A Summary of “Should America Guarantee Israel’s Safety?” by Dr. Irving Moskowitz (1993)
Prepared by Helen Freedman, Executive Director, Americans for a Safe Israel
VIETNAM
1954 — SEATO (Southeast Asia Collective Defense Treaty and Protocol) to protect South Vietnam from Communist North Vietnam was signed November 14, 1972. President Richard Nixon “guaranteed” U.S. retaliatory action if necessary, if the settlement was violated by the North Vietnamese. The guarantees failed.
1973 — U.S. withdrawal from Vietnam and Communist takeover.
TAIWAN
1976 — President Jimmy Carter: “We are bound by a treaty to guarantee the freedom of Formosa, Taiwan, the Republic of China.” The treaty was the 1954 U.S.-Republic of China Mutual Defense Treaty signed under President Dwight Eisenhower.
December 15, 1978 — Treaty reversed when Carter announced the end of U.S. arms sales to Taiwan and extended full recognition of Red China.
ISRAEL
December 1957 — Under Eisenhower, an Aide Memoir was given to Israeli Ambassador Abba Eban by Secretary of State John Foster Dulles: “U.S. would use its best efforts to help assure that a U.N. force placed in Gaza would prevent that region from continuing to serve as “a source of armed infiltration” of Israel. The U.S. guaranteed Israel’s right to free passage through the Straits of Tiran.
1963 — President John F. Kennedy strengthened the above U.S. commitment.
May 17, 1967 — Egyptian President Nasser ordered the U.N. Emergency Force to vacate Gaza and the Sinai. U.N. Force left and Egyptian troops began pouring into the Sinai, leading to the Six Day War.
August 7, 1970 — The Nixon Administration diplomacy resulted in a ceasefire in the War of Attrition waged by Egypt against Israel. The agreement included U.S. assurances to maintain the ceasefire. Egypt immediately broke the ceasefire. The U.S. failed to intervene. Israel was pushed into more Arab-Israeli negotiations. The Egyptians moved their missiles [toward the Suez Canal], which were used against Israel in the 1973 Yom Kippur War.
1975 — The U.S. signed a Joint Memorandum of Agreement pledging the U.S. would “not recognize or negotiate with the PLO so long as the PLO does not recognize Israel’s right to exist, and does not accept Security Council Resolutions 242 and 338.” The U.S. began immediately wooing the PLO.
March, 1988 — Secretary of State George Schultz met illegally with PNC and PLO members Edward Said and Ibrahim Abu-Lughard.
December 14, 1988 — Arafat announced his agreement to the conditions for recognition. President Ronald Reagan pronounced the 1975 promise null and void. The State Department ignored, excused, avoided recognition of continued PLO terrorism.
July 6, 1989 — A PLO terrorist steered an Israeli bus off a cliff. The George H. W. Bush administration looked away. The whitewashing continues throughout massive terrorism by the PLO under the Bush and Clinton administrations.
LEBANON
March, 1978 — Israel retaliated against terrorists in southern Lebanon and occupied a narrow strip of territory. Carter coaxed Israelis out and replaced them with the U.N. Interim Force in Lebanon—UNIFIL—whose purpose was to protect Israelis from terrorists.
June, 1978 — 300 PLO terrorists reoccupied UNIFIL-controlled areas. UNIFIL aided the terrorists with intelligence information against Israel, and exhibited direct collaboration with the PLO. Terrorism flourished. Israel couldn’t retaliate for fear of endangering UNIFIL troops. The Dutch, Irish, Norwegian, French, Swedish, and Nepalese were all collaborators with the PLO.
October, 1983 — 242 Marines killed in their barracks by a suicide bomber. The Marines leave Lebanon.
ISRAEL
September 13, 1993 — Oslo “Peace” Accords signed, Violated; Oslo II signed—Violated.
January 1997 — Hebron Accord with guarantees signed by Secretary of State Warren Christopher—Violated.
1998 — Wye Memorandum—Violated.
1999 — Sharm El Sheik Accord—Violated.
Israel’s very existence is threatened with the [projected] creation of a Palestinian state, the division and loss of Jerusalem, the [projected] giveaway of the Golan Heights to Syria (on the State Department’s list of terrorist countries), and the loss of Judea and Samaria, requiring the transfer of 200,000 Jews, making them the new displaced persons of the Middle East.
STATEMENTS BY RECOGNIZED AUTHORITIES ON ISRAEL
Former Senator Alfonse M. D’Amato (1993): “If Arabs really want peace, why does Israel need “protection” against them?
Senator Scoop Jackson (December 18, 1973): “Much of the history of international guarantees is the history of countries who have lost their territory, their freedom, and even their sons and daughters.”
Abba Eban (1956): “A security guarantee is no substitute for defensive strength.”
Secretary of State Warren Christopher (1993): “U.S. will consider offering Israel some kind of ’security guarantees’ in conjunction with an Israeli surrender of the Golan Heights.”
Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara and the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff (1967): “Israel must hold the commanding terrain east of the pre-1967 boundary. To provide a defense in depth, Israel would need a strip about 15 miles on the Golan”—an area even larger than that which Israel currently holds.
