ZOA Convention Warns on Nuclear Deal with Egypt: Concern over Aliya Drop Expressed

The Zionist Organization of America ending its 77th National Convention, expressed its “admiration and appreciation” of the United States government’s support and aid for Israel, today but warned of “many clear indications that the Arab states in fact continue to cling to their ultimate objectives of liquidating the State of Israel by stages.” A resolution adopted by the 1,000 delegates at the close of the four-day meeting at the N.Y. Hilton Hotel, said the ZOA could “place little trust” in Egyptian assurances that the nuclear technology extended by the U.S. will be used only for peaceful purposes. The resolution urged Congress to carefully review the nuclear reactor agreement and to reject it if there is any doubt of U.S. ability to provide adequate safeguards.

Concern over the decline of immigration to Israel was expressed by Jacques Torczyner, a past president of the ZOA and chairman of its administrative board. He said aliya must be given higher priority and urged more imaginative programs by American Zionists and Israelis alike. He said aliya from the U.S. has “slowed down recently not only because of the (Yom Kippur) war and the explosive situation in the Near East” but “because many of those who went to Israel returned disillusioned.” Torczyner told an aliya discussion panel that Americans found jobs but not the “expected housing” and found it difficult to adjust to Israeli life. They and their children did not find themselves accepted by Israelis, he said. But Torczyner predicted that the recent election of former Finance Minister Pinhas Sapir to the chairmanships of the Jewish Agency and World Zionist Organization executives would change the situation because Sapir has a reputation for “getting things done.”

CALLS HUSSEIN “NATURAL ALLY”

Leon Ilutovich, executive director of the ZOA, said that practical programs must be developed to overcome the difficulties of aliya. He cited as examples such ZOA programs as the Mollie Goodman Academic High School in Kfar Silver and the broadly-based youth programs conducted each year. William Schwartz, chairman of the ZOA’s youth committee charged that “what is turning off young people from aliya is the insensitivity of the bureaucracy of the Israeli government and the Jewish Agency toward the prospective immigrant. There is a lack of understanding of the cultural makeup of American young people and their ideological commitment to the State of Israel,” he said. Gideon Patt, a member of the Knesset said that aliya from the U.S. should be conducted on a community wide basis since no single organization can fully implement it alone.

Speaking at another session, Torczyner said that Israel’s “natural ally” was King Hussein of Jordan and an understanding with him “could solve the Palestinian problem without permitting terrorists and bandits to build an independent state between Jordan and Israel.”

Other resolutions adopted by the convention demanded that Lebanon close down terrorist bases or that a United Nations force be established to do the job; called for “an impartial international investigation of the treatment accorded to Israeli prisoners of war in Syria; opposed any agreement with the USSR that would limit the number of Jews who can emigrate; urged Israel to establish a government of national unity; and urged Americans to support a strong U.S. defense posture as a way to ensure peace and to protect small countries such as Israel.