Cash income, both receipts and forecasts, are up in the United Jewish Appeal campaign this year. Leon Dulzin, Jewish Agency treasurer and the man to whom the money comes in for allocation, noted the increase with obvious gratification, But with some concern too, as he explained in a special interview Monday with the Jewish Telegraphic Agency.
“I have asked a number of top UJA leaders how it is that cash income is up even though the U.S. economy is still in recession.” Their reply, he said, is disturbing. A new factor, they say, is aiding their campaign–the factor of Jewish anger Jewish frustration. The Jews, they say, expected to be asked (by Israel) to do something, to help her politically. They have not been asked, and, as their only available course to demonstrate their deep identification and will to contribute, they pay up their pledges promptly.
Dulzin said the UJA leaders’ assessment broadly confirmed his own impressions from recent far-ranging visits throughout the U.S. He detected, he said, a feeling of frustration and anxiety which he had never experienced before. Basing his report on conversations with some 100 key figures in Jewish communal life, he said there is a nagging sense of doubt at Israel’s policies in the settlement talks, a nagging sense that Israel is allowing itself to be browbeaten by the U.S. Administration, a sense that the Rabin government is not bargaining hard enough over the terms of the settlement.
U.S. JEWISH LEADERS NOT ‘HAWKS’
Dulzin, of course, is a leader of the Likud opposition party (its liberal wing), but he stressed that he personally has always favored the interim settlement as a policy (unlike others in Likud, particularly on the Herut wing). He stressed, too, that the American Jewish leaders whose feelings he reported are by no means “hawks,” but on the contrary are men and women who have all along favored the step-by-step policy and favored the principle of territorial compromise.
He would not name names, but said he was referring, inter alia, to leading members of the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations. Dulzin said many of these people who as recently as six months ago admired and trusted Secretary of State Henry A. Kissinger do not trust him today. They believe President Ford and Kissinger are not in a position to force Israel into doing whatever they want, and that a firm stand by Israel would, in fact, force Washington to reconsider some of its attitudes.
They feel, Dulzin stated, that Israel failed to negotiate with enough firmness and toughness, For instance, the Egyptian pledge to “moderate” the economic and diplomatic warfare it wages against Israel seems to these Jewish leaders slender return indeed for the major sacrifices Israel is making, Dulzin observed. Israel should have held out for the complete end of the boycott and of economic and diplomatic warfare. Properly explained, this policy would surely have won a sympathetic hearing in U.S. public opinion.
“Moderation” in this connection seems all but meaningless. It is, Dulzin said, “like being a little bit pregnant.” Israel, moreover, should have held out for other significant “elements of non-belligerency.” As it is, Dulzin charged–stressing throughout that he was reflecting a broad range of U.S. Jewish opinion–the agreement-in-the-making is pretty much the military separation pact that Egypt says it is, rather than the tangible step towards peace that Israel desired.
CONCERNED ABOUT ‘SECRET CLAUSES’
The U.S. Jewish leaders are also anxious and concerned about the “secret” clauses and documents which are reportedly to accompany the formal agreement, both on the Israel-Egypt and Israel-U.S. levels, Dulzin said. They fear, too, he added, that undertakings which are not spelled out and published clearly will not prove of long duration. These fears are aired particularly in connection with American economic undertakings.
Furthermore, Dulzin stated, American Jews were perturbed by Ambassador Simcha Dinitz’s recent assertion in an interview that there was “no pressure” by the U.S. on Israel. This clearly, he asserted, contradicted the well-known facts. The least the Ambassador could have done in the circumstances, Dulzin said, was to deftly dodge the question–leaving the public to form its own conclusions and act accordingly.
Dulzin quoted Sam Rothberg of Peoria, Ill., Israel Bond Organization general chairman who last week led a group of 43 Bond leaders on a mission to Israel: “When we went to see the (Mitle and Gidi) Passes and Abu Rodeis, we were 43 doves. When we came back–we were 43 hawks.” Rothberg’s meaning was not, Dulzin said, that Israel should reject an interim accord. What he was expressing was a widely shared feeling that Israel should (or should have–“It is too late now,” Dulzin said sorrowfully) have demanded more for its strategic assets.
KISSINGER DELIBERATELY EXAGGERATES DANGERS
Dulzin himself identified with the feelings of other Jewish leaders whom he has met and found to be anxious and frustrated. Kissinger, he charged, has deliberately exaggerated the dangers of not reaching a Mideast accord “out of all proportion”; he has warned repeatedly that world peace hinges on the agreement being attained; he has convinced Ford of this–and the President has been even more forthright in his warnings, which are mainly directed at Israel and intended to soften her stand.
But Dulzin saw a distinct advantage in this situation, an advantage which he accused the Rabin government of failing to exploit: “If the fate of the world hinges on us–then that should have given us a super-strong bargaining position which we should use to ensure that our main demands in the settlement talks are fulfilled.”
The Archive of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency includes articles published from 1923 to 2008. Archive stories reflect the journalistic standards and practices of the time they were published.
