Z. O. A. Assails U.S. Policy on Israel As “one-sided and Shortsighted”

A resolution terming United States policy on Israel one-sided and shortsighted” was adopted here today by the National Executive Council of the Zionist Organization of America, the highest deliberative body of the ZOA between national conventions.

The Zionist leaders, coming from all parts of the country, unanimously denounced as “Immoral” any attempt to impose sanctions on Israel “for standing firm in her legitimate insistence on adequate guarantees against further Egyptian blockades and belligerency.” The resolution noted that “the door to further negotiation between our Government and Israel is happily still open,” and urged President Eisenhower “to ensure the adequate guarantees which would enable Israel to withdraw her troops from the Gulf of Akaba and Gaza areas.”

Adoption of the resolution followed a major policy address by Dr. Emanuel Neumann, president of the ZOA, in which the Zionist leader declared that “the imposition of sanctions on Israel would remove the last vestige of confidence in the United Nations as an instrument of international justice.” Dr. Neumann referred to the meeting of a few prominent non-Zionists with Secretary of State Dulles on February 21 and declared that “the manner in which the Administration set up and publicized this meeting indicates an effort to create invidious distinctions between Zionists and non-Zionists where their support for Israel is concerned.”

Nothing with satisfaction that the notion of alleged differences between Zionist and non-Zionist support for Israel was publicly and categorically rejected by participants in the meeting, Dr. Neumann said: “It should be clearly understood by all that the views of American Zionists on supporting Israel and safeguarding her independence are today shared by non-Zionists as well – indeed, by almost all of American Jewry. Any attempt to divide the American Jewish community on this question will fall ignominiously.”