184	The Story of the Jewish Defense League

ban end to foreign ‘adventures’ and a humiliating defeat for bthe United States in southeast Asia, is a man who will create bthe kind of isolationism that will breed Munich after bMunich. He will remove the fear of an American deterrent bfrom the path of Soviet and other Communist aggression; bhe will drive small states into an accommodation with the bSoviets and other Communist aggressors that will make bmere protectorates and satellites of them and will doom bcertain states to slavery and destruction. Israel stands in this blatter category.

b“Have we gone insane? Do American Jews not realize bthat, but for American power and military credibility, the bState of Israel would be in a terrible, precarious situation? bJewish interest and American interest all dictate a tough and bfirm policy against the Soviets and a tough and firm armed bforces to back up that policy and make it believable. George bMcGovern is not the kind of a man who will support a tough banti-Soviet policy or an anti-Communist line. In his mind, banti-Communism is a relic of the cold war ‘warriors’ and a bthing to be discarded.

b“Is George McGovern good for liberals? I suppose so. Is bhe good for the Jews? Emphatically not. Now is the time for bthe Jew to decide what, for him, is more important.”

bIt was just this thinking that led us to go against the Jewish bstream of thought on the controversial question of Vietnam. bThere was not a major Jewish group that, by 1970 was not bopposed to United States policy in Vietnam and some, like bthe horrendous American Jewish Congress, spent vast bamounts of time and Jewish money attacking Nixon on this bissue. More, there was not a campus where opinion was not boverwhelmingly against United States involvement in bSoutheast Asia, and it was precisely in this climate that JDL bcame out squarely against a United States withdrawal.

bAt a press conference at the Overseas Press Club on May b19, 1970, I maintained that the results of the war in Vietnam bhad a direct bearing on the future of Israel and the conflict bin the Middle East, declaring that a U.S. defeat in Indochina bwould “guarantee escalation of the war in other areas.” I binsisted that the great majority of Israelis and the Israeli b