Shamir: Israel’s International Relations Have Vastly Improved

Premier Yitzhak Shamir asserted here last night that Israel’s international relations have improved considerably and were better now then they have been in years.

Addressing a dinner of the Israel Bond International Leadership Conference at the Jerusalem Hilton, Shamir pointed out that there is a better understanding of Isreal’s situation in the United States and Europe. He noted the improvements achieved with Black African states, including last year’s restoration of diplomatic ties with Zaire and Liberia, and said there were “encouraging signs” from Central and South American nations.

Shamir said the recent convening of the Jordanian Parliament after a 10-year hiatus was a positive development in the search for peace in the Middle East. But he maintained that Israel was disappointed that Jordan has continued in its support for the Palestine Liberation Organization.

On Israel’s current economic woes, the Israeli Premier downplayed the significance of the report issued last week by the National Insurance Institute which said that some 500,000 Israelis, 12 percent of the population, now live below the poverty line. He contended that there has been considerable improvement in the status of the poor and cited the Project Renewal as one of the means of coping with the problem.

ECONOMY IN TRANSITION, NOT IN CRISIS

Finance Minister Yigal Cohen-Orgad, in an address to the Bond leaders on Friday, described Israel’s economic problems as a “transition” and not as a “crisis.” He said, “Last October the government began switching the direction of the economy, to do something to narrow the balance of payments deficit.

“You have been hearing something of a crisis here, but I tell you it is not a crisis but only a transition,” Cohen-Orgad said. “We have embarked on a program of controlled austerity, and in a year we shall turn that into a program of controlled rebirth of our economic growth.”

Sam Rothberg, chairman of Israel Bond International, noted that Cohen-Orgad was the tenth Israeli Finance Minister he had introduced to the international conference since the Bond organization was established in 1951 and promised that the organization would continue to contribute to helping Israel during its current economic situation.

At Saturday’s closing dinner, the 200 Bond leaders from the U.S., Canada, Latin America and other countries, announced that the six-day conference netted some $15.7 million. The largest purchas was made by Allen Kasden of Los Angeles who bought $1.85 million, plus $100,000 for his wife, Nancy. Rothberg brought telephone greetings from former Premier Menachem Begin, and pledged $300,000.

The Bon leaders arrived here last Monday by the first direct international flight from New York to the new Uvdat Air base serving as Eilat’s International Airport. During their stay in Jerusalem, three men and 13 women in the party who had never had a Bar Mitzva or Bat Mitzva celebration, held a belated ceremony at a special service at the Western Wall.