Presidential Candidates Asked for Views on Arab Discrimination

The American Jewish Congress adopted today a resolution calling upon the Presidential and other candidates for national office to give the public their “views and commitments” on the important issue of Arab discrimination against American Jews. The resolution was adopted at a session of the organization’s national administrative committee.

Nothing that the U. S. Senate recently adopted a resolution opposing discrimination by foreign nations against American citizens because of religious distinction, and that both the Democratic and Republican parties have given platform pledges opposing such discrimination, the resolution declared that these general pledges require “definition and elaboration” by candidates of both parties. “They reflect an issue involving the preservation of basic American rights and should be accorded the public discussion which other important issues are receiving in the campaign,” the resolution stressed.

In a report submitted to the meeting, Dr. Israel Goldstein, AJC president, asserted that United Nations officials and the political leaders of the Western democracies have failed to give sufficient recognition to two fundamental questions regarding Israel and the Arab States.

“One is the fact that never once has a border attack been started by Israelis against any of its neighbors,” Dr. Goldstein said, “The other is that the Arab states continue their warlike threats against Israel through their government-controlled press and radio. The blurring of these two fundamental questions, namely, who is the initial aggressor and who keeps fomenting hatred and threatening war, has resulted in a distortion of the moral aspects of the Middle East picture.”