Miller Doubts U.S. Jews Will Confront Administration over Failure to Use Veto in Security Council

Rabbi Israel Miller expressed doubt today that American Jewry would have a confrontation with the Ford Administration over the failure of the U.S. to exercise its veto power in the Security Council to block linkage of the UNDOF mandate on the Golan Heights with a debate on the Palestinian issue. Rabbi Miller, chairman of the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations, said “The answers to American Jewry’s standing in the issue will come from the U.S.”

He was commenting on the American vote in favor of a resolution extending UNDOF for six months and convening a Security Council debate on the Middle East next month to which the Palestine Liberation Organization will be invited to participate. Miller said he would deal with the ramifications of the American position after he returns to the U.S.

JEWISH LEADERS SHARPLY CRITICAL

(Meanwhile, Jewish organizations reacted in New York with sharp criticism of the Security Council vote and the approval by the United States of the resolution.

Seymour Graubard, chairman of the Anti-Defamation League of B’nai B’rith, said the U.S. action would “delay serious negotiations for a just and durable peace in the Middle East,” adding that the U.S. had clearly bowed to Syrian pressure linking Palestine Liberation Organization participation to the extension of the UNDOF mandate.

Rabbi Joseph B. Glaser, executive vice-president of the (Reform) Central Conference of American Rabbis, said, in reference to the PLO, that “to permit these murderers, who are sworn to destroy the State of Israel, to participate in any discussion on the survival of Israel, is the height of absurdity and international hypocrisy.”

Describing the U.S. vote as a “reversal of the American stand,” Dr. Joseph P. Sternstein, president of the Zionist Organization of America, said that reversal “will encourage the Soviet-Syria-PLO alliance to further follow the anti-Zionist resolution of the UN General Assembly to declare the State of Israel illegal and place the PLO in authority over the entire territory known as Palestine.”

Howard M. Squadron, chairman of the governing council of the American Jewish Congress, said the resolution was “a profoundly disturbing indication that the PLO may at last succeed in shooting its way into the Security Council–a particularly distressing development because it seems to recognize the PLO as the sole and legitimate representative of the Palestine Arabs.”

David Blumberg, president of B’nai B’rith, called the U.S. acceptance “as more likely to bolster PLO extremism than open channels toward meaningful negotiations.” He said he “accepts at face value” President Ford’s assurance that Administration policy opposes formal dealings with the PLO “because of its unwillingness to recognize the reality of Israel.” But acquiescence in the Security Council’s invitation to the PLO “needlessly raises doubts about the American position and worst of all blinks at PLO terrorism,” Blumberg said.)

170 JEWISH LEADERS DUE FOR SUMMIT PARLEY

Miller was among the first of 170 world Jewish leaders to arrive in Israel for the Conference on World Jewish Solidarity with Israel and Zionism which opens here tomorrow. The conference was organized by the government and the World Zionist Organization in direct response to the anti-Zionist resolution adopted by the UN General Assembly last Nov. 10.

Moshe Rivlin, director General of the Jewish Agency said the conference would seek expressions of solidarity and would prepare a working plan for a world-wide campaign in the coming year to combat the effects of the UN action. “This should be a year of Jewish solidarity with Israel and Zionism,” Rivlin said, adding that the conference sought a Jewish awakening throughout the world and greater involvement by individual Jewish communities in Israel’s behalf.

Rabbi Miller said that the summit conference must not be satisfied simply with recruiting world Jewish support but should “solidify the support of all positive people” with a concrete program. “The present challenge is not only to the State of Israel but to us as Jews throughout the world,” he said.

Ashkenazio Chief Rabbi Shlomo Goren announced meanwhile that he was convening an international rabbinical convention in Jerusalem in mid-January to deal with the religious aspects of Zionism and the State of Israel.