A new batch of recordings released by the Nixon Presidential Library and Museum provides further evidence of former U.S. President Richard Nixon’s animosity toward Jews and other minorities. Particularly appalling were comments made by Nixon and his national security adviser Henry Kissinger after a March 1973 meeting with prime minister Golda Meir at the White House.

Nixon and Kissinger brutally dismissed Meir’s requests to come to the aid of refuseniks. …

Nixon also ordered his personal secretary Rose Mary Woods to block entry to a state dinner held in honor of Meir — he called it “the Jewish dinner” — to any Jew “who didn’t support us.”

And the president disparaged top Jewish advisers — among them Kissinger and William Safire — for supposedly sharing the common trait of needing to compensate for an inferiority complex. …

Counter intuitively, this is the same Nixon who, during the Yom Kippur War, overrode intra-administration bickering and bureaucratic foot-dragging to implement a breathtaking transfer of arms. Code-named Operation Nickel Grass, the operation, over a four-week period, deployed hundreds of jumbo US military aircrafts to deliver more than 22,000 tons of armaments to Israel. …

The New York Times, attempting to explain the apparent contradiction between Nixon’s anti-Semitic remarks and his pro-Israel behavior, ascribed it to a distinction the president made between Israeli Jews, whom he admired, and American Jews.

Perhaps so. Whatever the case, Nixon’s readiness to come to Israel’s aid at a time of dire need, his appreciation that this was an American interest, has an ongoing relevance, underlining the critical mutual importance of the Israeli-American strategic alliance.

With all its implications for policymaking in Washington and in Jerusalem, this remains as true today as it ever was.