The policy of the State Department in sending munitions to Saudi Arabia while denying them to Israel was assailed vigorously here last night by Judge Justine Wise Polier, chairman of the national executive committee of the American Jewish Congress. “The lack of vision and the absence of a high morality or sense of honor in our dealings with the problems of the Middle East, have inevitably led to the loss of both strategic strength and respect for this nation in that area of the world,” Judge Polier told a meeting at the Hotel Granada. “Under the policy set by Secretary of State Dulles, implements of war are being provided at less than cost to Saudi Arabia. Every attempt has been made to do this secretly.
“Such weapons, including bombs, have been provided not only against the men, women and children of Israel, but against those who may seek to cast off the chains of slavery that persist and are sanctioned in Saudi Arabia. In pursuing this course of action, the Secretary of State has not only engaged in the secret trading of arms. He has been secretly dealing in and trading away the honor of all Americans,” Justice Polier stated.
The government’s “myopic concern with tactical gain, with immediate material returns, with the expediency of the moment,” she stated, have caused the State Department to violate another American principle. It has abandoned its historic and moral responsibility to protect all American nationals from discrimination by any foreign government, both at home and abroad.”
Judge Polier cited the government’s agreement with Spain to limit the right of American citizens to marry while in the service of the U.S. in Spain. The agreement was later abrogated without loss of military bases, she noted.
“Now we have learned,” she said, “that the State Department has agreed, with only a pro forma expression of mild regret, that if American citizens are Jews, countries whom we call allies may refuse them visas, may cause them to be excluded from American bases, may discriminate against them in commerce, and may export packaged anti-Semitism through diplomatic representatives to this country. The surreptitious trafficking in American honor that continues under the aegis of the Secretary of State constitutes such presumptuous and immoral conduct that it should be rebuked and ended by an America whose honor is above price,” she urged.
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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.
