Schindler Warns Terrorists May Hit Jewish Institutions in the U.S.

Rabbi Alexander M. Schindler, president of the Union of American Hebrew Congregations (UAHC), warned today that “American Jews and Jewish institutions” in the United States will probably be hit by Palestinian terrorists and their supporters who oppose the recently signed peace treaty between Israel and Egypt.

Addressing a press conference at the UAHC headquarters here, Schindler, who accompanied Premier Menachem Begin to Egypt last week as part of the Israeli delegation, said that acts of violence by the PLO against Israel are “bound to increase” now and the violence will reach “American shores” as well.

Declaring that Begin’s visit to Cairo was “an extraordinary success” and that he is “deeply encouraged” by the progress toward peace made by the face-to-face meeting between Begin and President Anwar Sadat in Cairo, Schindler said that what Israel and Egypt need now is “time to give substance to their formal agreement, time to nurture that trust which may embolden others to take risks for peace, time for a moderate Palestinian Arab leadership to develop so that Israel-Arab coexistence in the West Bank and Gaza territories will have a chance of success.”

But Schindler, the former chairman of the Conference of President of Major American Jewish Organizations, warned, however, against any efforts to move Egypt and Israel toward normalization at a faster pace than their needs allow or to force a “comprehensive settlement that could wreck the fragile peace now seeking to take root.” He said that American Jews should be on the alert to prevent Washington to “rush” toward a comprehensive Mideast settlement, and to stop any such efforts at the beginning.

Schindler said the Administration still appeared to be basing its Middle East policy on the “three concentric circles” theory of National Security Ad–visor Zbigniew Brzezinski in which the inner circle was made up of Cairo and Jerusalem, the second circle brought in Jordan and the so-called Arab “moderates,” and the third circle was reserved for Syria and the Soviet Union.

“If, as I believe, this scheme remains the American strategy in the Middle East, then it is likely that there will soon again be efforts to cosmetize the PLO and bring it into the negotiations, perhaps as the ‘authorized’ spokesman for the Palestinian Arabs,” Schindler said.

“We would then see renewed pressure for withdrawal of Israeli forces to the 1967 borders — including relinquishing East Jerusalem to Arab sovereignty — all tied neatly together in a comprehensive settlement ‘guaranteed’ jointly by the United States and the Soviet Union.”