The American labor movement will continue to stand with Israel, Lane Kirkland, secretary-treasurer of the AFL-CIO, told more than 1500 labor and industry leaders from across the United States gathered here at a State of Israel Bonds meeting. “Too much of what we believe in is at stake there for us to change. We won’t shift with the public opinion polls or modify our support depending on which party is in power.”
The occasion of the meeting was a tribute dinner several nights ago for William H. Wynn, president of the Retail Clerks International Union, AFL-CIO. The 1500 leaders registered $15 million in Israel Bonds purchases. This represented purchases made at 18 prior events throughout the United States and Canada in the past several months. Gen. Aharon Yariv, former head of Israel military intelligence and director of the Institute for Strategic Studies at Tel Aviv University, presented Wynn with the Prime Minister’s Medal. Wynn headed a delegation of his union on a visit to Israel last June.
Kirkland, in his address, affirmed that the AFL-CIO has been disturbed “at the short-sighted views of some American policy makers who have chosen to demonstrate their even-handedness by strengthening the hand of Israel’s enemies and by demanding concessions on the part of Israel that increase, rather than lessen, the dangers of another Holocaust.”
In his view, Kirkland said, America’s role in current peace negotiations should be “that of an ‘honest broker’–not showing ‘goodwill’ by supplying Arab countries with more efficient implements of war. It is not to join the Arab chorus of demands for impossible concessions that would leave Israel more vulnerable to internal terrorism and external attack.”
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.
