Israel’s democracy is a threat to Arab “dictatorship and oppression,” U. S. Supreme Court Justice William O. Douglas declared here today, and for that reason “is a symbol to keep alive.”
Justice Douglas addressed 500 leaders of the United Jewish Appeal campaign in Pennsylvania, Eastern Ohio and West Virginia at an all-day conference here. Cash contributions of $629, 000 were turned in at this meeting. At the same time, two other UJA conferences were held, bringing the day’s total contributions to more than $800,000. A regional meeting in ###lianapolis brought in $50, 000, and at a parley in Wilkes-Barre $125,000 was raised.The Arab states, said Justice Douglas, “are fearful” of Israel because the new state “is a symbol of democracy in a part of the world that has known mostly dictatorship and oppression. If the ideas that Israel promote are let loose in the Middle East and Asia,” said the Supreme Court Justice, “old dynasties will totter and colonial powers will tremble. For Israel represents a political democracy, a social democracy, and an economic democracy.”
Mr. Douglas has traveled widely throughout Asia and has studied and written widely about the Middle East. Israel must receive the wide support given it by the UJA, the jurist said, because “it is a powerful symbol in action…a symbol to keep alive in a world that is more and more possessed with the notion that bombs and military might are a cure for the world’s ills.”
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