Calling for continued American support of Israel, Mrs. Faye Schenk, president of the American Zionist Federation, today urged the U.S. “to work together with Israel for peace and not travel a separate road.” Addressing the AZF national board, she stated. “If peace is to be achieved in the Middle East, the U.S. and Israel have to walk the same path. Anything else could tragically lead to hostilities in the Middle East.”
Mrs. Schenk said she could not overlook the speech by U.S. Ambassador William Scranton in the UN Security Council last week because of its “exaggerations and harshness.” That type of speech “only creates discord,” she noted. She pointed out that “Israel always has said it was prepared to negotiate with the Arabs. To attack Israel in advance at such a tense moment, and in a world body which has cruelly challenged Israel and the Jewish people was most inopportune and insensitive.”
Continuing, Mrs. Schenk declared: “If there is a movement toward peace, the Arab states also have to make concessions and not just Israel. We cannot believe that the American government advocates a return to the pre-1967 Arab control of Jerusalem where all signs of Jewish worship were systematically destroyed and desecrated.”
The national board meeting, which honored Rabbi Israel Miller, honorary president of the AZF and its past president; for his devotion and work for Israel, also heard Mrs. Schenk call for continued economic and military support of Israel adequate to maintain its defense capability and economic viability. She urged Congressional passage of the $2.2 billion aid bill, including the funding for the transition quarter from July 1 to Oct. 1 when the government switches to a new fiscal year.
She also criticized the proposed sale of C-130 to Egypt, saying that America “should not take the place of the USSR as the supplier of arms to Egypt which could use them against Israel.” Egypt, she said, “needs tractors, not guns, and the road to peace will not be achieved by supplying that country with weapons which just three years ago were turned against Israel.”
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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.
