Dialogue Told by New Left Radical Israel’s Ties with Forces of ‘reaction’ Has Soured Left

The American Jewish Congress’ tenth annual American-Israel Dialogue ended last night. The final session’s main speaker, Paul Jacobs, a San Francisco New Left radical, claimed that Israeli alignment with “reactionary forces,” coupled with its post-Six-Day War policies, had caused the New Left to become anti-Israel and anti-Zionist. He cited Foreign Minister Abba Eban’s presentation of the State of Israel award to Gov. Ronald Reagan of California and the American Histadrut’s dinner honoring Police Chief (now Mayor) Frank L. Rizzo of Philadelphia.

Jacobs said that what he called Israel’s interference in American Presidential electioneering — a reference to Ambassador Yitzhak Rabin’s reported–and denied–endorsement of President Nixon–had cheapened politics. Jacobs said his criticism of Israel derived from his love, not his hate for it, remarking: “Am I an anti-Semite because I see Zionism as a nationalism with the good and the bad of other nationalisms?”

Prof. Theodore Draper of the Institute of Advanced Studies at Princeton University agreed with Jacobs on alleged Israeli interference in the United States elections. He called it unprecedented, unwise and short-sighted, and said he would be tempted to vote for the Democratic candidate, Sen. George McGovern (S.D.), only because of the reported endorsement of Nixon by Rabin and other Israeli officials.

A “week for Soviet Jewry” tribute took place in Mexico City on the occasion of the 20th anniversary of the extermination of Soviet Jewish writers and intellectuals in August 1952 by the Stalinist regime.