President Carter said today that “both Israeli and Arab leaders” hope to reach an agreement this year “that will establish a permanent peace” in the Middle East. He pledged to “do all I can” to help Israel and the Arab states “reach a compromise recognized by all sides as just and workable.”
Carter made his statement in a message to the National Women’s Division of the American Jewish Congress which opened its biennial convention here today. It was read to some 400 delegates by Mrs. Leona Chanin of New York, president of the Women’s Division. The President expressed hope that an Arab-Israeli agreement would “bring an end” to the “violence and hatred” in the Middle East.
Mrs. Chanin, in her opening remarks, praised Carter’s human rights policy in international affairs. She said, “President Carter has shown by word and deed that he believes that American foreign policy must be based on the same dedication to justice and human dignity as our domestic policy. As Americans, we are proud that we have a President who has the courage to speak out for human rights and we can take heart from his public declarations,” she said.
Addressing a convention session that marked the 29th anniversary of Israel’s independence, Hanan Bar-On, Minister of the Israel Embassy in Washington, stressed that “Israel has been the creation of the Jewish people as a whole, not just those of us there in Israel. It was born out of a collective decision by the Jewish people and Jewish history to create a Jewish State.”
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.
