American Jewish Committee Assails Dulles on Saudi Arabian Bias

The American Jewish Committee today sharply arraigned Secretary of State John Foster Dulles for linking Saudi Arabia’s “continued exclusion of American personnel of the Jewish faith” to Mayor Wagner’s refusal to greet King Saud on his arrival in New York last January. (See page 3 for views of Jewish War Veterans.)

Irving M. Engel, president of the Committee, stressing that the merits of that situation were not at issue now, said that “Secretary Dulles has employed an irrelevant circumstance rather than acknowledge our own government’s failure to prevent the assaults on American citizenship.” He pointed out that the Saudi Arabian discriminatory policies against Americans of Jewish faith, including government officials and military personnel, have been in effect for more than six years.

The Committee in its statement charged that “the U.S. Government has acquiesced in a flagrant policy of discrimination by the Arab states against American citizens of Jewish faith.” The statement said that, by negotiating treaties with Saudi Arabia which explicitly “exclude Americans from that country on the basis of their religious beliefs,” the U.S. acquiesced in discrimination by a foreign government. This, the statement said, “is tantamount to our government upholding discriminatory policies.”

Mr. Engel pointed out that the American Jewish Committee “has been continually assured that our government would attempt to persuade Saudi Arabia to abandon its discriminatory policy. Yet even before King Saud arrived in this country, we were informed that there would be little hope of success. ” The Committee warned that Saudi Arabia will not eliminate its discriminatory policies “in the absence of insistence by our own government.”