The National Committee for Labor Israel adopted today, at the closing session of its 43rd annual convention here, a quota of $5,000,000 for its 1967 campaign for the Histadrut, Israel’s Labor Federation.
In response to an emergency appeal for cash for immediate transmittal to Israel to implement the Committee’s programs in the fields of health, education, vocational training and social welfare, the 2,000 delegates presented checks totaling $1,000,000. The delegates also resolved to obtain $2,000,000 in long-range commitments to the American Histadrut Development Foundation in the form of wills and bequests.
The delegates adopted a series of resolutions, one of them addressed to the United States Government on recent developments on the Middle East question at the United Nations, particularly the action of the Security Council Friday in voting to censure Israel for a November 13 action against Jordan. Declaring that “we are deeply concerned with the welfare of Israel,” the delegates said they were “profoundly shocked” by the Security Council’s censure of Israel for “defending its borders and citizens.”
The delegates expressed “dismay” that the Security Council censure resolution “makes no mention of the acts of terrorism and sabotage carried on inside the borders of Israel by terrorists with the encouragement of governments which have sworn to destroy Israel, a member state of the United Nations.” The resolution warned also that “the one-sided” Council action would encourage “the Arab aggressors to continue their provocatory course under a United Nations cloak of immunity with the support of the ever-present Soviet veto.”
The delegates said it was their “firm belief” that the United States, which condemned Israel for the raid and voted for the resolution of censure, “should have shown deeper understanding of the unbearable position of Israel as a victim of Arab aggression. We therefore urge our government to call upon the Arab states to cease their aggressive actions and to embark on a policy of peaceful coexistence with Israel.”
AMBASSADOR HARMAN REPORTS ON ISRAEL’S ECONOMIC PROBLEMS
The convention called, in another resolution, for “continued pressure on the authorities of the Soviet Union to extend to the Jews in that country the rights exercised by all other minority groups.” The resolution said there was “indisputable evidence of persistent discriminations against Jews in the USSR in the field of nationality and individual rights and cultural and religious expression.”
Avraham Harman, Israel’s Ambassador to the United States, said that Israel’s economic foundation, despite present difficulties, was solid and need only “expansion in healthy directions.” He said the difficulties had arisen from the fact that “Israel during the past 18 years has served as a hospital for the Jewish people and as a school for the Jewish people, open to all those who wished to come” without any questions asked whether “they had means or if they had any skills.”
The delegates reelected Joseph Schlossberg as president. William H. Sylk of Philadelphia was elected chairman of the American Histadrut Development Foundation. Dr. Sol Stein was elected executive director and secretary of the Committee. Israel Stolarsky was elected associate director and Paul L. Goldman associate secretary. Israel Hamlin, former Committee secretary, was named chairman of the American Canadian Histadrut Center in Tel Aviv and liaison officer of the Committee.
Greetings were received from President Zalman Shazar, Mrs. Golda Meir, secretary of the Mapai Party, Histadrut secretary general Aharon Becker and Histadrut Treasurer Yehoshua Levy.
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