Conference Urges Rescinding of State Department’s Specific Mideast Proposals

The Nixon administration was urged Monday by a National Conference of Jewish leaders to rescind the State Department’s “specific proposals” for a Middle East settlement “so that Arab-Israeli negotiations which President Nixon has called for will indeed be undertaken without pre-conditions.” A resolution adopted by the Conference of over 1,000 leaders of national Jewish organizations and local Jewish communities praised President Nixon’s message to the conference.

But the delegates, concluding a two day conference, criticized attempts by the U.S. and other big powers to draft the framework for an Arab-Israel settlement. Such efforts, their resolutions declared, “have in fact impeded progress toward a genuine peace.” Another resolution condemned France’s “anti-Israel and pro-Arab policy” and called on French President Georges Pompidou “to reverse it and lift the arms embargo against Israel.” By its massive arms shipments to Libya, France “joins the Soviet Union in surrendering any credibility as to her neutrality or objectivity as a participant in the Four Power talks.”

The resolution differentiated between the actions of the Pompidou regime and the “genuine sympathy and friendship extended by the French people to Israel in the past.” Dr. William A. Wexler, president of B’nai B’rith and chairman of the Conference of Presidents of Major. American Jewish Organizations, the coalition that sponsored the Conference, met Monday with French Ambassador Charles Lucet. A number of Jewish leaders participated in the meeting at the French embassy. Conference delegates spent the day calling on members of Congress representing the 80 communities from which the delegates came. They met over 200 representatives and senators. Congressmen accorded the delegates “friendly receptions.”

PROPOSALS TERMED INIMICAL TO CAUSE OF PEACE IN MIDDLE EAST

In calling for withdrawal of the proposals submitted by the State Department at bilateral and Big Four talks, the conference resolution said the initiatives “suggest pre-determined Egypt-Israel and Jordan-Israel borders; that Jordan share in the administration of Jerusalem; and that the Arab refugees be repatriated under a formula that would flood Israel with those bent upon its destruction.” The resolution said such proposals “endanger the security of Israel and imperil the cause of a just and lasting peace in the Middle East.”

Rabbi Herschel Schacter of New York, General Chairman of the Conference, said he was gratified by the President’s “assurances on the need for Arab-Israeli negotiations.” But he warned that “Israel must not be bound or limited in those negotiations by the State Department’s proposals.” He said that the proposals must be withdrawn “if the negotiations are to have any meaning and any chance of success.” The Conference urged the U.S. to provide Israel with “sufficient economic and military strength to deter any Arab ruler from aggression.” The resolution said that “in the light of the massive arms shipments to Arab states by the Soviet Union, France and other countries, it is imperative that the U.S. continue to support the security of Israel with the military equipment she so urgently requires.”