President Zalman Shazar, who left today for the United States, said before emplaning that he would meet with President Nixon in Washington on next Monday. Standing on a red carpet, Shazar said he would tell Nixon that the Middle East situation was “becoming more complicated from day to day.” Of Nixon’s recent “State of the World” message, in which he rejected an imposed settlement but re-endorsed virtually total Israeli withdrawal from the occupied Arab territories, Shazar said he had read and studied the text “carefully” and “would like to talk with him” about it. Shazar’s official reason for going to the U.S. is to open the 1971 Israel Bonds campaign’s inaugural dinner in Miami Beach tonight. He said here that he would also spend Purim eve next Wednesday as the guest of the Lubavitcher rebbe, Rabbi Menachem Schneerson of Brooklyn. The Israeli president was given strict security protection at the airport and the other passengers on the El Al plane were searched. During Shazar’s absence, Ruben Barkatt, Speaker of the Knesset, will serve as Acting President.
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The Archive of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency includes articles published from 1923 to 2008. Archive stories reflect the journalistic standards and practices of the time they were published.