December 16, 1970
Page 41921
HARRY S. TRUMAN AWARD TO SENATOR MUSKIE
Mr. SYMINGTON. Mr. President, it is a privilege, indeed, to ask unanimous consent to place in the body of the RECORD a thoughtful address made by the distinguished Senator from Maine (Mr. MUSKIE) before the State of Israel Bond Association in Kansas City, Mo., earlier this month, at an assembly during which he received the Harry S. Truman Award.
There being no objection, the address was ordered to be printed in the RECORD, as follows:
Remarks of Senator EDMUND S. MUSKIE, State of Israel Bond Association,
Kansas City, Mo., December 13, 1970
I am grateful to you for this award.
We are all deeply grateful to the man for whom it was named – Harry S. Truman. As a President and as a man, he has reflected qualities of compassion and courage and common sense, qualities which America has found in her greatest leaders, qualities which Israel found when she needed understanding and support from America.
There could be no more fitting tribute than the formal dedication earlier this year of the Harry S. Truman Center for the Advancement of Peace on Mount Scopus.
It is appropriate this evening to recall the following words:
"The Land of Israel was the birthplace of the Jewish people. Here their spiritual, religious and national identity was formed. Here they achieved independence and created a culture of national and universal significance. Here they wrote and gave the Bible to the world."
These are the opening lines of Israel's Proclamation of Independence.
Eleven minutes after that Proclamation was issued – in the middle of May, 1948, President Truman announced that America recognized the existence of Israel.
Several hours later, when the combined armies of the Arab League crossed her frontiers, Israel began to prove her existence. Her sons and daughters fought bravely, not for treasure or glory or conquest, but simply for an opportunity to rebuild their lives together on a piece of the land that belonged to their history and that they had been promised.
Yet those who flocked to that land as settlers – from every corner of the world – did not come to do battle.
They came instead to escape repression and persecution. They came to rekindle their heritage and to preserve their faith after the holocaust of World War II. They came to cultivate the soil, to establish industries, to build communities.
We understand these values. We appreciate these values. We identify with these values. After all, for almost 200 years America herself has held out the hope which they signify – of freedom and security and opportunity.
That hope is why my grandfather sent my father to America from eastern Poland. That hope is why each of us is here tonight.
Yet even today, there are people in the world who are without hope, people who want the chance to express freely their own identity. To some of them, Israel represents that chance – and for good reason.
Israel is an effective working democracy. She has cultivated the desert. She has also cultivated the lives of her people.
There is a sense of mutual respect among the families of Israel, between the younger generations and the older generations. Everyone shares a purpose to survive and a purpose to grow, to advance the possibilities of human existence, to fill the future with a vision of hope.
People should have the right to pursue that vision in a country which is prepared to welcome them.
People of the Jewish faith from the Soviet Union should have the right to pursue that vision in the State of Israel.
More than fifty years ago, King Hussein – the grandfather of the present King of Jordan – wrote as follows:
"We saw the Jews . . . streaming to Palestine from Russia, Germany, Austria, Spain . . . The cause of causes could not escape those who had the gift of deeper insight. They knew that the country wasfor its original sons – for all their differences – a sacred and beloved homeland."
That homeland – now the State of Israel – is a nation small in size but large in the consciences of decent men and women, all of us who share the common faith of the Old Testament and who remember the ashes from which Israel rose.
Israel's right to live – as a free and independent democracy – must be affirmed. That right must be maintained. That right must not be challenged by force of arms.
The United States must provide whatever material aid is required for Israel's protection and sustenance. We cannot afford to do less.
We must provide the credits which are necessary – and we must seriously consider providing new forms of assistance, such as lend-lease, so long as Israel remains a beleaguered State.
Our common goal is a stable peace in the Middle East – for all the nations of that region.
Americans must care about achieving that peace – not only because of what the Middle East means to us in material terms or in political terms – but because of what it means to us in moral terms.
Of course, we are concerned about our national security posture, our oil supplies, our relations with the Soviet Union.
But our interest in the Middle East is not simply an extension of the Cold War, and our foreign policy in that area should not be expressed in the rhetoric of the Cold War. Our ultimate concern must be clear.
It is a concern for the people who live in the Middle East . . . and for their ability to live there in peace.
Every nation, every culture, every people in the Middle East has more to gain from an exchange of ideas than from an exchange of hostilities.
These words from Isaiah have special relevance:
"Blessed be Egypt My people and Assyria the work of My hands, and Israel Mine inheritance."
Fear and mistrust have plagued these lands for too long.
Fear and mistrust have made it difficult for the peoples of the Middle East to improve their natural and social environment; to develop without interference from abroad; to reduce their level of military spending.
That fear and mistrust must be overcome as quickly as possible.
Israel's neighbors must recognize that Israel is in the Middle East to stay. And they must be convinced that Israel is not an expansionist State.
On these foundations of mutual restraint, peace can be built.
That peace depends not only on a ceasefire but also on honest negotiations between Israel and her neighbors – negotiations designed to establish secure and agreed boundaries for the State of Israel, to ensure the right of passage through all the waterways of the Middle East, to solve the refugee problem in a fair and equitable manner.
Israel has declared her willingness to live in peace with her neighbors. She desires nothing more. She deserves nothing less.
Israel has offered to cooperate in raising the standard of life throughout the Middle East.
Israel's neighbors could benefit greatly by accepting that offer.
After all, men and women from around the world have traveled to Israel to study and to prepare themselves for service to their own countries.
Instructors from Israel have also traveled to more than 60 nations in Africa, in Asia, in Latin America.
They have provided technical assistance in the areas of farming, and transportation, and medical care.
How fruitful the investment in peace could be, compared to the price of war.
Amidst the constant hazard of battle, Israel has continued working to fulfill a dream of redemption.
Your support – both moral and financial – through the sale of Israel bonds – has been indispensable to the survival of that dream.
And I have decided to see for myself in January what President Truman once called "the remarkable progress made by the new State of Israel" – progress which reveals the beauty and the wisdom of that dream of redemption, progress from which America herself might learn.
It is with a sense of great anticipation that I now repeat the words,
"Next year – in Jerusalem."