ZOA Leader Says His Organization Will Campaign Against Reagan Mideast Plan

The Administration’s recent decision to funnel American aid to the West Bank through Jordan shows that President Reagan’s 1982 peace plan for the Middle East “is very much alive,” the outgoing president of the Zionist Organization of America warned in a message to delegates here for the ZOA’s 85th national convention.

Aleck Resnick of Baltimore said the ZOA would campaign “vigorously” against the “flawed concepts” behind the Reagan Plan, which he said “virtually assigns Judaea and Samaria to Jordan.”

Some 600 delegates from all sections of the country are taking part in the convention, which began Thursday in the Sheraton Inner Harbor Hotel.

The ZOA leader acknowledged that “we are living under one of the most pro-Israel Administrations in history. Never before have been so many strategically important agreements between Washington and Jerusalem. We are proud of U.S.-Israeli cooperation on the Strategic Defense Initiative, the Israel-based Voice of America transmitter, the Free Trade Agreement and the possibility that Israel may enjoy privileges equal to those of America’s NATO allies.” But he cautioned the convention delegates not to fall prey to “a false sense of security.”

“No administration lasts forever,” Resnik said. “It is important to develop a bipartisan approach in Washington that would make us beholden to no one party. We must underscore the common purposes and goals of our country and its only sister democracy in the Middle East. We must also make clear that a strong and secure Israel is in America’s best interests — not just the interest of American Jews.”

Resnick, who is completing two two-year terms as head of the ZOA, said the organization would oppose all U.S. arms sales to Arab states at war with Israel and would combat “the continuing perception that there is somehow a difference between Arab radicals and so-called Arab moderates, even though their end goal is the destruction of Israel.”