Riegner: Assembly Cancellation Prompted by ‘the Most Cogent Advice’

In a statement issued here today, Dr. Gerhart M. Riegner, Secretary-General of the World Jewish Congress, described as “complete misrepresentations” reports which have appeared in some Jewish publications in Europe regarding the circumstances surrounding the cancellation of the Plenary Assembly scheduled to be held in The Hague at the end of April. It is correct,” Dr. Riegner said, “that the Dutch government did not request that the Assembly be cancelled, and it is also true that had the Congress decided to proceed with the meeting, the Dutch security authorities would have given the maximum assistance.”

However, Dr. Riegner added, “both the Dutch and the Israel security authorities, who were fully consulted, advised that in the present tense political atmosphere, an Assembly of such magnitude was from a security point of view unmanageable and beyond protection.” He noted that Arabpressures on The Netherlands had recently increased, and that for the past three weeks Holland has been holding the two Arab hijackers who set a British Airways VC-10 on fire at Schiphol Airport, and that this made her an obvious target for terrorist action.

“It should be obvious,” Dr. Riegner said, “that after an investment of so much time, effort; and money in the preparation of the Plenary Assembly, the WJC would have decided on cancellation only on the most cogent advice of all authorities consulted, and that while the decision to cancel might have caused regret to these authorities, it certainly could not have come as a surprise to them or have met with their disapproval.” Dr. Riegner explained that the security problem had become aggravated by the unexpectedly large number of delegates. This meant that they would have had to be spread over many hotels not only in The Hague but also in Rotterdam.