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Lehman Sees Israel As Emissary of West Befriending Asia and Africa

April 22, 1959
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One of the greatest services Israel could render to the free world is to counter the “spurious Western doctrine of white supremacy, ” by befriending the emerging nations of Asia and Africa, former U.S. Senator Herbert Hi Lehman said last night. Mr. Lehman spoke at a dinner given in his honor by the Israeli-American Friendship Society.

Israel could perform a vast service to the world, Mr. Lehman declared, by befriending the new Afro-Asian nations “not only in the name of Israel, but in the name of democracy and freedom.”

Israel’s appeal to the new nations, Mr. Lehman went on, “may be due to the fact that Israel is a country whose people understand the wounds that result from the cult of racial superiority and from the practices of racial discrimination.”

Referring to Israel’s progress and stability in the Middle East region, Mr. Lehman stated that it is only a year, “or less,” since some of the Western governments came to a full awareness of Israel’s importance as a factor of order, stability and freedom in the area.

Today, the Negev Research Institute at Beersheba dedicated the new Herbert Lehman Laboratory Building which Mr. Lehman, as guest of honor, called “an important human work.” The laboratory, he said, will be devoted to making underdeveloped areas habitable as against the “unfortunately necessary research work going on in so many other laboratories in the world to find even more efficient ways of destroying mankind in war.”

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