American Zionists Ask U.S. to Withhold Arms from Arab States

Declaring that the Soviet break with Israel had gravely increased Israel’s peril because it would embolden anti-Israel elements in the Arab world, the American Zionist Council today called upon Secretary of State John Foster Dulles to reply to the Soviet attack by strengthening Israel and to withhold arms from Egypt and other Arab states until they abandon their anti-Israel war.

In a letter signed by Louis Lipsky, its chairman, the Council, which represents all Zionist organizations, submitted the following proposals to “strengthen the Middle East as rapidly as possible” in the light of the new Soviet threat to that area:

1. The United States should react positively to the Soviet attack by “re-affirming American friendship for Israel in order to disabuse the Arab states of any belief that the United States will be indifferent to their efforts to exploit the new Soviet attitude to destroy Israel.”

2. This re-affirmation should be given “concrete expression through economic and military assistance to Israel, whose pro-democratic position has never been questioned and who finds herself under savage attack by the Kremlin because of it.”

3. No arms should be made available to the Arab states so long as those states “persist in their refusal to make peace with Israel and thus facilitate Communist penetration of the area.”

4. The Arab states should be permitted arms when they terminate their blockades and boycotts and negotiate peace with Israel, and if they are ready to agree to join in the defense of the free world.

“We believe that the program we advocate is more likely to bring about a coherent and effective system of regional defense than tentative improvisation which fails to deal with the basic problems in a positive and decisive way.” Mr. Lipsky wrote.