Austria May Have to Limit Number of Soviet Jews in Transit to Israel

Informed sources said here today that Austrian Chancellor Bruno Kreisky, now on an official visit to the United States, plans to tell President Ford and United Nations officials that it will be impossible for Austria to transfer the vastly-increased number of Soviet Jews expected to emigrate to Israel under the recent U.S.-Soviet agreement. Kreisky is scheduled to visit Washington tomorrow for two days of talks with Ford and other U.S. government officials, including Secretary of State Henry A. Kissinger.

The sources here said Austria is prepared to live up to its commitments, under which it is currently processing some 30,000 Soviet Jews a year but that an expected doubling of that total will be a burden other countries will have to share. The sources said that such an increase would present greater security risks and that Kreisky is expected to tell Ford that Austria does not have the facilities to provide temporary housing for a significantly increased number of Soviet Jews.

URGES WITHHOLDING JUDGMENT ON PLO

(Kreisky, addressing the UN General Assembly today, urged the Assembly not to pass judgment on the Palestine Liberation Organization until the PLO had the opportunity to “prove its moral and political responsibility.” He said terrorist activities were unjustified and detracted seriously from the credibility and ethical motivations of a movement which used them.

(But, he declared, the history of the past half-century had many examples of movements which used harsh and brutal means to assert themselves and that leaders of such movements, after an acceptable compromise was achieved, acquired moral stature. He urged both sides in the Palestine debate to remember that despite the bitterness of the Middle East deadlock, human beings on both sides had a real desire to live in peace. He told the Assembly that Israel was a haven for Jews persecuted by the Nazis and that thousands of Austrians had found a new home in Israel.)