WASHINGTON, Aug. 22—Senator J. W. Fulbright, a foe of new American commitments abroad, offered today to sup port a bilateral treaty under which the United States would use military force if necessary to “guarantee the territory and independence of Israel within the borders of 1967.”
The Arkansas Democrat, who is chairman of the Senate For eign Relations Committee, said such a treaty would also obli gate Israel not to violate these frontiers—those that existed be fore the Arab‐Israeli war of June, 1967.
The Senator made it clear that a United States “guarantee treaty” would be considered only after the forthcoming peace talks produced a settle ment and the United Nations issued multilateral guarantees to both Israel and the Arab countries ratified by all parties. The American pact, he said, would be “supplementary” to the United Nations commit ment.
Proposals in Major Speech
Mr. Fulbright set forth his proposals in a speech on the Middle East in which he placed the emphasis on the need for the United Nations Security Council to impose a peace set tlement on Israel and the Arab states if they failed to agree among themselves.
His 15,000‐word speech, titled “Old Myths and New Realities—the Middle East,” is to be delivered in the Senate on Monday, but its text was issued for publication today.
Continue reading the main storyHe called for specific United Nations guarantees, obligating all members of the Security Council, including the United States and the Soviet Union, to defend the “secure and recognized boundaries” of both Israel and the Arab states.
Noting that “for reasons of varying merit Israel has indi cated on numerous occasions a lack of confidence in the Unit ed Nations,” Mr. Fulbright said that “in order to accommodate this attitude and provide Israel with an added assurance of se curity, I for one would be will ing to supplement a United Na tions guarantee with a bilateral treaty—not an executive agree ment but a treaty consented to by the Senate—under which the United States would guar antee the territory and inde pendence of Israel within the borders of 1967.”
In a departure from his opposition to new defense commitments and despite his doubts, expressed in the speech, that the Middle East is an area of vital American interests, Mr. Fulbright broke new ground in advocating the guarantee for Israel.
The Middle East speech was built around the theme that the United States must discard “old myths” about the world to face the “new realities.”
On March 25, 1964, Mr. Ful bright delivered his first ad dress on myths and realities in foreign affairs. He attacked the cold war attitudeS in saying that “we must learn to welcome rather than fear the voices of dissent and not to recoil in hor ror whenever some heretic sug gests that Castro may survive or that Khrushchev isn't as bad a fellow as Stalin was.”
Today, he rejected as myths the Israeli fears that the Arabs are still determined to destroy the Jewish state and he charged that “the Arabs do nothing to allay this fear with extravagant talk about ‘holy wars’ and about throwing the Jews into the sea.”
Threats Repudiated
He said that both President Gamal Abdel Nasser of the United Arab Republic and King Hussein of Jordan have “in ef fect repudiated such Draconian threats, but the Israelis seem not to have noticed the dis avowals.”
Addressing himself to the forthcoming Middle East peace talks, expected to open at the United Nations next week in the wake of the two‐week‐old cease‐fire, Mr. Fulbright appeal ed to the Israelis to take the first step toward a settlement.
The talks are to be conducted by Dr. Gunnar V. Jarring, the United Nations’ special repre sentative.
“As Ambassador Jarring's renewed mediation gets under way,” the Senator said, “the first important move will prob ably be up to Israel, which as the military victor of the moment can reasonably be ex pected to initiate the bargaining with a demonstration of flexi bility, if not indeed of mag nanimity.”
“Should the Israeli Govern ment agree in the early stage of discussions, and in fairly specific terms, to a peace set tlement providing for Israeli withdrawal from the occupied territories and for a just set tlement of the refugee problem, the prospect for peace would be better than at any time since the 1967 war,” he said.
Advice to Palestinians
Mr. Fulbright stressed at the same time that “in due course the Palestinian Arabs will find it necessary to accept the exist ence of the state of Israel and to recognize that further, futile efforts to destroy the Jewish state will only compound their own suffering.”
He proposed some form of self‐determination for Pales tinians on the non‐Israeli terri tory of Palestine, an interna tional status for Jerusalem—he rejected the Israeli contention that the fate of East Jerusalem was “not negotiable”—and United Nations guarantees to Israel of free passage through Suez and the Gulf of Aqaba.
Mr. Fulbright suggested that the United Nations settlement “should also specify strict lim itations on the sale or provision of arms to Middle Eastern states by outside powers.”
In stating that a United States guarantee would be con ditional on a previous United Nations guarantee, Mr. Ful bright said:
“The supplementary, bilat eral arrangements with Israel would obligate the United States to use force if necessary, in accordance with its constitu tional processes, to assist Israel against any violation of its 1967 borders which it could not repel itself, bUt the agree ment would also obligate Israel, firmly and unequivocally, never to violate those borders her self.”
Continue reading the main story