Newspaper Page Text
THt SOUTHMN I5CABJTE
Pag* Seven
Friday, Jun* 23, 1972
Fulbright Arguments Could
Jeopardize Future Israel Grant
Polakoff
Iiy Joseph Polakoff
The Muskie-Bingham legisla
tion granting Israel $85 million
to help resettle Soviet refugees
probably will have easy sailing
in the House
and Senate
through both
'.he authoriza-
.ion and ap-
) r o p ria tion
■tages. Sym-
>athy for the
■oviet Jews has
>een manifest
or many months,
both in the Con
gress and in the
country as indicated by the mas
sive support for them in the
state legislatures and among
the governors. However, the
State Department’s budget,
which ihcludes the grant since
the bill empowers the Secre
tary of State to determine how
it is to be spent, may run into
numerous snags before its enact
ment into law. This may delay
the support to Israel.
While much good will for So
viet Jews and Israel prevails
on Capitol Hill, a cloud hovers
over the Congressional horizon
that may presage stormy times
in the future for financial as
sistance to Israel. When the
measure introduced by Senator
Muskie with much bipartisan
support was debated in secret
session by the Senate Foreign
Relations Committee, Chairman
Fulbright reportedly complained
that “here we are preparing to
give another $85 million to Is
rael when I am having trou
ble getting $8 million for a
road in Arkansas because funds
are so short.”
Moreover, Fulbright also re
portedly observed to the Com
mittee that Israel already was
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due to receive $500 million in
grants and credits from the
United States this fiscal year,
ending June 30. The fact that
the grants total about $55 mil
lion is buried in the generality
of the reported Fulbright com
ment on the half-billion dollars.
The Fulbright approach is
powerful negativism against in
ternational funding of any sort
that Congressmen know is high
ly impressionable on their con
stituencies in times of domes
tic stress. For years there has
been a rising tide against for
eign aid. With neo-isolationism
perceptibly growing, all over
seas assistance may encounter
severe cutbacks even in this
session of Congress. Although
the United States has a long
tradition of helping refugees,
and most Congressmen wel
come almost any tactic that en
courages Soviet dissidents and
their emigration if that is their
desire, the pull of demands for
domestic projects constitutes a
sort of “America first” political
contention that even the most
internationally minded legisla
tor can ignore only at his peril.
The essence of Fulbright’s
complaint could be used
against any form of interna
tional support—aid to a foreign
government or contributions to
the United Nations and other
world bodies. It could also be
invoked against construction of
'defense equipment or explora
tion of space or even ecological
experimentation abroad.
Thus far, Fulbright’s view is
shared by a small minority. But
his argument on the Muskie bill
contains sharp political teeth
which may need considerable
filling with the instruments of
compassion for people and the
logic of American self-interest
in international cooperation.
Even so, some thinking here is
that in the long-run, both for
Israel and for the American
Jewish community, it would be
prudent for Israel despite its
enormous tax burdens, to ab
stain from accepting further US
grants and limit its financial
assistance from the American
taxpayers by repayable credits
from the US Treasury and
American government political
support in international mone
tary lening institutions.
COMPARATIVE GRANTS
As has often been pointed out,
vast bulk of our government’s
financial assistance to Israel
has been in credits. Not a single
penny has been given as a gift
for military use. Over the past
24 years, grants have averaged
only about twenty million dol
lars per annum, relatively a
pittance compared to the out
pourings of gifts from the
American treasury to some
others.
The most extreme example is
South Vietnam which between
1961 and 1970 received econom
ic grants of close to five bil-
1 i o n dollars ($4,747,000,000).
This sum in nine years is more
than twelve times that given in
22 years to Israel ($370 million,
1948-1970). In the 1946-1970
period, Jordan received $585
million in economic grants, or
almost twice as much as Israel.
Lebanon in that period was
given $79 million. Egypt and
Syria, which have had no fi
nancial aid since 1967, picked
up $292 million and $36 mil
lion, respectively, before the
Six-Day War.
Some other figures made
available to JTA from US
sources show that American
economic grants to Korea total
$446,000,000—a close second to
South Vietnam. Taiwan came in
with $1,793 million and Greece
almost as much, $1,559 million.
Austria has had more than a
billion dollars—$1,098 million,
and Yugoslavia slightly more,
$1,179 million. Other grant aid
totals show Nigeria with $290
million and Zaire and $172 mil
lion.
These are facts that indicate
that Israel is merely one na
tion among many which receive
grant money from the United
States but it is far from being
in the lead although it is first
in defense of ideals common to
both America and Israel.
Copyright 1972, JTA
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No* Change for "Law of Return"
Say Conservative, Reform, Groups
NEW YORK (WUP) — The
six principal bodies of Conser
vative and Reform Judaism
have cautioned Israel through
Premier Golda Meir against at
tempts by the Orthodox rabbi
nate to revise the Law of Re
turn that would exclude con
verts of non-Orthodox rabbis.
In the first statement ever
to be issued jointly by these
groups, they implored Israeli
officials to “reject the misguid
ed advocacy of those who seek
to revise the Law of Return”
and urged retention of the pres
ent form of the law.
They charged that any change
in the Law could seriously jeo
pardize the flow of new immi
grants and divide the Jewish
community through out the
world. The intention of the
Orthodox, they stated, “is to
exclude all converts and their
progeny accepted into the Jew
ish people by Reform and Con
servative' rabbis, and even by
Orthodox rabbis whose creden
tials are not recognized by the
Israeli Chief Rabbinate.”
The six organizations included
the World Union for Progressive
Judaism; Union of American
Hebrew Congregations; Central
Conference of American Rabbis;
World Council of Synagogues;
United Synagogue of America,
and the Rabbinical Assembly.
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