413. Memorandum From the President’s Special Assistant (Rostow) to President Johnson1
SUBJECT
- Our Attendance at Israeli Independence Day Parade2
We are in the midst of our annual hassle over whether Ambassador Barbour should go to Israel’s parade in Jerusalem. He would go if both the French and British Ambassadors were going. But London has decided at Cabinet level that its Ambassador should not go this year, and Paris has agreed.
The issue is where we draw the line in lending our presence to ceremonies which further recognize Jerusalem as Israel’s capital. UN resolutions of 1949–50 recommended that Jerusalem be placed under international administration. We have gone along with this position. Although we do business with Israeli government offices in Jerusalem, we have refused legally to recognize it as Israel’s capital and have kept our embassy in Tel Aviv. While the conditions that led to our initial position have changed, we don’t believe we should change that position unless in the context of some Arab-Israeli settlement. Doing so otherwise would kick off a tremendous Arab reaction.
State really doesn’t feel our presence makes that much legal difference because we’ve been to other such functions in Jerusalem. But it does fear that the Israelis and Arabs would read great significance if we broke with the British and French on the issue. We could probably get Eshkol to promise not to exploit our presence, but we can’t stave off some Arab reaction. The Jordanian Foreign Minister has already formally asked us not to attend. He feels that Jordan is especially vulnerable to Arab criticism because of Jordan’s close relationship with us.
The issue is not the parade itself but the fact that the Israeli government uses this kind of thing to nibble away at the Western position. The British have decided—at the Cabinet level after two reviews and considerable Jewish pressure—that they must draw the line somewhere and that this is the place. In 1965, they attended a tattoo in Jerusalem after the Israelis assured them they’d make nothing of it and then six weeks later Eshkol cited British and American presence as a significant [Page 811] step toward Western recognition of Israel’s status in Jerusalem. The British were burned up, and there’s a good bit of their annoyance in this year’s decision.
The Israelis are telling us informally that our refusal to attend will provoke a crisis in our relations. That’s nonsense, and we can probably talk them out of that line. But unfortunately they can read our absence as the kind of aloofness that doesn’t help you here at home.
Personally, I can’t get excited about whether we go to the parade or not, and I think the British may be drawing the line at the wrong place. But they do make one important point. There’s no question that every Israeli move like this is calculated “salami tactics.” Unhappily, there is no such thing with this tough-minded, always-negotiating government—much as I love the Israelis as people—as just making a nice gesture without having them attach significance to it.
The main issue in this as in the aid package is whether we’re now ready to throw open the gates to Israel or whether we’re still willing to draw the line somewhere to preserve some balance between our Arab and Israeli policies. They think they’ve made a breakthrough with you on the tank and planes sales, and they’re trying to exploit it to the hilt.
I hate to see something like this cause you trouble, and I think the British have made a wrong decision. But Secretary Katzenbach has decided we ought to go along with them and the French, and if there were no domestic concern, I wouldn’t even bother you with this. He has not asked our review, but I asked to put this before you. You can either let his decision stand, or I can ask him to take a second look if you are concerned.
Walt
Let the decision stand
Ask Secretary Katzenbach to review3
- Source: Johnson Library, National Security File, Country File, Israel, Vol. VI. Confidential. A handwritten note on the memorandum indicates that it was received at 3:55 p.m.↩
- Israel’s annual Independence Day parade was to be held in Jerusalem on May 15.↩
- This option is checked, and a handwritten note states that this was done on May 1. Katzenbach renewed his recommendation in a May 2 memorandum to the President, which Rostow forwarded with a May 4 memorandum endorsing it and recommending a low-key approach to the Israelis to urge them not to make an issue of it. Johnson’s response is conveyed in an attached May 4 note telling him to talk to David Ginsburg and “see if you can get him aboard” and to have Harry McPherson talk to Evron. An attached May 6 note from Jim Jones to Johnson conveyed Rostow’s query whether this meant approval of Katzenbach’s recommendation. (Johnson Library, National Security File, Country File, Israel, Vol. VI) Apparently it did; telegram 193643 to Tel Aviv, May 12, states that the Department informed Evron that day that Barbour would be unable to attend the parade. (National Archives and Records Administration, RG 59, Central Files 1967–69, DEF 8 ISR)↩