The Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations and B’nai B’rith have urged the Carter Administration to take the lead in forcefully blocking efforts by the Palestine Liberation Organization and its allies in the Soviet bloc and Third World countries to subvert the United Nations Decode for Women conference currently being held in Copenhagen by transforming it into a forum for anti-Israel and anti-Zionist propaganda.
At the same time, Bernice Tannenboum, president of Hadassah, sent a letter to President Carter from Copenhagen in which she observed, “We have seen our hope of sisterhood profoundly shaken by a divisive political circus.” Mrs. Tannenboum is attending the Copenhagen conference as a delegate representing the World Jewish Congress which has non-governmental organization status. The conference is scheduled to end July 30.
URGES U.S. TO TAKE LEAD
Howard Squadron, chairman of the Presidents Conference, sent a telegram to Secretary of State Edmund Muskie yesterday saying that his organization’s 34 constituent members were “profoundly concerned at efforts by the enemies of Israel and peace in the Middle East to politicize” the Decode for Women conference. He urged that the U.S. delegation “take the lead in publicly opposing and in actively lobbying against attempts by the Soviet-Arab bloc to condemn Israel and to channel UN funds for Palestinian women through the Palestine Liberation Organization.
“The PLO and its Soviet-Arab supporters seek to win United Nations’ financial support allegedly to meet the needs of Palestinian women. They would also have the conference condemn Zionism, along with imperialism, apartheid, neo-colonialism and racism.”
Squadron added: “We urge that our country’s delegation to the conference take the lead in publicly opposing and actively lobbying against the inflammatory polemics of the PLO and its co-conspirators in the Arab League, the Soviet bloc and the so-called Third World. Free and democratic nations everywhere look to the United States to play the key role in resisting the anti-Israel cabal in Copenhagen….We believe it is imperative that our country’s delegation in Copenhagen undertake a major campaign to avert a serious blow to the American national interest, to the Arab-Israel peace process and to the security of our friend and ally Israel.”
WARNS OF PLO SUBVERSION
Jack Spitzer, president of B’nai B’rith International, also asked in contacts with the White House that the U.S. instruct its delegation to take the lead in resisting proposals that equate Zionism with racism, provide UN subsidies to the PLO under the guise of helping Palestinian women and other PLO attempts to politicize the Copenhagen conference.
“The PLO and its allies” are trying to subvert the meeting and turn it into a propaganda show “to further the PLO’s anti-peace aims,” Spitzer said. “B’nai B’rith is deeply concerned about the PLO’s cynical exploitation of the conference.”
TRAGEDY OF WOMEN DISTORTED
Tannenboum noted, in her letter to Carter, that on “issues relating to the problems of women refugees, Palestinian women are singled out over Afghan, Vietnamese, Ethiopian, Kampuchean and countless other women refugees, thus distorting a tragedy of staggering proportions.”
She also stated that once again, at the Copenhagen conference, “the slander originating in 1975 at Mexico City is being revived by Cuba which has introduced an amendment to the Plan of Action calling Zionism an evil to be eradicated along with colonialism, racism, etc.”
Tannenboum praised “the strong efforts of our outstanding United States delegation led by Sarah Weddington,” but despite this, the conference “has degenerated into an anti-American, anti-Jewish and anti-Israel diatribe where any ill–in any part of the world–is blamed on the United States and/or Israel.” She called on the President “to speak out now–before the conference ends–to affirm that the policy of the United States is to reject any Plan of Action containing such proposals and slanders.”
INTERNATIONALLY EMINENT WOMEN SPEAK OUT
In a related development, a group of internationally eminent women, including several political figures, artists, authors and actresses have signed a statement appealing to the participants at the international women’s conference in Copenhagen to end politization of the conference and to “preserve its universal character.”
Among those who signed the statement are Simone de Beauvoir, Louise Nevelson, Madeleine Renaund, Beverly Sills and Bella Abzug. Other women, from the United States, include Colleen Dewhurst, Betty Friedan, Shelley Winters, Ann Jackson, Ann Meara, Jacqueline Grennan Wexler, Bess Meyerson, Eugenie Anderson and Reps. Beverly Byron (D. Md.) Marjorie Holt (R. Md.) and Margaret Heckler (R. Mass.).
The statement, which was released to the media on an international basis, was initiated in France by a group of women aware that certain agenda items might overshadow the original intent of the conference and turn the event into an explosive political forum. Among the countries represented in the list of signatories are Australia, Austria, Bolivia, Brazil, Canada, Costa Rica, Denmark, Federal Republic of Germany, Ecuador, Finland, Great Britain, Italy, Japan, Mexico, Norway, Panama, Portugal, Uruguay, U.S. and Venezuela.
The appeal “to all participants,” stated: “This conference provides us with the opportunity to make known our views on questions which preoccupy women: social life, equality, education, health and employment. We know that actions are envisaged to use this conference for partisan ends thus diverting it from its initial aims. Politicizations have no place in this encounter. It is to be hoped that this conference, which rallies women from all countries, preserves its universal character.”
NUNS ISSUE AN APPEAL
In addition, the National Coalition of American Nuns (NCAN) also issued an appeal “to women of all faiths to join hands as sisters in an effort to make the International Women’s Conference in Copenhagen what it is supposed to be — an opportunity for women to dialogue about the women’s agenda.”
The appeal, signed by Sister Margaret Traxler and Sister Ann Gillen, members of the Coalition’s executive board and delegates to the conference, added, in part: “NCAN deplores the efforts of the PLO to politicize this women’s conference in Copenhagen, 1980, as they did in the International Women’s Conference in Mexico City in 1975.
“NCAN denounces the PLO terrorists, who presume to speak for the largely silent Palestinian people. The PLO do not even dialogue with all their brothers– to say nothing of their sisters…. So far, the PLO has not shown any signs of joining the human family, as they are still pledged to ‘liquidate’ the State of Israel …
“Palestinian women are hostages to the perverse nationalistic hatred of the PLO, who demonstrate by their plans for Copenhagen that they dominate their own sisters, using them as pawns in the game of politics, even as they keep them in the bondage of Arab male supremacy. Finally, NCAN urges Palestinian women to share the concerns of all women and to join in efforts to build peace for their people….”
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.
