Israel and the Middle East, as well as most foreign policy issues, were hardly heard about during the four-day Democratic National Convention which ended last Thursdays night. (See related story from Washington, P.A.)
Although President Carter was reassured of re-nomination after the first day’s activities, the focus was on the economy, as the President sought to win the support of Sen. Edward Kennedy of Massachusetts and his large group of delegates at the convention. Disputes over foreign policy had been fought over in the platform committee discussions in June and presumably ironed out before the convention opened.
Carter promised the convention a program to provide more jobs for Americans, “not in make-work, but in real work,” although he did not endorse the specific $12 billion job program Kennedy demanded. For this Carter received Kennedy’s endorsement and the Massachusetts’ Senator’s perfunctory appearance with him and Vice President Walter Mondale on the podium at Madison Square Garden Thursday night.
The highly partisan acceptance speeches of Carter and Mondale also stressed domestic issues. But both also promised that the United States will continue to support the security of Israel. Both noted that the Carter Administration has provided Israel with half of the U.S. aid given the Jewish State in its 32 years.
RECORD ON ISRAEL, MIDEAST PEACE STRESSED
“Unlike our Republican predecessors, we have never stopped nor slowed that aid, “Carter declared. “And as long as I am President we will not do so. Our commitment is clear: security and peace for
Mondale, who said he was adding a “special word about Israel, “stressed that “Israel is our friend, our conscience, our partner. Its well-being is in our moral, political and strategic interests. I stand before you and say that the people of the United States stand by Israel — in this term, in the next term, and always.”
Both Carter and Mondale also stressed the Administration’s efforts in bringing about the Camp David accords and the Egyptian-Israeli peace treaty.
“Some have criticized the Camp David accords and delays in the implementation of the Middle East peace treaty, “Carter said. “Before I became President there was no Camp David accord and there was no peace treaty. Before Israel and Egypt were poised across barbed wire, confronting each other with guns and tanks and planes. Afterward, they talked face-to-face with each other across a peace table — and now they also communicate through their own ambassadors in Cairo and Tel Aviv. That is the kind of future we Democrats are working to bring to the Middle East.”
Mondale also credited Carter with having “brought” Israel and Egypt, after four wars between them, “to Camp David to build a peace treaty between them. Today Israel and Egypt aren’t exchanging bullets; they’re exchanging ambassadors. “Carter’s Mideast efforts were also lauded in a film about the President which showed him witnessing the peace agreement between Israeli Premier Menachem Begin and Egyptian President Anwar Sadat, and also showed former Secretary of State Cyrus Vance commenting how the President believed during the difficult negotiations at Camp David that an agreement would be reached.
JERUSALEM NOT MENTIONED IN SPEECHES
But neither Carter nor Mondale mentioned Jerusalem in their speeches Thursday night. The Democratic Party’s platform adopted last week includes a call to move the U.S. Embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem, and Sen. Daniel Moynihan of New York, in an address to the convention, declared the shift will be carried out. But the President, in a written message to the delegates last Wednesday night on his acceptance of the platform, said that the “ultimate status of Jerusalem should be a matter of negotiations between the parties.”
It remains to be seen whether the question of moving the U.S. Embassy to Jerusalem become a major campaign issue. The Republican platform does not endorse an embassy move. Like the Democratic platform, it supports a policy that Jerusalem should remain undivided. Republican candidate Ronald Reagan, however, has said that unified Jerusalem should be under Israeli sovereignty.
But the Democrats, like the Republicans and independent candidate John Anderson; are expected to make a major drive in the Jewish community. Political experts believe that Carter must win in New York and the other major industrial states of the Northeast and Midwest to win reelection.
To do that he must stem an erosion of normally Democratic Jewish votes to Reagan. Perhaps even, more worrisome to the Carter forces is that many Jews, along with liberals and union members, many of whom are also Jews, will support Anderson’s independent campaign.
As the convention was opening last Monday, Carter’s special advisor on Jewish affairs, Alfred Moses, flew here from Washington to join Commerce Secretary Philip Klutznick in a press conference for the Jewish media at the Carter-Mondale headquarters. They contended that Carter had done more for Israel than any other U.S. President. They rejected the fears in the Jewish community that once re-elected, Carter would feel free to exert pressure on Israel and give more support to the Palestinians. The President in his message to the delegates on the platform pledged never to put pressure on Israel.
Klutznick and Moses also said they knew Carter has problems in the Jewish community but they “hope to remove some of the misapprehensions” about the President.
COMMITTEE TO BE FORMED TO SEEK JEWISH SUPPORT
A committee aimed specifically at seeking support for the Carter-Mondale ticket in the Jewish community is scheduled to be formed soon and the President is expected to host Jewish leaders at the White House at the end of this month. Carter is also expected to make several appearances before Jewish audiences, starting with the B’nai B’rith International biennial convention in Washington in September, at which Reagan and Anderson will also speak on separate days.
But as in the 1976 campaign, and as has been true throughout the Carter Administration, the major effort to win support in the Jewish community may fall on Mondale, who is very popular among Jews as well as with labor, liberals and other groups whose support the Democrats must retain if the President is to be reelected.
As Carter and Mondale stood on the podium in Madison Square Garden to the cheers of the 3331 delegates and others who packed the convention center Thursday night, after both had delivered their acceptance speeches, the band played “Happy Days Are Here Again” and then offered a lusty rendition of “Hava Nagila. “Freely translated it means “Let’s Rejoice,” something Carter hopes he and the Jewish community can do together this year.
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.
