Jewish Leaders Denounce Arafat

The speech by Palestine Liberation Organization chief Yasir Arafat at the General Assembly last Wednesday was denounced here this weekend by Pinhas Sapir, chairman of the Jewish Agency Executive, as a “foolish and futile attempt to split the Jewish people and the State of Israel.”

Sapir, who issued the denunciation in his address to the 2500 Jewish communal leaders from the U.S., Canada and overseas at the 43rd General Assembly of the Council of Jewish Federations and Welfare Funds, termed Arafat’s entire speech an “utter distortion of history (that) will not deter the State of Israel and the people of Israel.” Other Jewish leaders in this country and abroad also denounced the terrorist leader’s call for the dismantling of Israel under the euphemism of a “democratic secular state.”

Calling for the “entire Jewish people to rally to the State of Israel.” Sapir said that “the solidarity of the Jewish people, united in its concern for Israel and in its readiness to aid Israel, will constitute the triumphant answer to all those who plot against the rebirth of the Jewish people,” Sapir called for “every Jewish community to express openly and clearly not only complete repudiation of Arafat, but complete and unqualified identification with the State and the people of Israel.”

“The Zionist movement is the Liberation Movement of the Jewish people.” Sapir declared. adding: “it is unique in the history of liberation movements for the purity of its ideals and the purity of its deeds. Those who know the recent history of the Jewish people and what they have undergone have a responsibility to answer Arafat and those who listened to him, and say loudly and clearly We believe in the Jewish people–we believe in the State of Israel.'”

MONTAGE OF LIES, HALF TRUTHS

In New York, Mrs. Faye Schenk, president of the American Zionist Federation, termed Arafat’s speech “a diabolically contrived montage of lies, half truths, distortions and perversions, masking his true purpose and intent, and that is the destruction of Israel as a sovereign state.” She rejected Arafat’s claim that Israeli leadership and Zionist ideology would lead to perpetual bloodshed and violence and declared that it was the Palestinians, not the Israelis, who “were the perpetrators of the Maalot and Munich massacres and, indeed, of every other recent act of terrorism in the Middle East.”

Mrs. Schenk also sent a telegram to President Ford on behalf of the more than one million members of the AZF calling on the U.S. government “to make every effort to influence its allies at the forthcoming decision (on the Palestinian issue) in the United Nations to cast their votes for truth and justice, and not for political expediency.” She also urged Ford “continue United States unconditional support of Israel.”

WILL NOT HAVE SLIGHTEST EFFECT

In Paris, Dr. Nahum Goldmann, president of the World Jewish Congress, declared that Arafat’s appeal to the Jewish people to dissociate itself from Its identification with and support of Zionism and Israel “will not have the slightest effect and is just as unrealistic and immoral as Arafat’s hope to liquidate the State of Israel and replace it by a so-called democratic state embracing the whole of Palestine.”

Dr. Goldmann added: “While many understand the right of the Palestinian people to a country of their own, it is obvious that such a demand can be implemented morally and practically only if the Palestinian people will, at the same time, recognize the legitimacy and the existence of the State of Israel.” Until then, he noted, Israel cannot recognize the PLO nor negotiate with it.

In New York, Dr. Joseph P. Sternstein, president of the Zionist Organization of America, told a meeting of his national executive committee, “The time has come for Americans to recognize the United Nations for what it has become–an arena of evil–and to consider seriously the necessity of withdrawing support from it and its supportive organizations such as the United Nations Association of the USA.”

During the last few days there were a series of major rallies to protest against the appearance of Arafat in the General Assembly and to express solidarity with the Jewish State. In Montreal more than 4000 Jews huddled together in a cold wind and rain in the city’s downtown section. In Paris some 5000 demonstrators staged a march through the city’s central district. In Milwaukee more than 900 persons packed the city’s central auditorium.