Canceling Egypt’s $7-Billion Defense Debt
Regarding “Israel Demands Equal Treatment if U.S. Forgives Egypt’s Arms Debt” (Part A, Sept. 5).
For making courageous and potentially risky commitments to an international ethic, Egypt is being rewarded, and wisely so, with a cancellation of its arms debt. So now the Israeli Finance Minister, Yitzhak Modai, says “It doesn’t make sense that Egypt gets a waiver and Israel stays out of it . . . It is ridiculous.” Therefore, Modai intends to “demand” that we forgive Israel’s multibillion-dollar debt as well--and for what? Not for services rendered but, rather, for having the good sense to keep a low profile?
It’s not the lost revenues that bother me because, after all, virtually nobody pays their debts to these United States, a fact to which I’ve grown accustomed. What bothers me is the unmitigated gall, the implication that the United States is withholding from Israel something to which it is entitled.
RICHARD BOYCE
Los Angeles
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