The head of the World Jewish Congress’ Governing Board last night decried the outbreak of “jitters” within the Jewish community to some of the public expressions by President Carter and Likud leader Menachem Begin as an exaggerated and unrealistic reaction.
In an address opening the 79th annual meeting of the National Conference of Jewish Communal Service, Philip M. Klutznick cautioned an assembly of more than 900 professional community workers against hasty judgment. He urged that they assess Middle East developments in terms of long-range potentials. Klutznick proposed that the American Jewish community might better view Begin’s victory as “the democratic will” of the Israeli electorate and not prejudge the “motives and objectives” of a Begin-led government.
Similarly, he added, conclusions drawn from President Carter’s penchant for “public debate” or even “a slip of the tongue” tend to ignore the political realities. Every U.S. President, “including this one, want to see a Middle East settlement–what’s so new about that?” he asked. Klutznick, a former U.S. Ambassador at the United Nations, stressed the need of the Jewish community to interpret Middle East events in terms of the “interdependence of nations in a world grown so small that what affects one can affect all, those we like and those we dislike.”
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The Archive of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency includes articles published from 1923 to 2008. Archive stories reflect the journalistic standards and practices of the time they were published.
