A member of the British Parliament, who is observing the American Presidential primary race, said today that “it is clear” after visiting the Pennsylvania headquarters of former Gov. Jimmy Carter of Georgia and talking to his aides “that he is singularly uninformed and perhaps uninspired with Israel’s case” in the Middle East conflict.
Eric Moonman, a Labor MP and chairman of the Zionist Federation of Great Britain and Ireland, told the Jewish Telegraphic Agency that “the task of the American Jewish communal leadership” was to educate Carter as to “the significance of Israel’s role in the policy of the free world and the importance of U.S. support, both in terms of aid and psychological help at the United Nations.”
He said his impression was that the Jewish leadership has not yet recognized the seriousness of Carter’s candidacy, re-enforced by his impressive victory in yesterday’s preferential primaries in Pennsylvania.
Moonman acknowledged that in primary contests candidates concentrate on domestic and local issues. However, he said he was “surprised that so serious a candidate” as Carter “shows such a lack of sophistication when questions are put to him” on the Middle East. He said that Carter “seems not only to avoid getting into the Middle East complexities but doesn’t show the same degree of empathy any one of the other candidates often do.”
Moonman conceded that Sen. Henry M. Jackson of Washington and Rep. Morris Udall of Arizona have “been around longer” and have had greater exposure to foreign policy issues. American Jews must also explain to Carter the relationship between Jews in the U.S. and Jews in Israel. Moonman said.
Referring to remarks he made in an address to the Foreign Policy Institute In Philadelphia yesterday, Moonman told the JTA that “it seems clear that U.S. Middle East policy has changed.” He said the Ford Administration’s budget cut-backs “involving Israel” were not “the most significant assessment in itself, but it epitomizes a clear warning to the Jewish community” and “the Western world cannot take for granted the support of the incumbent in the White House.” Moonman said that Ford’s foreign policy was “beginning to come to terms with responsibility to the Arab states.”
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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.
