Rabbi Irving Lehrman, president of the Synagogue Council! of America, expressed “profound shock and sorrow” over the massacre and said “that Arab organizations should gleefully welcome and take credit for this human carnage defies and numbs the Imagination.” He said “the Innocent Tic-time” were “heartbreaking witness to the responsibility that must be borne by all who have lent their support, moral or political, to the Arab terrorist movement,”
ARAB GOVERNMENTS MUST TAKE LEAD
Philip E. Hoffman, president of the American Jewish Committee, said “no one now Is safe from the cowards who attack defenseless people In the name of Arab nationalism. The time is long past for the legitimate Arab governments not only to condemn and disavow these acts but to take concrete measures to avert further disasters.” He said that “the situation demands” that the Arab governments “take the lead In a concerted and cooperative effort to stop these outlaws by ail means open to the international community.”
Rabbi Bernard U Berzon, president of the Orthodox Rabbinical Council of America, announced that his organization had sent a telegram to United Nations Secretary General Kurt Waldheim, urging that the UN and its “appropriate agencies” express their condemnation “and to take steps to prevent the recurrence of such violence.”
He also announced that, in congregations served by Rabbinical Council members, “special prayers” would be recited in memory of those slain in the massacre. He denounced Lebanon and also Air France for its “laxity” in permitting the Japanese gunmen to board with sub-machine-gun and hand grenades they used in the attack.
Sen. George McGovern (D. S.D.), Issued a statement from his presidential primary headquarters in Los Angeles, denouncing the “mindless terrorism” of the attack. He said the dead and wounded “are the most recent victims of an unremitting and unrelenting refusal” by the Arabs ‘Ho accept the statehood of Israel.”He declared that until the leaders of the Arab states and of Israel meet In direct negotiations “to end the war and make the peace,” there was danger not only of ‘more wanton attacks but also of renewed hostilities and perhaps even Big Power confrontation.” He expressed the hope that “now that we have entered a new period of negotiation” with the Soviet Union, “we may persuade the leaders of the USSR to join with us” to encourage a “non-imposed settlement that could mark the beginning of a new and fruitful era of peace.”
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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.
