Lane Kirkland, president of the AFL-CIO, told a State of Israel Bond dinner here that the American labor movement has continued to urge the United States government “in the strongest terms to reject any and all schemes for the creation of a Palestinian state dedicated to Israel’s destruction.”
Addressing a national Israel Bond tribute to Murray Finley, president of the Amalgamated Clothing and Textile Workers Union at the Waldorf-Astoria, Kirkland said that organized labor “remains convinced that no agreement is possible that allows Israel’s neighbors to evade an explicit acceptance of Israel’s right to exist or that denies Israel the practical means to secure that right.”
Kirkland said that after repeated failures to overthrow Israel by military means, “her enemies have turned to terrorism and the Palestine Liberation Organization as the instrument of Israel’s destruction.” He called it “an atrocity” for the PLO “to carry on its bloody and indiscriminate murders in the name of ‘human rights’.”
“The leaders of the PLO were elected by no one but themselves, “Kirkland said. “They do not speak for peace or justice or human rights or economic progress or political stability. Their actions–in Israel, in Lebanon, in Munich and elsewhere in the world–speak only of hatred, death and chaos.”
The AFL-CIO leader joined 1000 leaders in the labor movement and the clothing and textile industry in honoring Finley upon his being awarded the Israel Prime Minister’s Medal. More than $5 million in Israel-related securities, providing investment capital for the development of Israel’s economy, was purchased in Finley’s honor at the Israel Bond tribute.
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