‘a Sense of Foreboding’ Aipac Official Says No Matter Who is Elected President, Anti-israel Policies

Thomas Dine, executive director of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC), warned last night that despite the “upbeat” feeling in United States-Israel relations there is a “sense of foreboding” that no matter who is elected President in November, anti-Israel policies will once again be pressed in Washington.

This is because a “perverted” peace process will be resurrected, Dine told the 1,000 persons attending AIPAC’s 25th annual policy conference at the Washington Hilton Hotel. He said it would not make any difference whether the next President is Ronald Reagan again or former Vice President Walter Mondale or Sen. Gary Hart (D. Col.), all of whom he said have “authentic pro-Israel beliefs.”

“In the past few years, the real and noble process that began at Camp David has been put aside and the term ‘peace process’ has been expropriated as a code word for a different policy that actually consists of tilting toward the Arabs and deliberately provoking tensions with Israel,” Dine charged.

PREDICTS ANOTHER ROUND OF WISHFUL THINKING

He predicted this “peace process,” unlike the one in which the late Egyptian President Anwar Sadat agreed to sit down and negotiate with Israel, would begin “with another round of wishful thinking” about King Hussein of Jordan “by advisors and experts who predictably will assert that if only the United States offers him enough promises and weapons and pledges of pressure against Israel then, maybe, he will consent to consider a negotiation. This, only after his preconditions are met.”

Dine said that second step would follow which would be to try to bring the Palestine Liberation Organization in support of Hussein with “more secret negotiations with the PLO” in violation of U.S. commitments to Israel and with promises to Yasir Arafat that Jerusalem would be “negotiable.” He said this would be followed by “gestures” to Syria and the Soviet Union “to gain their permission to let Arafat allow Hussein to negotiate.”

Dine added that “what is so troubling is that the seeds of this perverted notion of a peace process can be found throughout the Washington establishment — among liberals as well as conservatives, Republicans as well as Democrats.”

But Dine said supporters of Israel “have real strength” not only in that Reagan, Hart and Mondale “rank among the staunchest friends of Israel to run for the office of President,” but in the many supporters of Israel running for the House and Senate.

SAYS U.S.-ISRAEL ALLIANCE MUST BE ‘NAILED DOWN’

“We have to work now to ensure that we never again face the crisis that beset U.S.-Israel relations in the cold period of 1982-83,” Dine said. He said the military and economic alliance between Israel and the U.S. must be “nailed down” so that “Israel will then come to be seen, not as a supplicant for American handouts, but as a full fledged American partner, helping to promote and defend American interests” in the Middle East.

Secondly, Dine stressed, “We have to ensure that whoever is in office in January 1985, will return to the real peace process, the Camp David process, and will not instead pursue a process predicated on pressuring Israel.” He said this means “insisting that U.S. policy not be based on wishful thinking about Arab intentions but rather on a clear understanding that it is the Arabs who must first show a willingness to make peace before the United States and Israel can be expected to respond.”

Dine said Arab states should not receive arms from the U.S. “until and unless they agree to make peace with Israel.” He said the world must be “made to understand” that just as Israel’s existence is not negotiable, “Jerusalem as the capital of Israel is not negotiable.”

“We have to dispel the illusion that Jerusalem will ever be divided again let alone handed over to Yasir Arafat to be his capital,” Dine declared. “That is why this organization is working diligently to push for legislation that clearly states to all that at least our first branch of government recognizes Jerusalem as Israel’s capital and believes that the U.S. Embassy should be relocated there. As of tonight (April 8), 220 U.S. Representatives and 40 U.S. Senators agree with us.”