Jewish Congress Asks Senate Body to Study Saudi Arabian Bigotry

A Senate Foreign Relations sub-committee investigating American policy in the Middle East, was urged by the American Jewish Congress today to scrutinize U.S. acquiescence to terms of its agreement for use of the Dhabran Air Base in Saudi Arabia which excludes American-Jewish military personnel and which restricts religious practices by American Christians at the base.

In a communication to Senator J. W. Fulbright, chairman of the sub-committee, Dr. Israel Goldstein, president of the American Jewish Congress, declared: “We believe that an examination of all the relevant State Department papers will demonstrate that our government has not seriously pressed the Saudi Arabian government to abandon its discriminatory practices. We are equally convinced that a resolute position by our government recognizes no religious distinction among its citizens and will not allow a foreign government to do so.”

Dr. Goldstein’s communication was accompanied by a 24-page report detailing the forms of the U.S. lease on the Dhahran Airfield and challenging the discriminatory practices of the Saudi Arabian government. In a forward to the report, Thomas K. Finletter, former U.S. Secretary of the Air Force, minimized the military value of the Dhahran base. “I do not believe that the need for the Dhahran air base in any way required us to sacrifice the principles in which the American people believe, Mr. Iinidter wrote. “I think that the value of the Dhahran base is relatively small and that it can be replaced, but that the value of the principle involved is high and cannot be replaced.”

The request to Senator Fulbright called attention to the fact that the U.S. lease on Dhahran was renewed by the State Department in April, 1957, “without any provision forbidding discrimination against American citizens,” despite the unanimous declaration of the U.S. Senate deploring such discrimination.

Analyzing the principal restrictions in the Dhahran lease, the American Jewish Congress report declared: “The practical effect of these clauses, as interpreted by Saudi Arabia with the acquiescence of the U.S. is that American Christians at Dhahran are restricted in the practice of their religion and American Jews are totally excluded from the country.”