Simcha Dinitz, Israel’s Ambassador to the United States, said here today that his country welcomed the forthcoming summit meeting in Washington between President Nixon and Soviet Communist Party Secretary Leonid I. Brezhnev. Addressing the closing luncheon of the 67th annual meeting of the American Jewish Committee, Dinitz observed that Israel never benefitted from cold wars but suffered as a result of them. Any move toward peace will benefit Israel, the Israeli envoy said.
Responding to a question about Jewish immigrants from the Soviet Union who want to return there after living in Israel, Dinitz said they represented an “insignificant” number of the immigrants from Russia and that some of them may have been “planted” for the purpose of finding fault with Israel. He said the American press was paying more attention to that aspect of Soviet Jewish emigration than it warranted.
Dinitz said that if he had any message to deliver on the 25th anniversary of Israel’s independence it was a plea for closer partnership between Israel and Jews all over the world. “Let us accept the fact that partners sometimes disagree,” he said, “but when we disagree let us disagree on the same side of the fence, not across the fence or sitting on the fence.”
Dinitz expressed confidence that the U.S. would never succumb to oil blackmail by the Arabs. He denied that any Arab country has ever offered to sit down and negotiate with Israel or that Israel has rejected such an offer. Asked which Arab country he thought would be the first to make peace with Israel, Dinitz replied that Egypt, as the strongest Arab country, must be the first to make peace.
There will be no Bulletin on Monday, May 28.
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