Schmidt Reassures Both Israel and Arabs of Germany’s Good Intentions

Chancellor Helmut Schmidt of West Germany, the principal speaker at a dinner here honoring Dr. Nahum Goldmann on his 85th birthday, affirmed that his country’s relations with Israel “possess for us a special moral quality. “At the same time, he spoke of Germany’s good relations with the Arab countries and its advocacy of “the legitimate rights of the Palestinian people.”

Schmidt, who flew here from Baden Baden where he had played host to French President Valery Giscard d’Estaing, was one of several top ranking West German leaders to pay tribute to Goldmann at the festive affair Tuesday night. The dinner was given by the World Jewish Congress and the Memorial Foundation for Jewish Culture, organizations which Goldmann had headed for many years. Philip Klutznick, the U.S. Secretary of Commerce, who is now on leave of absence as president of the WJC, presided.

Schmidt declared: “Our policy toward the Middle East can be relied on. Our good relations with the State of Israel are an essential buttress of our Middle East policy. They possess for us a special moral quality. It is and remains one of our principles for any peace settlement in the Middle East that Israel, like all other states in the region, has the right to live in secure borders and peace, a right that must be recognized by everybody.”

Continuing, he said: “Another buttress of our Middle East policy is the good relations we have with Arab countries. Here too, for the sake of peace, we call for justice, advocating also the legitimate right of the Palestinian people really to determine their own affairs within the frame-work of an order acceptable to all. Edgar Bronfman, acting president of the WJC, presented Schmidt with its Nahum Goldmann medal.