President Reagan told a group of some 120 Jewish leaders here that there is an alliance between Israel and the United States and that if Israel is expelled from the United Nations, “We will walk out with her.”
Reagan met with members of the Jewish Community Relations Council (JCRC) of New York in a private meeting at the Plaza Hotel last Thursday. He was in the city to present a posthumous award to Terence Cardinal Cooke.
The President’s remarks at the meeting were conveyed later at a press conference by Peggy Tishman, president of the JCRC, and Malcolm Hoenlein, JCRC executive director. According to Tishman, Reagan said that all the “ugliness of anti-Semitism” still exists, pointing out that the “so-called anti-Zionism” in the United Nations “is just another mask for vicious anti-Semitism that the United States will not tolerate.”
Tishman said the President stated that he has instructed UN Ambassador Jeane Kirkpatrick to fight against the 1975 General Assembly resolutions equating Zionism with racism. She said that, in response to a question regarding the moving of the U.S. Embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem, Reagan replied that the issue should be “part of the Camp David negotiations.” Any attempt to change the status of Jerusalem will prejudge the issue before negotiations, the President reportedly said. Hoenlein said the President stressed the special relations between the U.S. and Israel and noted that the American commitment to Israel is based not only on moral consideration but on strategic values as well. Hoenlein added that Reagan said that the U.S. is determined to fight terrorism and that terrorism is a form of “warfare” and “a scourge” that should be combatted.
Reagan arrived in New York two days after the State’s Democratic primary in which former Vice President Walter Mondale and Sen. Gary Hart of Colorado made the Mideast and the relocation of the U.S. Embassy to Jerusalem a major issue.
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.
