President Carter sent a message to the American-Israel Public Affairs Committee last night saying that he will be “devoting much of my personal energies over the next year to assisting Israel and her Arab neighbors” reach a peace settlement and urged AIPAC’s support in this endeavor.
In the message read to some 1000 persons attending the AIPAC’s 18th annual policy conference dinner, Carter said if his Administration’s efforts are to succeed “they will require the whole hearted support of all our citizens and, in particular, of Americans like you for whom peace in the Middle East is such a special priority.” He described AIPAC as “a powerful force in shaping of public opinion in our country.”
AIPAC, in a policy statement today concluding the conference, commended the Carter Administration and Congress for continuing to furnish “substantial military and economic aid to Israel.” It cautioned against American efforts to unilaterally curtail arms supplies to the Middle East since that “would only undermine Israel’s defense capacity.” At the same time, it said “American arms shipments to Arab states, such as Egypt, which are still in a state of war with Israel, cannot be justified.”
CORE OF MIDEAST DISPUTE
AIPAC also stressed that “the core issue of the Arab-Israeli dispute remains the continuing refusal of the Arab states to recognize the legitimate right of Israel to live in peace as a Jewish State in the Middle East. The problems of boundaries and of the Arab refugees are the result of that refusal, not the cause of that conflict.”
The Committee rejected a Palestinian state and said that “Jordan, the majority of whose citizens are Palestinians and which occupies 80 percent of historic Palestine, can best represent Palestinian interests” in any Middle East peace conference.
In other statements, AIPAC urged the United States to recognize Jerusalem as the capital of Israel, said persecution against Jews in Sytia and Iraq has become “Intolerable.” urged the U.S. to use every opportunity to persuade the Soviet Union to end its denial of emigration rights to Jews and others and urged the U.S. to adopt a program to achieve greater energy self-sufficiency.
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.
