Hadassah Convention Adopts Resolutions Praising Nixon and Criticizing Pompidou

A Resolution praising President Nixon’s assurance that the United States “is prepared to supply military equipment necessary to support the efforts of friendly governments like Israel to defend the safety of their people,” was adopted today by two hundred Jewish women leaders from all parts of the United States attending the four-day Mid-Winter Conference of Hadassah, the Women’s Zionist Organization of America, at Hadassah House. The Resolution called upon the United States Government to “provide Israel with the military and economic means to deter the Arab states, heavily armed by the U.S.S.R. and France, from initiating another war,” and “to exert its influence to bring the Arab states and Israel together in direct negotiations.” It endorsed the resolution adopted by the Emergency Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations held in Washington on January 25, which called for the withdrawal of Secretary of State Rogers’ proposals for the Middle East so that “the Arab-Israeli negotiations which President Nixon has called for will be undertaken without pre-conditions.”

Another major Resolution protested the action of the French Government “in arming Israel’s enemies bent on its destruction while denying to Israel the fifty Mirage jets already bought and paid for.” It expressed the hope that President Pompidou, during his visit to the United States, “will be persuaded to alter a policy that cynically disregards the French commitment to the principles of liberty, equality and brotherhood.” A Resolution on Jews in Arab countries called upon the Secretary-General of the United Nations to “use every possible measure to protect the human rights and dignity of Jews who still remain in Iraq. Egypt and Syria and to assure that those who choose to emigrate will be enabled to do so.” A Resolution on Soviet Jewry censured the U.S.S.R.’s “continuing policy of discrimination against its three million Jewish nationals.” and stated that “persistent anti-Israel propaganda in the Soviet press, TV and radio with its overtones of anti-Semitism adds to the mounting tension of daily life for Jews in the U.S.S.R.”