Progressive Party Urges Immediate De Jure Recognition of Israel, Lifting of Arms Embargo

The Progressive Party convention, which concluded here today, adopted an Israel plank calling for “immediate de jure recognition of the state of Israel” “by the United States. The plank also urged a “Presidential proclamation lifting the discriminatory arms embargo” and the “admission of Israel to the United Nations.”

The convention demanded recognition of the “borders of Israel as determined by the United Nations partition plan” and expressed “support for the extension to Israel of generous financial assistance without political conditions.” The plank also called upon “the U.S. Government to provide immediate shipping and other facilities” for the transportation of Jewish displaced persons in Europe who desire to emigrate to Israel.” The Israel platform also placed the Progressives on record in “support, within the framework of the United Nations, of the internationalization of Jerusalem and the protection of the Holy Places.”

In its plank on displaced persons, the Progressive Party called for the “repeal of the anti-Catholic, anti-Semitic Displaced Persons Act of 1948, which permits the entry into the United State3 of Fascists and collaborators. We call for the enactment of legislation to open our doors in the true American tradition to the victims of Fascist persecution,” the plank said.

Earlier, in an address to the convention, Rep. Leo Isaacson, who recently visited Palestine, charged the American Government “with having betrayed Palestine,” He appealed to President Truman to lift the arms embargo, declaring that it had resulted “in the deaths of thousands of men, women and children.”