Thousands of persons today crowded into Madison Square Park here to attend an open air mass rally called by the American Zionist Council to ask for United States intervention in the shipment by Britain on arms to the Arab states and for the U.S. to grant Israel permission to acquire adequate defensive armaments in this country.
Dr. Nahum Goldmann, chairman of the American section of the Jewish Agency, who has just returned from Israel where he conferred with government leaders of the military situation, reported that “the anxiety of Israel’s leaders about the fast rearmament of the Arabs is genuine and deep.” The facts in their possession show that Egypt and the Arab states have received substantial amounts of arms, and primarily types of arms which Israel has not, he said.
Bocause of the British refusal to provide arms to Israel, they can be obtained only from America, he continued. “The failure of the United States Government to react to Israel’s request for arms is naturally causing deep worry among the leaders of Israel and the friends of Israel here. The decision of the American Government on this issue will be the real test of its attitude to Israel,” he said.
ICKES OFFERS THREE-POINT PROGRAM FOR MIDDLE EAST PEACE
Former Secretary of the Interior Harold L. Ickes, another featured speaker, presented a three-point program with which the United States Government could “change the incendiary policies of the British Foreign Office.” He suggested: “First, as an independent, sovereign state, the United States must lift the embergo on the sale of arms to Israel. Second, the United States should immediately inform the Arab states, and also the United Nations, that any aggressive action taken against a peaceful neighbor, at the very least will result in American economic sanctions against the aggressor. Third, a positive ‘Point Four’ program for the development of backward areas must be speeded in the Middle East.”
Other speakers included Bartley C. Crum, member of the Anglo-American Commission of Inquiry on Palestine; Louis Lipsky, chairman of the American Zionist Council; Benjamin G. Browdy, presidnet of the Zionist Organization of America; Rabbi Max Kirshblum, executive vice-president of the Mizrachi Organization of America; Baruch Zuckerman, president of the Poale Zion of America; Hayim Brand, United Labor Zionist Party; Avraham Schenker, executive director of the Progressive Zionist League and Samuel Klausner, American Veterans for Israel. Mrs. Judith Epstein of Hadassah was chairman.
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