A.J.C. Calls on Congress to Withhold Aid from Biased Arab States

Terming Arab League blacklisting of American Jews and firms “an arrogant interference” with the rights of American citizens,” the American Jewish Committee called upon the Federal Administration here today to withhold aid “from any country which discriminates against American citizens.”

The AJC’s position on the issue was stated before the House Committee on Foreign Affairs by James Marshall, a vice-president of the AJC and former president of the New York City Board of Education.

Emphasizing that he was not discussing the Arab boycott against Israel which, he told the House Committee, is a matter “for the Israelis to deal with,” Mr. Marshall centered his testimony “on the efforts of Arab League nations to invade and, thus prejudice, the rights of American citizens, because of their religious faith, freely to travel and engage in commercial relationships.” Such actions, he said, constitute “not only an affront to Americans” but “an arrogant interference with their rights of citizenship.” He held that the United States should “not deny equal protection of the law to any American,” even on the ground of “diplomatic expedience.”

Mr. Marshall told the House Foreign Affairs Committee that “procedures of intimidation and discrimination,” directed from the Arab League boycott offices at Damascus, Syria, and from the British-protected Sheikdom of Kuwait, includes such measures as:

Blacklising most companies having Jews among their officers, owners or directors, even if they conduct no business in Israel; refusing visas to Americans of the Jewish faith and forbidding them to disembark in some Arab League countries; preventing American servicemen and civilian employees of the Jewish faith from serving at American military installations in one of the Arab countries; preventing the employment of Jewish personnel by American firms doing business in Arab countries; refusing visas to many Americans intending also to visit Israel.

In his testimony, Mr. Marshall asserted that “in granting or lending to foreign countries funds derived from tax revenues,” the President and the Congress should seriously consider “the persistence of systematic discrimination and repression against the “free exercise of the rights of American citizens.” He added:

“The foreign policy of the United States should never appear to tolerate the denial to American citizens of rights guaranteed to them by our Constitution. No action of foreign states should be permitted to do even indirectly what the Constitution of our country forbids our own government to do. Nor should our government deny the equal protection of the law to any American citizens on the ground that it is diplomatically expedient.”