ISRAEL WILL HAVE TO GO TO GENEVA
The WJC leader said that Israel would have to go back to the Geneva peace conference In order to achieve a settlement but conceded that there was no point in going to Geneva until after the superpowers reached a basic agreement on the Middle East. He didn’t think that would be too difficult to achieve, He thought it would be more difficult for the government of Premier Yitzhak Rabin to go to Geneva because the present Israeli Cabinet does not command a sufficient majority to take such a decision.
Dr. Goldmann suggested that the government call a new election on that Issue, even at the slight risk of the opposition headed by Likud leader Menachem Beigin gaining a majority. Even If Beigin were to win, he could offer no solution and the Israeli public would soon realize that there was no alternative to the Labor-led coalition, Goldmann said.
The WJC leader reiterated his previous view that although Israel presently Is in Its most critical period, Its existence Is not threatened and prospects for peace were never as good as they are now. According to Dr, Goldmann, the Americans would go to war If necessary to preserve Israel’s existence and neither the European nations nor the Soviet Union would allow Israel to disappear.
Dr. Goldmann referred to the controversy In Israel surrounding his outspoken views that are often at sharp variance with official Israeli policy and which have sparked a drive by Likud and some Labor elements to prevent his re-election to the WJC presidency next month, The 60-year-old Jewish leader declared, “I wasn’t active In the Zionist Movement for 60 years to be told now whether or not I have freedom of speech.”
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