Hertzberg: U.S. Jews Should Tell the Administration ‘to Go Hang’ if It Pressures Israel to Rush Peac

Rabbi Arthur Hertzberg, president of the American Jewish Congress, warned here last night against a “hasty settlement” in the Middle East and claimed that it was up to the American Jewish community this year to “tell the (Carter) Administration to go hang when they pressure Israel.”

Addressing the biennial convention of the AJ Congress’ National Women’s Division, Hertzberg said American Jews should not carelessly support the Carter Administration’s desire to reach a negotiated peace settlement in the Mideast this year because “a hurried settlement may not be a settlement at all.” He said he did not write off the chances of a peace settlement in 1977 but “if our country commits itself to a hasty settlement or to talks by a certain date the chances for peace could be seriously damaged.”

Hertzberg claimed that “The proper role of the U.S. is to get negotiations going, not to set either the terms or the timetable of a settlement. A deadline for peace implies a blueprint for peace and there can be no settlement if it is imposed from the outside either in terms of where the borders should be or when the talks must begin,” he said.

Hertzberg said, “I’m afraid the U.S. cannot produce peace under pressure because the most it could hope for in the short run is non-belligerency. But what we need is peace.” In an apparent allusion to an article in the April edition of Foreign Affairs Quarterly by former Undersecretary of State George Ball titled “How To Save Israel In Spite Of Herself,” Hertzberg said:

“Peace cannot be imposed for ‘Israel’s own good or ‘ in spite of herself.’ It is an illusion to believe that either State Department diplomats or American Jews or even the President of the United States with the best will in the world, can make political decisions for the Jewish State by suggesting where its borders should be or who its neighbors should be. What is best for Israel can be decided only by its democratically elected representatives, only by the people who live in the State and are prepared to die for it. That is the essence of a sovereign people and of a lasting peace.”