Max Fisher Sees President :Nixon's Policies as Assuring Friendship for Israel
TEL AVIV (JTA)—Max Fisher,
President Nixon's adviser on Jew-
ish affairs and chairman of the
United Jewish Appeal, said there
has been no change in the basic
principles of Nixon's Middle East
policy of no imposed settlement
and maintenance of the balance of
power between Israel and her
Arab foes.
Fisher, here to attend the first
assembly of the reconstituted Jew-
ish Agency which opened in Jeru-
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salem June 21, had his last meet-
ing with President Nixon two
months ago. He refused to confirm
or deny that he was carrying a
letter from Nixon to Premier Golda
Mein He said he found Nixon
"more sympathetic than anyone
could expect" toward Israel, add-
ing, "I can only wish Israel had
some more friends like Nixon."
Asked by newsmen if the White
House was acting on behalf of
Soviet Jews, Fisher, who earn-
paigned for Nixon in 1968, replied,
"things are being done but I can-
not speak about them."
At a press conference in Jeru-
salem, Jewish Agency chairman
Louis Pincus said the assembly
would represent nearly 2,500,000
Jews, the largest Jewish body ever
set up. He said about 1,500,000
consists of contributors to the vari-
ous fund-raising appeals for Israel
and another 900.000 represented
the membership of the World Zion-
ist Organization on the conclusion
of the world-wide membership
drive.
Pincus stressed that for obvious
reasons the 2,500,000 did not in-
clude Israeli Jews or Jews from
East European and other countries
where the membership drive could
not be conducted. He described
the Jewish Agency's activities,
apart from fundraising, as immi-
gration, settlement, youth aliya,
social welfare, housing, health, ab-
sorption, agriculture and educa-
tion. Pincus announced that Dr.
Israel Goldstein would retire next
week as chairman of the Keren
Hayesod-United I s r a e l Appeal,
having reached the age of 75. The
World Confederation of General
Zionists has nominated Ezra Sha-
piro of Cleveland as his successor.
THE DETROIT JEWISH NEWS
Friday, June 25, 1971-13
WHEN YOU
JERUSALEM (JTA) — The
agreement on the reconstitution of
the Jewish Agency—with half the
executive to be composed of non-
Zionists—was signed here Monday.
The founding assembly of the
enlarged agency began at the con-
vention center Monday night.
In his keynote speech, Chairman
Louis A. Pincus declared that 'the
first and foremost of the tasks that
confront us is the rescue of Jews
from countries of distress."
He added that "the rescue of
those Jews who are left in the
Arab countries is literally a matter
of life and death."
The agency's work in absorb.
ing immigrants has had "mag-
nificent" results, Pincus said,
and their arrival is "a great
blessing for Israel." But now,
he said, "things have reached
the danger point," and what is
required is "'thought, pioneer-
ing, experiment and above all
love of Israel, pure and simple."
Not to be forgotten, he noted, is
"the heroic struggle of the Soviet
Jews for the right to immigrate to
Israel," which must be "the con-
cern of every Jew and every free
man wherever he be."
Pincus asserted in his keynote
address that the Jewish Agency
bears "the direct burden of re-
sponsibility with all it implies,"
and that "If, God forbid, the funds
we raise fall short of needs, it will
be you who make the agonizing
decision as to which vital service
will be cut."
In a related development, Dr.
Israel Goldstein formally stepped
down after 10 years as world
chairman of the Keren Hayesod,
the United Israel Appeal.
Dr. Goldstein, who was 75 last
Friday, is succeeded by Ezra Z.
Shapiro, 68, a lawyer and com-
munal leader of Cleveland, who
will relocate in Israel. Rabbi
Israel Miller, president of the
American Zionist Federation,
was nominated to the Jewish
Agency Executive.
The urgent need for more hous-
ing and the maintenance of Is-
-rael's military strength — twin
problems related by the vast ex-
penditures that each demands —
were the focus of attention at
Tuesday night's Jewish Agency
sessions.
They were stressed by speakers
at plenary sessions and committee
meetings, among them Foreign
Minister Abba'Eban, Finance Min-
ister Pinhas Sapir, Defense Minis-
ter Moshe Dayan and Gen. Haim
Bar Lev, chief of staff of Israel's
armed forces.
Eban said the maintenance of
Israel's arms balance against the
rapidly increasing military might
of the Arabs—principally Egypt—
has become the most important
principle of Israel's foreign policy
"and we ask the nations of the
world to help us in this respect."
Dayan, replying to questions at
a closed c o m m i t t e e meeting,
praised the stance of President
Nixon, who, he said, has stood
firm on all undertakings he has
given, Israel for military support
and on the political front. Sapir
said that Soviet military assistance
to Egypt has reached $2,700,000,-
000.
Sapir observed that despite
the defense burden, Israel must
provide 15,000 flats annually if
it is to admit 50,000 immigrants
a year. "All this represents an
annual investment in the neigh-
borhood of $150,0000,000."
Joseph Sharon, director general
of the housing ministry, told a
meeting of the assembly's housing
committee that Israel has 111,000
families in need of adequate hous-
ing and to satisfy only half of
them would cost $350,000,000. He
said that even if the funds were
available, it would be difficult to
speed up the rate of housing con-
struction because of the shortage
of skilled labor. Sharon denied
that the government was "turning
a blind eye" to the housing needs
of young couples with large fam-
ilies. He observed, however, that
his ministry's budget was based
mainly on the housing needs of
new immigrants. He asked the
committee's assistance in obtaining
new approprations for nonimmi-
grant housing.
Eliezer Shmueli, deputy director
of the education ministry, seemed
to imply in remarks to the assem-
bly's education committee that
lack of proper schooling rather
than the housing shortage was
responsible for such phenomena as
the "Black Panthers," Jerusalem
slum youths who have been dem-
onstrating against squalid living
conditions. Shmueli observed that
the Panther movement did not
occur in the new development
towns, which fact he attributed
largely to "the network of compre-
hensive schools" set up and
funded by the Jewish Agency.
Replying to questions put to him
at a closed meeting, Gen. Dayan
said Israel did not object to a
partial agreement with Egypt to
reopen the Suez Canal but he saw
no need for Israel to pull back
from the canal banks in order to
restore the waterway to operation.
The canal, he said, was Israel's
most effective military line.
Dayan, in effect, seemed to
disavow by those remarks the
proposal said to have originated
with him months ago that Israel
would be willing to withdraw
some distance from the canal's
banks under terms of an interim
arrangement with Egypt. Dayan
also took a hard line on Sharm
el Sheikh.
He said the attack on the Israel-
bound Liberian tanker Coral Sea
in the straits of Bab el-Mandab
two weeks ago confirmed once
more "the imperative necessity for
Israel to hold on to Sharm el
Sheikh.
Gen. Bar Lev said that if fight-
ing was resumed, the main objec-
tive of Israel's forces would be to
hold the present lines and create
such military pressure as to con-
vince Egypt that it would gain
nothing by military means.
Foreign Minister Eban said there
was full agreement between Israel
and the United States on the neces-
sity to maintain the arms balance
in the Middle East. Although there
are some differences of approach,
he said there was no reason to
assume that the term "balance of
arms" has lost its credibility.
Louis Aryeh Pincus was elected
chairman of the Jewish Agency,
and Leon Dulzin was named treas-
urer. Included in the 40-member
board of governors that will super-
vise Jewish Agency functions
between national assemblies are
Max M. Fisher and Paul Zucker-
man of Detroit.
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Agreement Signed for Reconstituted J e wish Agency; Jews' Rescue Stressed