The State Department today received reports that a proposal has been made in Cairo to send delegations of Arab diplomats to Washington and Moscow to seek the personal intervention of President Eisenhower and Soviet Premier Khrushchev against the movement of Jews from Iron Curtain areas to Israel.
According to information received here, the Arab governments in the last few days discussed joint action to frustrate what they term Israeli plans to accommodate an estimated 3, 000, 000 new Jewish immigrants.
State Department sources said the Department had received information and views from both Israel and the Arab states on the Jewish immigration to Israel now under way from Rumania. They said the Department was inclined to regard seriously the Arab fear of Israeli “expansionism,” and was conscious of the absorptive limitations of the Jewish State. On the other hand, the Department was described as, at the same time, anxious to see any refugees from Communism, Jewish or non-Jewish, afforded a haven in the free world. One source said it was a “dilemma” at this juncture, because American-Arab relations seemed to him to be improving.
It appeared that the whole question was being studied by the State Department. An inclination existed among some officials to urge Israel to adopt a “more realistic” attitude on immigration. But sources said the Department had not yet formally communicated such views.
ARABS CITE EMIGRATION AS “PROOF” OF SOVIET-ISRAEL DEAL
Meanwhile, it became apparent today that Arab diplomatic circles in this country have set in motion an audacious new propaganda scheme to exploit to their purposes the release of Jewish emigrants from Communist countries.
The aim of the Arab propagandists is to convince the United States Government and its people that the release of the Jewish emigrants by the Communist authorities is evidence of a deterioration of relations between the Arabs and the Soviet Union, and an indication of an alleged new Soviet-Israeli rapprochement.
The Arab propagandists are telling Government officials, diplomats and the press that the Communist bloc is releasing Jews to Israel as a calculated and deliberate pressure device against the United Arab Republic, which they try to depict as increasingly hostile to the Soviet Union. Arab diplomats have sought to document this contention in talks with State Department officials, and one Arab official asserted this week-end that many were “receptive” to this newline.
Arab propagandists, in talks with State Department officials and influential personalities in the capital, are taking the line that the time is propitious to introduce a new chapter in Arab-American affairs. They suggest an invitation to President Nasser of the UAR and other Arab leaders to an Arab-American “summit” conference in Washington.
At the same time, they are seeking to persuade the State Department that it should link limitation of the new wave of immigration into Israel to American economic aid to Israel for the new fiscal year.
To lend attractiveness to the idea of an American-Arab “summit meeting, ” the Arab propagandists advance the possibility of an Arab-Israeli understanding to be achieved through President Eisenhower’s mediation. Such an understanding, they stress, would encourage the Arab nationalists to resist Communism.
An elaborate plan advanced here would have President Eisenhower invite not only Nasser and other Arab bosses for “summit” talks, but also Premier David Ben Gurion of Israel for separate talks. Then, if the Israeli Premier “accepted” the Arab conditions, the two sides could be brought face to face.
The Arab conditions for an understanding, as disclosed here by a leading Arab spokesman, are nothing but the 1947 partition proposals restated in a new guise, but just as unacceptable to Israel. The formula used by the Arabs in talks with American officials speak of “adjustments of frontiers” that would provide room for the settlement of 400, 000 Arab refugees.
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.
