While voicing complete sympathy with the general purpose of the Eisenhower Doctrine as an expression of the determination of the United States to repel Communist aggression in the Middle East, leaders of American Zionist groups today insisted that President Eisenhower must come to grips with the internal situation in that area, including the Suez Canal controversy and Arab-Israel relations.
Addressing several hundred leading Zionists from all parts of the United States assembled at an all-day session of the national executive council of the Zionist Organization of America, Dr Emanuel Neumann, ZOA president, said: “One searches in vain for a hint of Administration policy regarding the solution of the internal problem in the Middle East, such as the Suez Canal issue, Egypt official belligerency toward Israel, the fedayeen incursions, the blockade of Israeli shipping, the refugee problem; the bitter conflicts between the Arab states, the constant incitement to violence.”
Declaring that Washington’s referral of all these problems to the United Nations for solution is nothing more than passing the buck, the ZOA president asked: “Is it not high time that the Administration give a clear indication of the policies it intends to pursue not only to repel external aggression, but to settle the internal problems in the Middle East?”
Similar sentiments were voiced at the opening session here tonight of the four-day mid-winter conference of Hadassah, which is being attended by leaders of the organization from all parts of the country. The conference was called to map a program of meeting emergency problems in Israel.
DULLES’ TESTIMONY HEIGHTENS CONCERN, MRS. HALPRIN SAYS
Mrs. Rose Halprin, Hadassah leader and acting chairman of the American section of the Jewish Agency, addressing the opening session of the convention stated: “Although all Americans will support the far-reaching objective of keeping Russia from greater penetration into the Middle East, the testimony of Secretary of State Dulles before the House Foreign Affairs Committee last week points up the need for very careful analysis of all the implications of the Eisenhower Doctrine and the means by which its purposes are to be achieved.”
Mrs. Halprin stressed that the reported testimony of Mr. Dulles heightens concern by its lack of clarity. From what the Secretary of State told the House Foreign Affairs Committee, she observed, “it would seem that Soviet-armed and Soviet-guided Arab states could openly attack Israel with impunity. This is fantastic.”
‘So far as the President’s message is a clear statement to the world that the United States will no longer remain isolationist against the threat of Soviet penetration in the Middle East–it is welcome, “the Hadassah leader continued. “It is welcome, too, as a charter of freedom from Communist aggression for all the Middle East countries, including Israel. But we would be less than frank if we did not call attention to the failure of the President’s program to include the pressing problems of the Suez Canal, Arab-Israel relations, and continuing raids within Israel by the fedayeen gangs.”
“It is true that the President has declared that these matters are in the hands of the United Nation. But the United Nations, thus far, has been unable to bring about a solution to these settling problems. Despite the United Nations’ earnest efforts for peace and security in the Middle East, the situation in that region has steadily deteriorated. Unless we deal with the internal problems of the Middle East, there is little chance of achieving peace and security there.”
U.S. POLICY BLIND TO MENACE OF NASSERISM, SAYS DR. NEUMANN
Dr. Miriam Freund, national president of Hadassah, told the delegates that unless the Eisenhower Doctrine is “revised” to encompass internal problems of the Middle East, the United States will be following “a dangerous, uncharted course of far-reaching implication that will becloud the worked with anxiety.” She said that the present turmoil in the Middle East underscores the importance of stepping up Hadassah work in Israel.
Dr. Neumann, in addressing the ZOA national executive, criticized the “Eisenhower Doctrine” for the Middle East as being “strangely silent” on the menace of what he termed rampant Nasserism” which he said “constitutes the more immediate peril to the peace of the Middle East and consequently the peace of the world.” He asserted that the threat of Communist aggression and the menace of expansionist Nasserism go hand in hand.
Dr. Harris J. Levine, president of the Jewish National Fund of America and national vice president of the Zionist Organization of America, voiced approval of the proposal made by former Secretary of State Dean Acheson, in his testimony before the House Foreign Relations Committee on President Eisenhower’s new Middle East plan, for an American force for preventing either Arab or Israel government-supported border raids and even attacks Dr. Levine spoke at the banquet given in honor of the completion of a border bill age in Israel, bearing the name of the Borough of the Bronx, which has a population of more than a quarter of a million Jews.
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.
