Hadassah Conference Backs U.S. Buying of $100,000,000 U.N. Bonds

Hadassah went on record today as supporting President Kennedy’s request for legislation authorizing the acquisition by the United States of $100,000,000 of United Nations bonds. In a special resolution, approved by more than 200 leaders from all parts of the United States, the Hadassah conference which opened here today called upon Congress to approve the President’s request in order to help the United Nations “meet the mounting deficit and prevent a financial crisis.”

Mrs. Herman Shulman, former national president of Hadassah, and I. L. Kenen of Washington, D.C., executive director of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, discussed at the opening session the mounting crisis in the Middle East. Mrs. Shulman said that “peace in the Middle East is an important objective of American foreign policy,” and urged the Kennedy Administration to further efforts to bring about “direct negotiations between Israel and the Arab states as an important step towards this objective.”

Mr. Kenen told the Hadassah conference that “the new rash of threats to destroy Israel,” voiced by the leaders of Syria, Jordan, Iraq and Egypt within the last few days, “is being ominously reinforced by new Soviet shipments of destroyers, submarines and planes. No one can be sure that time is on the side of peace in the Middle East. No one can be complacent.”

Shimshon Arad, Consul of Israel at New York, and a member of the Israel delegation to the United Nations, told the Hadassah leaders that at the last General Assembly, the Arab delegations had hoped to inflict severe blows on Israel. However, he stated, “they were decisively defeated in that adventure. On the other hand, the forgotten UN basic doctrine of direct negotiations–though not mastering this time the required majority–has emerged anew as the only constructive path to peace and progress in the Middle East.”