the Jewish Telegraphic Agency in Washington yesterday. Rhatican said the Secretary had volunteered, at his meeting with Barlev Tuesday night, to call any American firm the Israelis could identify as refusing to deal with Israel because of Arab boycott pressure and try to persuade it to reverse its refusal.
JOBS FOR AMERICANS
Barlev said in the course of this morning’s interview that the economic aid Israel receives from the U.S. is spent on imports from the U.S., mostly civilian products. He claimed that Israel’s purchases of American goods provided about 126,000 Jobs for Americans last year, a significant figure at a time of high unemployment in the U.S.
Barlev said Israel was in need of American economic aid because it was forced to spend one-third of its gross national product for defense. He said he invited Morton to come to Israel and that the Secretary had accepted. He did not indicate a date for Morton’s visit.
It was learned, meanwhile that Treasury Secretary William Simon, will visit Israel in January, 1976 at the head of an American economic delegation to implement U.S.-Israeli economic agreements, (By Yitzhak Rabi)
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.
