Rabin Says Israel Will Defend Itself by All Means, Despite UN Criticism

Maj. Gen. Itzhak Rabin, Israel’s Ambassador to the United States, declared here yesterday that Israel will continue to fight terrorism with all the means at her disposal. Including reprisals “which will continue despite the condemnation in the United Nations.” The Israeli envoy, formerly Chief of Staff of his country’s armed forces, spoke before 500 delegates at the first national young leadership conference sponsored jointly by the United Jewish Appeal and the Council of Jewish Federations and Welfare Funds. He described terrorist attacks as “a nuisance which interferes with the development of our nation.”

He linked the recent escalation of terrorist assaults and clashes along the Suez Canal and along the Israel-Jordan demarcation line directly to the Soviet take-over of Czechoslovakia. He said the Soviet move heightened tensions in the Middle East because “the Arabs are admirers of force.” The Czech situation, he said, “gives the Arabs confidence. Since Czechoslovakia there have been more penetrations and clashes along the Suez Canal. The Arabs are more trigger-happy. One can say this is a coincidence; I don’t believe it is a coincidence.”

Ambassador Rabin said that since the June, 1967 war there has been no change on the part of the Arabs that would eliminate stalemate and lead to peace. He put the blame primarily on Russia; which he accused of playing a key role in the actions of the United Nations against Israel. “Since 1954, when the Russians started their efforts to penetrate the Middle East by making their first arms deal with Egypt, the Russians have exercised their veto against Israel many times.” The Soviet-Arab alliance, he continued, has led the UN “away from its basic ideals when it comes to Israel.” He said the Soviets have rearmed the Arabs with more and better equipment than before the war and have trained Arab pilots in the USSR.

Gen. Rabin’s address was the highlight of a two-day conference on domestic and overseas concerns which heard from several authorities on international Jewish needs, among them Rabbi Herbert A. Friedman, executive vice chairman of the UJA; Samuel L. Haber, executive vice chairman of the Joint Distribution Committee; Gottlieb Hammer executive vice chairman of the United Israel Appeal; and I. L. Kenen, executive director of the American-Israel Public Affairs Committee. The 500 young Jewish leaders were urged to champion social change through support of massive programs by both government and the private sector to assure justice, dignity and decent standards of living to impoverished and deprived Americans. The appeal was made at the opening session of the conference by Philip Bernstein, CJFWF executive vice-president. He also told the participants from 50 cities that America’s urban problems, the development of a strong American Jewish community and the critical needs of Jews overseas were the top priorities in Jewish communal commitments. He reported that in the voluntary sector, the organized Jewish communities represented in the CJFWF had been “heavily involved in designing programs to combat the ills of our inner cities.”

Isaac Toubin, executive vice-president of the American Association for Jewish Education, urged greater Jewish educational services for the more than 350,000 Jews attending college. He said Jewish educators understood that vast sums “must be made available to deal with secondary Jewish education and young adult education, and that these frontiers of action will be decisive in determining the quality of Jewish continuity–even more than our previous preoccupation with elementary Hebrew schools.”