More protests were registered today by Jewish organizations over developments stemming from Israel’s retaliatory, raid last Saturday night on the Beirut Airport, particularly the unanimous Security Council resolution yesterday condemning Israel, which made no mention of Arab terrorist attacks on Israel.
The New York Board of Rabbis denounced the Council for the vote and said that in condemning Israel “and remaining silent on the continuous murderous attacks on Israeli citizens and soil,” the Council had “shown its moral bankruptcy. The United Nations no longer represents a forum for justice and truth.”
The American Trade Union Council for Histradrut, Israel’s labor federation, declared in a telegram to President Johnson that the State Department was guilty of “one-sided behavior toward Israel” in condemning it for the Beirut raid. The telegram was sent before the Security Council, vote. Sol C. Chaikin, chairman of the organization of American trade union leaders, declared that the State Department’s “hasty and one-sided condemnation of Israel” would encourage “further the terrorists and their sponsors.”
Hadassah, the Women’s Zionist Organization, appealed to Secretary of State Dean Rusk to instruct Russell Wiggins, the United States Ambassador to the UN, to condemn Arab escalation of Middle East tension. In a telegram, also sent prior to the Council vote, Hadassah expressed dismay at the “contrast between official reaction to Arab government-supported terrorism and Israeli reaction.” A similar stand was taken by the Labor Zionist Organization of America, in a telegram to President Johnson, Mr. Rusk and Mr. Wiggins, declaring that if the United States policy in the Middle East was to be “even-handed,” the United States should be “at least as quick to condemn the hundreds of incidents of Arab terrorism” during the past 20 years.
Earl Morse, chairman of the board of the Union of American Hebrew Congregations, the Reform organization, said in a statement that the UAHC could not condone the Israeli raid on the Beirut Airport but “the world must not close its eyes to the aggravating circumstances” leading to the Beirut raid. The statement said that the raid was in reprisal “for an almost endless series of Arab provocations, of which the terrorist bombing” of the E1,A1 plane in Athens “was, but the latest.”
The United Zionists Revisionists sent a message to Mr. Rusk objecting “most strenuously to the one-sided attitude of the State Department.” The message asserted that the “continuous United States pro-Arab policy only encourages Arab guerrilla warfare and renders all efforts for peace futile.” The Synagogue Council of America, representing all branches of Judaism, denounced the “double standard” of political and religious leaders in dealing with Israel and the Arab countries. Rabbi Jacob Rudin cited Pope Paul’s telegram to Lebanon and said it might have “arrived more apparently two days earlier,” after the guerrilla attack on the El A1 airliner.
Mayor James H. J. Tate of Philadelphia, said today he had expressed support for Israel’s Beirut raid in a telegram to the Security Council president yesterday. The telegram sent before the vote, supported Israel’s contention that the raid was in retaliation for “unlawful acts by terrorists against Israel.”
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