Protests Mounting Against Accord

Pleas by Israeli government leaders in support of the proposed second stage Sinai interim accord failed today to dampen growing protest against the reported terms of the agreement.

Israel’s three-man negotiating team–Premier Yitzhak Rabin, Foreign Minister Yigal Allon and Defense Minister Shimon Peres–all continued to speak out today for the proposed new Sinai agreement. Rabin said the proposed pact would be a first step in a transition from war to peace. Peres said Israel wanted to open a door to peace and Allon said he was certain peace would follow a new interim accord. They spoke on the eve of the arrival of Secretary of State Henry A. Kissinger in Israel Thursday for a new round of shuttle diplomacy.

The Israel Students Association, led mainly by supporters of the Likud opposition, responded today with the first of a planned series of demonstrations, reportedly the first public protest by the association on a controversial political issue. Some non-Likud students reportedly opposed the protests.

The students staged their demonstration opposite the U.S. Embassy here. The students carried banners declaring Israel was endangered by a “dictated withdrawal” and labeling Kissinger “the high commissioner.” A group of the demonstrators was received by an Embassy official who accepted letters addressed to President Ford and to U.S. Ambassador Malcolm Toon, denouncing the planned Israeli withdrawal as dangerous to Israel’s security.

The association said they were preparing a new kind of demonstration for Kissinger’s arrival Thursday. Members dressed in black will be positioned all along the road from Ben Gurion Airport to Jerusalem, at intervals of a kilometer from each other. Carrying umbrellas and banners, each with the same message: “Can we take a hitch-hike to Munich,” the demonstration is meant to recall British Prime Minster Neville Chamberlain’s surrender at Munich to Hitler.

Various women’s groups also are preparing public protests as are youth groups of the Herut Party. Police and security officials, indicating they are aware of growing personal animosity against Kissinger, have tightened security measures for the Secretary’s visit accordingly.