Merger of General Zionist Confederations Doubted by Mrs. Hal Prin.

Mrs. Rose Halprin, co-chairman of one of the two presently existing World Confederations of General Zionists, expressed personal doubts and reservations today about a possible merger of the competing organizations.

She told a press conference that the confederation of which she is co-chairman nevertheless would discuss the entire problem of merger at a convention in May. She said that Hadassah would insist on the principle that there should be no identification between the merged confederation and any political party in Israel.

Commenting on a proposal that a branch of the General Zionist movement should be established in Israel to deal only with problems of the Zionist movement, Mrs; Halprin said she could not accept the idea that the same people who head the Liberal party in Israel would also be heads of the General Zionist movement proposed now;

“Had there been other people to head it, there might have been a possibility of merger, ” she said, She added that the whole idea of such a local Israeli General Zionist movement was difficult to grasp because the distribution of seats in Israel’s Parliament was based on the results of elections to the Parliament, She pointed out that since there was no General Zionist movement that goes to the polls, it would mean that Liberals again are those who represent the General Zionist movement.

Mrs. Halprin expressed surprise over “hints” from Dr. Emanuel Neumann–who heads the other confederation- -that if Hadassah blocked the path to merger, he would try to get other organizations, now affiliated with Mrs, Halprin’s group, to join a united confederation. She said that “if this is a threat, I can face it and I will be firm on our non-identification principle. “