Jewish Leaders to Meet Schmidt

A seven-

member delegation of the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations was scheduled to meet late this afternoon in Blair House with Chancellor Helmut Schmidt of West Germany to express “dismay and indignation” at the German leader’s policies and positions affecting Israel’s security. Howard Squadron, Conference chairman and leader of the delegation, said prior to the meeting that three main issues would be raised:

Schmidt’s leadership in the European initiative in the Middle East, which Squadron said “seeks to undermine the Camp David peace process by calling for a Middle East conference — including the Palestine Liberation Organization — to establish a Palestinian state, redivide Jerusalem and require Israel to return to the 1967 border’s; Schmidt’s active support of the sale of German Leopard tanks to Saudi Arabia — a sale he was forced to cancel because of strong opposition within the West German Bundestag — and his publicly declared opinion of Saudi Arabia as a government that “acts wisely and moderately,” and Schmidt’s interview on German TV earlier this month, to which Squadron said American Jews responded with “shock and outrage.”

In that interview, the Chancellor omitted any mention of Jews in listing the various victims of the Nazi regime and spoke of the “moral claims to self-determination of the Palestinian people” but not of the Jewish people.