The Stanford University News Service has praised the “poise and good humor” of Gen. Yitzhak Rabin, Israel’s Ambassador to the United States, in the face of pro-Arab heckling which interrupted an address he was delivering to about 300 students on the campus last week.
Gen. Rabin was picketed by about 100 students and other persons supporting the Arab Students Organization and New Left Students for a Democratic Society. A noisy melee developed during which Roger Reed, president of the Young Republicans, was punched in the nose. About 20 demonstrators screamed epithets at the Israeli envoy from the back of the auditorium but declined his invitation to come in and ask questions.
The University News Service said Gen. Rabin “was unshaken by the demonstration, delivering his speech with poise and occasional humor. Joking about American riots and crime, the Ambassador said, ‘You’re safer in Israel at night than you are in Washington, D.C.” the News Service reported. In his talk, the former Chief of Staff of Israel’s armed forced described how the Soviet Union sent thousands of military advisers to the Middle East and over $2.5 billion worth of modern arms to the Arabs. “The Arabs urgently need peace,” Ambassador Rabin said. “The real war is against poverty, hunger, disease and ignorance.”
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