Sen. Frank Church (D. Idaho) said last night that the Arab blacklist threatens “deep and lasting divisiveness” among Americans and declared that “Arab dictation as to who may or may not participate in our business transactions is too high a price to pay.”
Church, chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Subcommittee on Multinational Corporations, spoke at a dinner at the Bellevue-Stratford Hotel at which Mrs. Leona Chanin of New York was installed as president of the National Women’s Div- ision of the American Jewish Congress. Some 500 delegates from throughout the country are attending the women’s division’s biennial convention.
The Idaho Democrat, who last week released the names of some 1500 American companies on the Arab blacklist, assailed what he called the “raw power of Arab money.” He declared that “A political settlement in the Middle East must be judged on its own terms, and not imposed as a consequence of economic pressure.”
Church said the international oil companies have received “preferential tax and anti-trust treatment in the name of national security” but “these arrangements haven’t enhanced our security at all. On the contrary, by making us more dependent on Middle East sources of oil they have weakened our security.”
OIL PRICES, MIDEAST SETTLEMENT, NOT CONNECTED
Denying that if only there were a Middle East settlement satisfactory to the Arabs, “oil prices would come down,” Church noted that “the 500 percent oil price increase imposed by the OPEC cartel was ram-rodded by Iran and Venezuela, neither of whom have a special interest in the Arab-Israeli conflict. These countries will seek to maintain the cartel price regardless of what happens to the Arabs and Israelis.”
Church said that proposals to achieve peace in the Mideast should be evaluated “on their own merits and not under the false illusion that if only we accommodate the Arab pride, the Western world will be rewarded with lower international oil prices.”
The Idaho Senator also said that he had seen oil company internal memoranda and correspondence which showed that Texaco, Exxon, Mobil and Standard Oil of California had tried to convince the White House not to supply Israel with arms and ammunition during the Yom Kippur War because they feared their concessions in Saudi Arabia would be nationalized. He said fortunately the Administration did not give in to this pressure.
EFFORT TO AID SYRIAN JEWS
During the three-day convention which ended today, Esther H. Kolatch, executive director of the Women’s Division, reported that the group has launched a special effort in behalf of the 4500 Jews in Syria and said that the AJCongress women were calling on the State Department, now that diplomatic relations between Washington and Damascus had been resumed, to urge the Syrian regime to abide by the UN Declaration on Human Rights by ending the intimidation and persecution of Syrian Jews and letting those who wish to leave emigrate to a land of their own choosing.
Jacqueline Levine of West Orange, N.J., the outgoing president, called on the nation’s volunteers to fill the gap in social services created by the budget cutbacks resulting from the recession. President Ford, in a message to the convention, said the group has “benefitted our society by urging women to participate more fully in our national life.” He noted that “the philosophy of your organization advocates our national commitment to equal opportunity for all.”
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The Archive of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency includes articles published from 1923 to 2008. Archive stories reflect the journalistic standards and practices of the time they were published.
