March 24, 1961
JERUSALEM (Mar. 23)
President Ben-Zvi said today he had sent a communication to Yaakov Herzog, Israel’s Ambassador to Canada, praising the envoy’s initiative in inducing British historian Arnold Toynbee to engage in a public debate on the historian’s anti-Israel charges in February.
The President expressed gratification at the tone and content of Mr. Herzog’s presentation in a two-hour debate with Dr. Toynbee on February 1, at the Hillel House at McGill University in Montreal. The envoy issued the challenge after Dr. Toynbee repeated to Hillel House audience a week earlier his public stand that there was a moral parallel between the Israeli treatment of the Arabs during the War of Independence and the Nazi genocide against the Jews.
