Secretary of State John Foster Dulles may have helped “heighten tensions in the Middle East” by criticizing the recent move of the Israel Foreign Ministry to Jerusalem, the American Christian Palestine Committee said in a letter to the Secretary released today.
The letter, signed by five prominent American Christian leaders, backed the Israel-suggested plan for internationalizing Jerusalem’s Holy Places. “It has been recognized for some time now by competent and unbiased authorities that there is simply no rationale whatsoever to the territorial internationalization of Jerusalem,” it noted.
In deploring the Israel Foreign Ministry shift, Sec. Dulles said two weeks ago this action would only aggravate Middle East tensions. He observed that a United Nations resolution still on the books favored internationalization of all of Jerusalem. The action he criticized is part of Israel’s plan to make Jerusalem its capital.
The Committee pointed out in the letter to Sec. Dulles that it seemed to them the effect of his remarks on the Israel action “may be to encourage further Arab intransigeance towards a peaceful solution of the future of Jerusalem and indeed to heighten tensions in the Middle East which it is in our national interest to allay.”
Since the Government of Jordan “is at one with Israel in its opposition to the territorial internationalization of Jerusalem,” the committee said, “the action of the Israeli Government in transferring its capital to the most ancient symbol of Jewish identity is a matter that properly lies within its own purview.”
The letter bore the signatures of Dr. Henry A. Atkinson, general secretary of the Church Peace Union and the International Alliance of Friendship Through Religion; Bishop Charles K. Gilbert of the Episcopal Diocese of New York; Dr. Samuel Guytnmtji of New York City, former adviser to the State Department; Dr. John W. Bradbory, editor of the Watchman-Examiner, Baptist publication; and the Rev. Dr. John Haynes Holmes, minister emeritus of the Community Church of New York City.
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