A major Jewish community leader said here Tuesday that U.S. Jewry has not lobbied to close the Palestine Liberation Organization observer mission to the United Nations although the community regards the mission as a terrorist outpost.
Morris Abram, chairman of the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations, explained that the closure of the PLO information office in Washington “is proper, grounded well in fact and circumstance.”
Abram said Secretary of State George Shultz decided wisely to close the office because the PLO “is a terrorist organization, as yesterday’s events confirm,” referring to the commandeering of a civilian bus in the Negev in which three civilians were killed. The PLO claimed responsibility for operation.
But in replying to a question he said that “As a community, we did not push banning the United Nations PLO mission because it’s there on a different footing, based on international agreement. But I think both are terrorist missions.”
The chairman had just returned from a Conference of Presidents mission to Israel. An attorney, he several times alluded to his legal work for the American civil rights movement to explain his strong support of Israel’s handling of the current Palestinian unrest.
‘NOT CIVIL DISOBEDIENCE’
“This is not civil disobedience,” he said of the Palestinians. “Throwing a Molotov cocktail is not sitting in at a lunch counter… These Arabs are not trying to incorporate in the state as our black citizens did in America. They’re trying to overturn the state.”
Of the Arab leaders who met with Shultz during his Mideast trips last week, Abram said that Jordan’s King Hussein is caught in his own vise because he “feels he needs (Syrian President Hafez) Assad’s approval and Assad feels he needs the Soviet Union’s approval.”
Abram did not agree with the perception by some that Israeli Premier Yitzhak Shamir is blocking the peace process. He said that having spoken to Shamir, he found “no obduracy whatsoever with him in respect to (United Nations Resolution) 242.” The resolution specifies that Israel return occupied territory in exchange for peace and implicitly recognizes Israel’s right to exist.
Shamir, he said, “never said that he rejects anything that 242 embraces. . . Shamir, as a negotiator, I am sure would adopt a maximalist position.”
LAMENTS KISSINGER MEMO LEAK
Abram said he lamented the leak of a memo reporting on a private presentation last month by Henry Kissinger to Jewish leaders in which the former secretary of state recommended that Israel ban the news media from the riot areas and quell the unrest with force.
He said he was “sorry it embarrassed Kissinger” and said he could not predict the outcome of the leak.
Abram has said he was present at the Kissinger breakfast meeting with former Conference of Presidents chairmen Kenneth Bialkin, Julius Berman, Rabbi Alexander Schindler and others.
JTA has documented Jewish history in real-time for over a century. Keep our journalism strong by joining us in supporting independent, award-winning reporting.
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.
