Zionism’s Last Card and Hope For Palestine
On the subject of America’s relations with the Arabs, the President said this: “Israel’s actions and policies are making it difficult for the United States to maintain good relations with the Arabs and support Israel.” The examples he cited were the diversion of the Jordan River waters, reprisal attacks and cross-border raids, and the continuing refusal to address the Palestinian refugee problem. Those matters, together with the U.S. sale to Israel of advanced Hawk missiles, were “putting severe strain on American relations with Arab countries.”
Though she would not have liked hearing it, Kennedy was also frank about what he regarded as an essential element of Israel’s security. It was Israel’s own behaviour towards the Arabs.
Of course there would be differences about how to handle certain matters, Kennedy said. He believed, for example, that greater use should be made of the UN in dealing with border problems. (They both knew that Ben-Gurion and Dayan and their fans had nothing but contempt for the UN).
Then, with a firmness no doubt masked to some extent by his charm, the President told Golda that the United States required Israel to recognize that American and Israeli security interests were not always one and the same. He said:
“We know that Israel faces enormous security problems but we do, too. We came almost to direct confrontation with the Soviet Union last spring and again recently in Cuba. Because we have taken on wide security responsibilities, we always have the potential of becoming involved in a major crisis not of our own making.” And that was why “we have got to concern ourselves with the whole Middle East. We would like Israel’s recognition that this partnership we have with it produces strains for the United States in the Middle East… when Israel takes such action as it did last spring, whether right or wrong, those actions involve not just Israel but also the United States.”
The particular action to which Kennedy was referring was the massive Israeli reprisal attack on Syria that had embarrassed the Soviet Union and for which Israel was condemned by the Security Council.
President Kennedy’s bottom-line was that Israel had to consider the interests of the United States. He said: “What we want from Israel arises because our relationship is a two-way street.”
Never before had an American President dared to speak so frankly to an Israeli leader. The tragedy was that – because of pork-barrel American politics – it had to be said in private.
As he indicated to Golda, Kennedy’s real fear was that Israel’s policy of seeking to impose its will on the Arabs by force could provoke a superpower confrontation. He knew that Soviet leaders did not want a Hot War with the U.S. over the Middle East, and that they were every bit as frightened as he was by the prospect of it happening; but he was wise enough to know that they might have to respond if Israel went on humiliating the Arabs with demonstrations of military superiority. It was a matter of face for the Soviets as well as their Egyptian and Syrian customers. That was what Kennedy really meant when he told Golda of the dangers he saw of the U.S becoming involved in a major crisis “not of our own making.”
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