Tamir Expresses Concern over Western Arms Supplies to Egypt

Israel’s Minister of Justice, Shmuel Tamir, expressed concern today over the “timing, amounts and quality” of Western military shipments to Egypt in light of the unpredictability of events in the Middle East. But he agreed in principle that the Cairo regime should be strengthened.

Tamir, who is visiting the United States (See related story, P. 4.), addressed 400 delegates from all over the country who are offending the annual assembly of the National Jewish Community Relations Advisory Council (NJCRAC). The four day session opened at the Fairmount Hotel here today.

He said he was disturbed by the “proportions” of U.S. military assistance to Egypt rather than the assistance perse. He observed that it was “natural” that following the “disconnection” between Egypt and the Soviet Union that the Cairo regime should be strengthened by the West.

“But the amounts, timing and quality of the military shipments from the West to Egypt are of paramount importance,” he said. “We are hopeful that the present trend in Egypt will continue,” Tamir said. He observed, however, that “Israel has been an integral part of the free world since its inception. Egypt is a new friend of the U.S. and in view of the reversal of Iran from a friend of the West to an enemy of the West, this recent history cannot be forgotten when important decisions on arms are being made.”

Tomir also told the NJCRAC assembly that the crisis in Iron and the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan have drawn Israel and Egypt closer together and it was time for the free world to recognize that both countries were essential elements of the “overall strategic system of the Western powers.” He rejected the notion that the Palestinian issue is central to the achievement of peace in the Middle East, asserting that “There are three sources of Middle East unrest.”

The “first,” he said, “is unremitting refusal to accept the very existence of Israel, a refusal which caused all of the Arab-Israeli wars from 1948 to 1973 and which still prevails in the Arab world with the sole exception of Egypt. Second is the Islamic revolution which erupted in Iron but which shows signs of spreading throughout the Middle East. Third is Soviet expansionism which exploits genuine Arab nationalism for its own imperialistic purposes.”

In confronting these three sources of tension — and in standing fast to resist them — Israel is serving the interests of the free world, he said. Tamir also claimed that “Anyone who, since the Iranian revolution and the Afghanistan invasion by the USSR, supports the idea of a Palestinian state which would be run-by the PLO, is simply advocating the establishment of a Soviet satellite state close to the worm waters not only of the Red Sea but of the Mediterranean itself.”