World: In Defense of Israel

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What does Israel want or expect from the new U.S. Administration, whose Middle East policy, it is speculated, may be more "evenhanded"?

American policy in the past has never shown bias toward Israel. Thus, if it is evenhanded, it will remain the same, not change. Israel hopes for three things from the U.S. First, that the Administration will see to it that war is not invited by an imbalance of forces here. This means that Israel's defenses should be maintained in the face of the massive Soviet rearming of Egypt. Second, Israel wishes the U.S. to deter the Soviet Union from intervention or intimidation here. And third, we want the new Administration to maintain President Johnson's principle that there can be no Israeli withdrawal from the ceasefire lines except to secure and agreed borders. This principle has been restated to us in Washington recently, and has also been stated by Mr. Nixon on many occasions. We do not expect the Nixon Administration to depart from these three fundamentals, even if the application of them is appraised from time to time.