Haifa Mayor Yosef Almogi, who was officially nominated last week by the Labor Party leadership for the post of chairman of the Jewish Agency and World Zionist Executives, told Anglo-Jewish leaders what he believed are the qualities demanded by the office he seeks.
Almogi, who later delivered the keynote speech at the 74th annual conference of the Zionist Federation of Britain and Ireland, declared. “You need a man who is both practical, namely, he stands firmly with both feet on the ground, and who, at the same time, has vision.”
Almogi said he was gratified by his nomination, confirmed that, if elected he would relinquish his Knesset seat, and expressed hope that the citizens of Haifa who elected him their Mayor would understand his reasons for not completing his full four-year term. He said he had been asked to run for a position that presented one of the greatest challenges. He said he believed aliya was the main task ahead and observed that Israelis should always keep in mind the demographic issue without arguing over geography.
In an impassioned speech, Israel’s Ambassador to Britain, Gideon Rafael, declared that “It is not the fulfillment of the Palestinian aspirations” that moves the enemies of Israel “but the extinction of Israel’s right to national existence which motivates their struggle.”
He asserted that Zionism and Judaism were today synonymous and the attack on Zionism was meant to strike at the very existence of Jews. He protested the distortion of the Jewish national independence movement which reached “its height of obscenity” in Uganda President Idi Amin’s recent attack at the UN General Assembly.
HERUT, LEFT-WING DELEGATES FIGHT
A political session of the Zionist conference was suspended for a time after a fight broke out between Herut and left-wing delegates over a Mapam resolution urging “an overall peace plan based upon territorial adjustments” and readiness by Israel to negotiate with “representative Palestinian Arabs.” The resolution also called on the Israeli government to give full recognition to the Palestinians’ right to self-determination. Stewards were forced to eject two Herut youths in the melee.
Later, Herut leader Malvyn Benjamin, defeated in his candidacy for the chairmanship of the British Zionist Federation, expressed deep regret over the incident. He denounced “acts of hooliganism” and said the two youths involved no longer represented his movement. Eric Moonman, a Labor Member of Parliament, was elected chairman of the Zionist Federation, succeeding Abraham Kramer, who did not seek re-election.
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.
