About 1200 people, mostly high school and college students from New York, demonstrated on the Capitol steps today to protest the sale of advanced combat aircraft to Saudi Arabia and Egypt which was ratified by the Senate Monday. They were joined by some100 local people and addressed by four members of Congress who share their bitter opposition to the planes sales package and the Carter Administration’s Middle East policies generally.
The youngsters arrived in Washington in a chartered train and marched the four blocks from Union Station to the Capitol chanting slogans and singing Hebrew songs. They carried signs which read “Don’t Sell Blood For Oil”; “Democracies Must Stand Together” and “For Sale—Israel. Price Negotiable. Petrodollars Accepted. Agent: Jimmy Carter.”
They deposited mock coffins at the Capitol portico which, they said, symbolized “the death of the credibility of the U.S. government and its relationship with Israel.” Some of the demonstrators wore Halloween masks with a likeness of President Carter wearing an Arab headdress.
The sympathetic Congressmen who greeted them were Reps. Robert F. Drinan (D. Mass.), Stephen Solarz (D.NY), S. William Green (R.NY) and Sen. Lowell Weicker (R. Conn.). Drinan told the group: “Sadat gloated that the Arab nations surmounted the special relationship between the U.S. and Israel. We meet here today to proclaim to Mr. Sadat, to the leaders of other Arab states and to all the world that the special relationship between America and Israel is alive and well and we intend to keep it that way.”
Green, referring to Carter’s promises of unwavering support for Israel, said “the burden is now on the President to show that his promises will be kept and up to us to show that we are watching him so that they will in fact become realities.”
The demonstration, described as a “Mobilization for Israel,” failed to produce the “thousands” from New York, New England, the South and Midwest that its organizers had predicted. The gathering at the Capitol was followed by a march to Lafayette Park where the demonstration was continued within view of the White House. David Mann, president of the Hebrew Institute of Riverdale, N.Y., coordinated the Mobilization.
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