Israel’s relationship with the United States has never been better, the Israeli ambassador to Washington assured 2,500 Hadassah delegates in an upbeat report on his country’s accomplishments during the first year of the Rabin administration.
“It is hard to remember when the White House, Congress and the American media were so friendly to Israel,” Ambassador Itamar Rabinovich said in an address to the national convention of Hadassah, the Women’s Zionist Organization of America.
He credited a new “mind-set of peace” in the Middle East for improvements in Israel’s overall international posture. Rabinovich, who also heads the Israeli negotiating team in peace talks with Syria, cited new or stronger ties with India, China and the republics of the former Soviet Union, as well as the stand taken in Tokyo last week by the Group of Seven leading industrialized nations against the Arab economic boycott of Israel.
Although there has been no breakthrough in Middle East peace negotiations, Rabinovich said that there was an obvious change of attitude, “when a conference on environmental change in the Mediterranean region is held in Morocco and Israel’s environment minister is invited as a matter of course.”
The 79th annual convention of the world’s largest women’s Zionist organization also launched a national campaign to gain the release of four Israeli soldiers who have been missing in action for up to 11 years and are believed held in Muslim countries.
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.