A dispute in the Resolutions Committee of the Republican National Convention last night resulted in a strongly-worded statement on Israel, backed by the “nationalist” wing of the party, which was substituted for the “internationalists'” cautious and cool version. The text of the Palestine plank, as finally adopted, reads:
“We welcome Israel into the family of nations and take pride in the fact that the Republican Party was the first to call for the establishment of a free and independent Jewish Commonwealth. The vacillation of the Democratic Administration on this question has undermined the prestige of the United Nations. Subject to the letter and spirit of the United Nations Charter, we pledge to Israel full recognition, with its boundaries as sanctioned by the United Nations, and aid in developing its economy.”
The earlier version as recommended by a sub-committee was a non-committal sentence containing match less fervor than the plank of the 1944 Republican platform. The “internationalists” statement read: “We greet the new state of Israel and pledge it our friendly cooperation to the end that it nay have a future commensurate with the proven greatness of its people, who have suffered so much.” The 1944 plank called for the opening up of Palestine to immigration by persecuted European Jews and the fulfillment of the Balfour Declaration.
The sub-committee submitted the original vague Palestine plank even though representatives of the American Zionist Emergency Council appeared before it last week with a plea that the convention greet the new state of Israel with a pledge of friendship, of full recognition, of assistance in rebuilding its economy,” and that the convention “support Israel’s political and territorial integrity within the boundaries defined by the United Nations.”
The substitute plank grew out of a successful revolt behind closed doers here in the Resolutions Committee. The drafting group, headed by Sen. Henry Cabot Lodge, originally accepted the views of the “internationalist” group, led by Sen. Arthur H. Vandenberg, it was reported. Its phrasing indicated State Department influence.
Committee members identified with the Presidential aspirations of Sen. Robert A. Taft and Gov. Thomas E. Dewey made strong protests over the content of the proposed plank and succeeded in rewriting it. Sen. Irving M. Ives, a Dewey leader was reported to have made the strongest plea for a forthright, clear statement of the Republican position. He was supported by Senators known to be backing Taft for President. Sens. Eugene D. Millikin and Wayland Brooks, it was learned, were among the ardent proponents of a strong plank.
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