Dr. Prinz Denies Reports That Goldmann Was Planning to Hold Conference to Use Wjc As Forum for Criti

Dr. Joachim Prinz, chairman of the Governing Council of the World Jewish Congress, denied categorically today reports from Israel that WJC president Dr. Nahum Goldmann was planning to hold a conference in New York to use the Congress as a forum for criticism of Israel government policies. Dr. Prinz was commenting on a Jewish Telegraphic Agency dispatch from Tel Aviv this morning which reported that sources in the Labor Zionist Movement planned to boycott such a conference. He told the JTA that the allegations were “utterly baseless…based on wrong information.”

Dr. Prinz said that the Governing Council, which has been meeting at six-month intervals for the past five years, decided at its last meeting in Paris in Oct. 1971 to hold its next session in the United States. He said this decision was made with the concurrence of the Labor Zionist representatives on the Council but remained tentative and that as of now, the meeting could be held in the US or in Europe. Dr. Prinz termed “utter nonsense” the claim by the Labor Zionist sources that Dr. Goldmann planned to invite President Nixon to the conference.

He said that at the Paris meeting, Washington was suggested as a possible site of the next Governing Council meeting in which case a courtesy call on Nixon at the White House might have been considered. But, Dr. Prinz explained, Washington has since been ruled out as a meeting place.

He emphasized that the WJC’s Governing Council never discusses policies of the Israel government. He said that its meetings were presided over by himself as chairman and that Dr. Goldmann was not responsible for their planning. “There was never any thought of discussing Israel’s foreign policy–that is left to Israel,” Dr. Prinz declared. He attributed the report from Israel to “the continuing vendetta against Dr. Goldmann in Israel.”