ZOA Conclave Told U.S. Must Help Israel’s Security; Anti-semitism Growing in New Guise

Declaring that American Jews must not be “guilty of silence.” Jacques Torczyner, President of the American Zionist Organization, asked American Jews and Americans to call on the United States government to demand that the Egyptians and Russians remove the missiles in the Suez Canal zone and that the United States “supply Israel immediately with all the weapons that will enable it to maintain its air superiority over the Suez Canal battle zone.” In his keynote address opening the 73rd National Convention of the ZOA, Mr. Torczyner also called on American Jewry “to state now and firmly that we will fight every effort of the United States government to impose an unjust peace on Israel and that we will stand by Israel because if we abandon Israel we weaken the moral position of the United States in the world.” Mr. Torczyner told the 1000 delegates he was making his call to American Jewry because “today there is a tendency in the State Department to impose a peace in the Middle East. This same tendency was recently expressed by Senator J. William Fulbright.”

Continuing, he declared: “Israel is the touchstone and the symbol of what America will do in the world. If after all the promises that were made, all the statements, all the letters that were written. America should abandon Israel, we are back where we were in 1968, the era of appeasement.” He hailed the vote of the Senate which on Tuesday overwhelmingly authorized President Nixon to provide Israel with nearly unlimited military aid on highly favorable terms to counter “past, present or future Soviet arms deliveries to the Arab countries.” The Convention opened tonight and continues through Sunday. The theme of the conclave is “Security and Peace for Israel.” The opening session also featured an address by Gov. Nelson A. Rockefeller of New York. Other speakers scheduled to address the convention include Yitzhak Rabin. Israel’s ambassador to the U.S.; Arthur J. Goldberg. Democratic-Liberal candidate for governor of New York; George Romney, Secretary of Housing and Urban Development; Shimon Peres. Israeli Minister-Without-Portfolio; Jacob K. Javits, New York Republican and Dr. Elimelech S. Rimalt, member of Israel’s Parliament and former Israeli Cabinet member.

Mr. Torczyner also declared there is a strengthening of anti-Jewish feeling in the United States. Jews, he stated, are “over-represented and too visible in movements (New Left) that have gone against the mainstream of the American way of life. The silent majority of American Jews is forgotten by the silent majority of Americans because of the loud voices of the small vocal element of Jews in the New Left and other Left Wing movements. Feelings of anti-Semitism have been intensified by the militant anti-Zionist, anti-Israel attitude of the militant American Negro symbolized by the Black Panthers.” Mr. Torczyner warned that anti-Semitism now has gained vigor and strength. “It has only,” he said, “change, its name. It is now called anti-Zionism, Jews are nice people when they give cocktail parties for the Black Panthers, and large sums of money for the New Left. But when they fight for Jewish rights and support the State of Israel they are Zionists and must be attacked.”