Sir Marcus Sieff, the British Zionist leader, said here that the Palestinian problem was an issue still to be solved in the Arab-Israeli conflict, Never the less, the Egyptian-Israeli peace treaty was “a major step” and Israel’s accomplishments showed how much she could do for her neighbors, he said.
Sir Marcus, chairman of the Board of Governors of the Weizmann Institute of Science, was addressing a dinner last week of the Institute’s Foundation in honor of Sen. Daniel Moynihan (D. NY).
He recalled his first visit to Palestine 50 years ago when the country was three fifths desert, one-fifth swamp and one-fifth fertile. Israel had now pushed the desert back 100 miles from Tel Aviv and her industries and institutes of higher learning and science were among the most advanced in the world, Sieff said.
Moynihan, the guest speaker, described the genesis of the 1975 anti-Zionist resolution in the UN General Assembly which he had bitterly attacked when he was American Ambassador to the United Nations. He said that the resolution reminded him of anti-Semitic propaganda of the 1930’s. “I hope that the pattern which we failed to prevent then will not happen again,” Moynihan said.
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