America-israel Public Affairs Committee Urges Sale of Jets to Israel Without Delay

The 11th annual National Policy Conference of the America-Israel Public Affairs Committee adopted a resolution today demanding that the United States government sell Israel more Jets “without delay.” It said the adding of Soviet pilots to Egypt’s military manpower has “drastically changed the balance of power in the Middle East,” and that delay on Jet deliveries would “weaken Israel’s deterrent position.” “fortify Arab resistance to peace negotiations,” and make Israel vulnerable to attack. The resolution stated that additional Jets would be in line with America’s “commitment” to Israel. It endorsed direct Arab-Israeli negotiations, unhampered by Big Four dictation; called an Israeli return to the June 4, 1967 lines “conducive to war,” and said the “mass repatriation” of Arab refugees to Israel would lead to “the destruction of Israel by a hostile fifth column.”

Earlier, 256 Catholic and Protestant American leaders of the Interfaith and University Committee of the America-Israel Cultural Foundation issued a statement branding Arab terrorism as “reprehensible” and criticizing “the nations and religions, especially of the Western and Arab world” who have “condoned” or “supported” such terrorism. The office of the Rev. Karl Baehr, director of the committee, said the phrase “Western nations” referred to those UN members, including the United States, who have voted for such censures. But the spokesman refused to fully identify the nations accused. The statement declared: “Too long have the nations and religious groups condoned by their silence, inaction or equivocation, or even by their active support, the 22 years of Arab terrorist attacks against Israel.” The statement emphasized that “We do not excuse in any way the Israeli decisions to bomb Egyptian territory in and around cities.” But it noted “with sorrow” that “many church leaders, as well as the United Nations, are regrettably quick to censure Israel for such retaliatory acts while remaining conspicuously silent about Arab violence which has claimed many Innocent victims, including Americana.”