President Carter has defended the establishment of an information office in Washington by the Palestine Liberation Organization while equating the PLO with the Ku Klux Klan, the Communist Party and Nazis At the same time, Carter appeared to imply that Israel does not grant full religious freedom to the Palestinian Arabs in the occupied territories.
Carter’s remarks were made in response to questions from an audience of 900 people in the western Pennsylvania industrial town of Aliquippa last Saturday. An official transcript of his remarks was released today by the White House.
The President gave his views on the PLO information office after Dan Clanamavitz, of Hopewell Township, Pa., said he has a sister in Israel and “the PLO has set off bombs within 100 yards from where she works and where she lives.” He wanted to know how “the U.S. could let the PLO” open an office in Washington and “distribute propaganda” in view of its terrorist activities.
The PLO’s office “is obviously no threat to our nation’s security” nor to “the well-being of the people who live in Israel,” Carter replied. “My own guess is that they will learn more about our country being here and what we stand for than we learn from them.”
The President noted “there are many groups like this that cause us concern. The Ku Klux Klan, for instance, the Communist Party, the Nazis. It would be nice for us if they would just go away. But it is part of our system of government to let them have the right to speak.”
Stressing that he has a “commitment” to Israel “not to negotiate nor have private meetings with the PLO until after that organization recognizes Israel’s right to exist and espouses UN Resolution 242, ” the President said there was no need to “fear the little office in Washington. I believe we can handle the PLO not by stamping them out but by the American people.”
REMARKS ON FREEDOM OF RELIGION
The President’s remarks on freedom of religion came when a questioner, saying he spoke for the “Orthodox Christians” in the occupied areas, accused the Carter Administration of lacking “the courage to stand up to Menachem Begin and the American Jewish community” and urged stopping aid to “the Israelis until they give back all territories stolen from the Orthodox Christians and others in occupied Palestine.”
Denying his Administration was “timid or cowardly,” Carter noted that “We raised for the first time in any Administration the basic problem of the Palestinians who live in the region as you described without regard to the religious affiliation of the people involved.”
Although the question did not mention restriction of religious practices, the President said that under the Camp David agreements the people in the “Palestinian area” will “have a chance to administer their own affairs, including the right to worship.” The President also said that “we’re making great strides toward realizing the hopes that you have just outlined to terminate military rule and give people a chance to worship as they place.” Israel in both law and practice does not place any restrictions on religious freedom inside Israel or in the administered territories.
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