Rabin Says Soviet Union Not Ready to Help Reconcile Arabs and Israel

Yitzhak Rabin, Israel’s ambassador to the United States, said here today he saw “no sign of readiness on the part of the Soviet Union to bring about a reconciliation between the Arabs and Israel.” The USSR, he said, “has made it possible for the Arabs to believe that they will achieve their goal–either through diplomacy or by force.” Gen. Rabin addressed 1,600 delegates to the convention of the National Women’s League of the United Synagogue. He downplayed the peacemaking role of the United Nations, contending that “peace will not be achieved by conventional diplomacy or talks that are held in the limelight of the media.” The transition from war to peace, he added, “will be a long one.” The chief question, the ambassador said, is: “What will be the Arabs’ attitude towards Israel, and will they accept Israel as an independent Jewish State?” Gen. Rabin, Israel’s Chief of Staff in the Six-Day War, expressed some optimism that the cease-fire extension will aid the cause of peace.

At an earlier session. Dr. Louis Finkelstein, Chancellor of the Jewish Theological Seminary of America, strongly defended “idealistic youth” and the women’s liberation movement and declared that Jews must play a major role in today’s revolution – “the greatest and profoundest in all history.” He said that “what we are witnessing today is not the death of civilization but its birth and birth is not achieved without pain and agony.” He said “the time is past for refusing to hear the idealistic cry of the young” and the time is also past “to pretend that because of their inexperience, their visions are unreal and their dreams are fantastic.” Dr. Finkelstein added, however, that “If our children, like ourselves, are to make a new world, they will have to be not only humanitarians but also Jews.” He said he regarded the women’s liberation movement “not only as liberation of self but liberation of humanity,” because it was trying to change “the old leadership now so corrupt.” Dr. Finkelstein called for “more rabbis, more religious school teachers and more professors of Judaica.”