Jewish Delegation Disappointed with Result of Talk with Dulles

The delegation of the Jewish organizations which conferred with Secretary of State John Foster Dulles yesterday on American Middle East policy returned disappointed last night from Washington. Some members of the delegation expressed their feelings at the huge protest meeting held at the Hotel Commodore under the auspices of the American Zionist Committee for Public Affairs.

Louis Lipsky, one of the leaders of the delegation, presiding at last night’s meeting, severely criticized the present Administration for excluding Israel from its Middle East regional defense plans. He charged State Department officials with appearing on public platforms and with issuing statements to the press advocating the claims of the Arab states.

“Our government also gave the support of its significant silence to the campaign of slander and libel and mischievous intrigue carried on by Arab representatives in Washington, London, Cairo and the United Nations,” Mr. Lipsky charged. “Affronts and humiliations and disdainful rejections of preferred gifts were accepted with deadpan serenity. I think we owe no duty to greet with satisfaction the course of abject American diplomacy in this area. It is submitted that such conduct is not becoming the greatest democracy of our time.”

LIPSKY CHARGES U.S. WITH NOT KEEPING PLEDGES TO ISRAEL

Declaring that the present American policy with regard to Israel cannot be considered as impartial and “not even as fair play,” Mr. Lipsky said: “It is certainly not American to make pledges to Israel and not to keep them. It exposes Israel to Arab attack on all sides and provides arms only for aggressors. It isolates the State of Israel from the defense of the region. It leaves Israel without the genuine sponsorship of the Western Powers and beclouds its credentials in the United Nations. By the silence and support of our government, the ‘cold war’ of the Arab states is established as legitimate procedure to which no objection can be raised, and a hot war is being stoked with America’s fuel.

“Against such a policy,” Mr. Lipsky concluded, “we declare our protest as Americans and as Jews. We urge that a reappraisal of political values be undertaken, that peace be restored to first place in our program, that Israel be accorded equal status in the region and its defenses; and that our prevailing policy be reconsidered from its roots upward for the sake of American prestige and American interests, for the sake of peace in the Middle East and in order to maintain the security and sovereignty of the State of Israel, in whose welfare and destiny 5,000,000 American Jews are vitally interested.”

Rabbi Irving Miller, chairman of the American Zionist Council, told the meeting that he was “deeply concerned” by the Administration’s failure to restore peace and order in the Middle East. He called upon President Eisenhower and Secretary Dulles to “throw the full weight of America’s influence behind constructive and statesmanlike efforts” to bring peace to that area.”

Dr. Emanuel Neumann, speaking for the Zionist Organization of America, declared that Zionist complaint “against the high level leadership in the Administration is that they have failed to correct the distorted vision of their subordinates and to check the irresponsible trend of their policies. Already recent action by the Governments of Egypt and Saudi Arabia indicate Arab rejection of ties with America and the free world,” he noted. “It is no exaggeration to say that the State Department’s policy in the Middle East is already discredited by the events, but as yet there is no clear evidence that it will be corrected or modified.”

Stressing President Eisenhower’s pledge last week at the American Jewish Tercentenary dinner that American policy would not create “local imbalances” in the Middle East, Dr. Neumann asked: “Are we now to witness the spectacle of a two-sided policy: soothing assurances for home consumption and very blatant disregard in actual practice abroad?”