A prominent Protestant theologian charged tonight that Christian churchmen across the United States were being “flooded” with propaganda from oil firms “ready to sell out American interests in the Middle East for the sake of temporary profits in dealing with Arab League despots.” Dr. Franklin H. Littell, professor of religion at Temple University, addressing the opening session of the national biennial convention of the American Jewish Congress here, also warned of “a rise of anti-Semitism in liberal Protestant circles and the appearance of anti-Zionism.” He also told the 500 delegates that “Christian thinking has been unable, to date, to comprehend the Jew who is a winner. This is the problem of Israel vis-a-vis the church establishment. American culture-religion, having failed to master the lessons of the last four tragic decades, can still talk about the Jews and Israel as though they were American Indians reclaiming Alcatraz island.” Dr. Littell also said that the Middle East, unlike Southeast Asia, was “one of the few areas where our allies have shown themselves able to make good use of American support, to justify American confidence and to check Russian imperialism.”
Rabbi Arthur J. Lelyveld, of Cleveland, AJCongress president, contrasted “those voices in Israel that speak for new and imaginative approaches to the search for reconciliation” with the “non-existent or hostile Arab response.” “Where are the liberal Arabs who will meet the Israeli liberals half-way?” he asked. He added that “the voices of Arab intellectuals express only intransigence. The last word of El Fatah is the call for extinction of Jewish statehood under the beguiling slogan of a pluralistic democracy belied by their own liberation movement covenants.” Avarim Avidar, Minister of Information at the Israel Embassy, charged that while the Russians “claim the right of mediators and peace-makers in the Four power talks, they appear as direct participants in the war in the skies over Egypt.”
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The Archive of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency includes articles published from 1923 to 2008. Archive stories reflect the journalistic standards and practices of the time they were published.
