An outpouring of support for Israel and her people was loudly and dramatically expressed by some 1000 people who attended a “Rally for Israel” sponsored by the Jewish Federation of North Jersey last Sunday. Jews and non-Jews joined together to indicate to community leaders and the Carter Administration their displeasure with recent changes in U.S. policy on the Middle East. The spirit of the afternoon was summed up by the two main speakers, Chaim Landau, former Israeli Minister of Development; and Sister Rose Thering, of Seton Hall University.
Landau told the group, “We are in the midst of a confrontation with the American Administration,” citing the recent U.S.-USSR joint statement as a violation of the United States pledge made in 1973 to take no actions unless it first consulted with Israel. “The PLO has written a new ‘Mein Kampf’ dedicated to purging Zionism from Palestine and finding the establishment of the State of Israel null and void,” he said. “Our government does not intend to preside over the destruction of Israel but to secure the future of Israel for our generation and generations to come.”
Sister Rose was equally emphatic as she asserted: “As a Christian and Catholic, I loudly, clearly and publicly must protest the recent action of the Ad- ministration in issuing its joint statement with the Soviets as well as recent UN actions…we must protest any invitation to the PLO to the Geneva conference. To invite them is to reward murder and promote terror internationally… the State of Israel must be supported by all men and women of good will. All of us are inheritors of Israel’s great moral ideals.”
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