July 19, 1371
Page 25966
ISRAEL'S SURVIVAL AND AMERICA'S SECURITY (Remarks by Senator EDMUND S. MUSKIE, Denver, Colo., June 25, 1971)
It has been some time since I was on the receiving end of a national campaign. And in the last two or three years, I have often wondered what it's like to watch the candidates from a distance.
Can most voters see beyond the press releases and the jokes, the proposals and the television commercials, to the unique, individual flesh and blood human beings? Where does the plastic of image-making stop – and where does the hard-rock of character begin?
There are no easy answers to questions like that. Technology and history have sentenced candidates and citizens alike to a long and expensive ordeal, where people can often reach a politician's hand, but can seldom touch his soul. It's a frustrating process – this business of listening through the noise and listening for the man somewhere in the midst of the campaign. It's like buying a brightly colored grab bag – you can never be completely sure what's inside.
And the process is almost as frustrating from the other end. There, the task is to make people understand, to move them, to discover with them a new way to a better country. From airplane to airplane, from meeting to meeting, from speech to speech, the potential candidate keeps following the liturgy of politics and keeps repeating his litany of promises.
I don't know how the public endures it for so long. But I can explain how just one politician does because I have asked myself "why" again and again.
Part of the answer is the challenge – the chance to shape events and change the life of the nation.
The other part is concern – the simple decency of caring what happens to real people and vital principles. Every American has a vision for America. The opportunity to make that vision a reality comes to few men. And because it may come to me, I want to talk with you tonight about my hopes and beliefs.
The conventional way to speak with you would be a laundry list of problems and plans. But that really says so little and reveals even less. In 1968, Richard Nixon put out a book proving that he had taken over a hundred specific positions on the issues. I was no more comfortable with him after publication than before.
Instead of something like that, I would like to tell you what I think about a single issue – an issue which I know is close to everyone here – the issue of Israel's survival and security. I have spoken about that issue time and again – and I have been disappointed by the occasional doubts about where I stand. I hope there will be no doubts left after tonight. That's why I want to tell you not only what I think, but what I feel.
I am talking about the feeling I had last January, when I visited a young country built and sustained by an abiding faith in humanity's oldest heritage.
I am talking about my feeling when I stood in Yad Veshem, the memorial to six million dead Jews who will always live in the memory of their martyrdom.
I am talking about my feeling in the bomb shelter of Kibbutz Gesher, where the children had painted wall pictures about peace that is their dream instead of the war that has been their fate.
And I am talking about my feeling in Kibbutz S'de Boker during my talk with David Ben Gurion – a feeling equaled only by my reaction to the bravery of Golda Meir, whose spirit is as young as the country she leads.
So when I left Israel only a few months ago, I felt something in my heart that I had known in my head for a long time. I felt Israel's urgent, moral claim on our support – not merely the support of our words, but the support of our deeds. And in the Middle East I also learned again a stark and simple truth – that the security of Israel is closely related to the security of the United States.
In 1971, this truth must be the foundation for American policy. It is no longer enough – and it never was enough – to rely on the diplomacy of mere reaction of Russian power politics in the Middle East. What may seem details of diplomacy to us may be matters of survival for Israel.
Both our policy and our strength must remain constant – so Israel can become as certain of our support as she is of her own resolution.
We must back Israel's demand for defensible borders. From the beginning until 1967, the weakness of Israel's frontier was an enemy's best ally. The way to prevent a new and similar alliance now is an internationally recognized border adjustment. That would not be unusual – and it would not be unfair. As I pointed out to Premier Kosygin in Moscow, Israel needs the kind of border security Russia claimed to need after the Finnish War and World War II – the security of frontiers that are a shield against attack instead of an invitation to aggression.
And Israel deserves more than that. She deserves the right to determine her own fate and every other country in the Middle East has a similar right. The great powers should help – but they cannot decide. A lasting peace will result only from negotiations by the parties directly involved. And the United States must do nothing to undermine Israel's bargaining position.
But there is something our country can and must do. Though we hope as much as Israel for a permanent peace, we must also assure Israel of enough power to deter renewed war. The right aim is to stop the arms race in the Middle East. But arms control on one side and an arms increase on the other will only tighten the tensions and encourage more bloodshed and violence.
That would threaten our own security – and that is another reason why we must secure the strength of Israel.
I have believed that from the beginning. I believed it in 1967 when I co-sponsored the Symington-Javits Resolution for a just settlement in the Middle East. I believed it in 1970 when I supported more planes for Israel. And I believed it when I went to Israel last January and a week later when I told it to Premier Kosygin in Moscow.
In my short time in the Middle East, I found a new sense of understanding about that belief. I saw better than I ever could on paper or in State Department reports what Israel is really all about.
And I remembered my father's explanation of America's meaning to him – to a man who finally found in Rumford, Maine, a decent refuge from the oppression of Eastern Europe.
The kind of life he built there and the kind of life Jews have built in Israel are things too precious to lose. They must command our energy and our attention now and in the years to come. We must wage the struggle together – in politics, in government, and in private life. And no matter where events and fortune take me in the next few months, I intend to remain part of that effort.