Unqualified opposition to American plans to ship arms to Arab states in the Middle East in the absence of peace between the Arabs and Israel has been expressed by a growing number of American Jewish organizations.
Meeting here yesterday, the American Jewish Congress national executive and administrative committees insisted that attempts to build defenses against Communism in the Middle East by shipping arms to Saudi Arabia and Iraq would prove a “boomerang” and would increase “tension and instability in the area. The AJC units, in a resolution, attacked the political immaturity and economic instability of the Arab states and accused them of “gangsterism on an international scale” in their relations with Israel. The AJC warned that any arms sent to the Arabs would not be used to defend the Middle East but to make war on Israel.
Philip Klutznick, president of B’nai B’rith, told a B’nai B’rith meeting here that Israel is confronted with what may be another round of war and that the United States Government is “ill-advised” in “considering the possibility of providing arms to two of the adversaries of Israel, at a moment in the history of the Middle East when a bloody King Saud would destroy the Jews of Israel and the Republic of Israel.”
The Poale Agudas Israel today issued a call to all national Orthodox organizations and all congregations to proclaim the Jewish month of Adar, which starts Saturday, as a month of protest against plans to send arms to the Arab states.
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