High Officials Sabotage Kennedy’s Policy on Israel, Senator Charges

Senator Kenneth B. Keating, New York Republican, charged the U.S. Government last night with “treating Israel as a distant cousin while we dote over its Arab enemies like they were cur brothers.” He said that U.S. policies in the Middle East were “amoral” in that America appeases the Arabs in the name of “neutrality regardless of morality.”

The Senator spoke at a dinner marking the centennial of Temple Beth Israel. He warned against the sabotage of President Kennedy’s foreign policy by high officials. He pointed out that Chairman J.W. Fulbright of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee pushed concepts contrary to the President’s views. “While the President speaks like Winston Churchill and may well be prepared to act like Churchill, many of his key advisers speak like Neville Chamberlain and are prepared to encourage the President to act like Chamberlain.”

Senator Keating pointed out that “as a result of Arab pressure, our State Department does not assign Americans of the Jewish faith to any posts in Arab or other Moslem countries. Fearing to tread on Arab toes, it has done nothing to protect freedom of navigation through the Suez Canal. It has even refused to come to the aid of American businessmen, of any faith, placed on the Arab blacklist because of trade with Israel.”

He held that these conditions should not be tolerated. “If there is to be any international blacklist, I would hope our Government would maintain one against any country which discriminates against Americans of any faith. Our present practice not only gives away American dollars with no strings attached, it actually allows the beneficiary to impose un-American conditions on the aid we are giving them. Such a policy cannot win us any respect. Neither does it serve the cause of peace, ” Senator Keating emphasized.