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Page 2 THE SOUTHERN ISRAELITE April 21, 1978
Leading U.S. Jews
urge Begin flexibility
by Maurice Samuelson
LONDON, (JTA)—A number
of leading American Jews, known
for their strong support of Israel,
are expected to tell Premier
Menachem Begin of Israel this
week of their deep concern about
the deteriorating relationship
between American Jewry and the
White House and they will
privately appeal to him to show
greater flexibility in his
negotiations with Egypt.
The appeals to Begin are being
planned entirely in private in order
to avoid playing into the hands of
anti-Israeli and anti-Jewish forces
In the United States and abroad, it
was learned here from authorita
tive sources.
Above all, the personalities
involved wish to prevent the
emergence of a split within the
leadership of the American Jewish
community itself. However, it is
understood that they will candidly
advise Begin against too close a
relationship with Rabbi Alexander
Schindler, chairman of the
Conference of Presidents of Major
American Jewish Organizations,
according to the sources. Begin
will be told, the sources said, that
Schindler has lost favor in the
White House due to his reported
personal criticism of Zbigniew
Brzezinski, President Carter’s
National Security Advisor.
According to this assessment of
the Washington scene, American
Jewry’s clash with the Carter
Administration centers on the
latter's bid to sell sophisticated F-
15s to Saudi Arabia in a package
which also includes military aid to
Israel.
However, the Israeli cause will
be harmed in the United States,
whether or not Congress
authorizes the Saudi deal. If the
deal goes through, Israel will be
threatened militarily, it is felt. If it
is blocked, Israel’s American
supporters will face the backlash of
a disgruntled Administration.
The most that can be hoped for
in the short term is to win a
moratorium of about five months
during which the entire Middle
East situation might be
transformed by a diplomatic
breakthrough in the Israeli-
Egyptian negotiations. The
Administration has expressed
readiness to permit such a delay,
assuming Israel is cooperative.
The sources noted that the
position has been made more
delicate by American Jewry's
discovery that, in the eyes of the
Carter Administration, it has
become a less weighty factor than
the U.S. need to remain on good
terms with oil-rich Saudi Arabia.
Brzezinski in particular is believed
to have advised President Carter
that the Saudi arms deal is the best
issue on which to come to grips
with the pro-Israel lobby.
Meanwhile, there is a feeling
that American Jewry faces a
situation comparable with that
faced by British Jewry in the last
years of the Palestine Mandate,
when the Jews of Palestine and the
Zionist movement were fighting
for free immigration against the
might of the British Empire.
In urging Begin to be more
forthcoming over negotiations
with Egypt, his would-be advisors
will reportedly seek to compare
Israel’s position with that of the
United States over Vietnam, in the
sense that the bargain which could
have been struck earlier in the
conflict was better than the one
available later in the conflict.
Anti-Semitic elements, too, like
the Ku Klux Klan and the
American Nazis are also suddenly
reappearing, nourished by the
prospect of a real, open divisive
clash between America and the
Jewish State, it is expected the
Jewish leaders will tell Begin.
(According to reliable sources in
New York, the delegation to see
Begin is expected to include
Theodore Mann, chairman of the
National Jewish Community
Relations Advisory Council;
Burton Joseph, chairman of the
Anti-Defamation League of B'nai
B’rith; Howard Squadron,
president of the American Jewish
Congress; Richard Maass,
president of the Americn Jewish
Committee; and other leading
officers of these organizations.)
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