Sentor John Sparkman, Democratic nominee for Vice-President, today addressed a statement to the American Zionist Council pledging himself to support a policy of friendship between the United States and Israel, and emphasizing that the birth of the Jewish state “has been an inspiration to freedom, progress and justice in the 20th century.” The statement reads:
“I am happy to repeat my views of friendship toward Israel which I have expressed in my work as Senator, as member of the Senate Foreign Affairs Committee and as delegate to the United Nations. I was delighted in 1948 when the Administration recognized Israel and promised to help the new member of the world of nations. The Congress, as you know, fulfilled that promise first with aid to Jewish refugees and then with Mutual Security grants in aid of millions of dollars.
“I am proud that as a Senator, I strongly supported these measures and was able to help in the development of the great State of Israel. Friendship between Israel and the United States has been my policy in the past and will always be my policy. The whole United States can be proud that it could share in the birth of a new country that has been an inspiration to freedom, progress and justice in the 20th century. We know that this new nation was achieved only with great sacrifice. There are over one and a half million people in the State of Israel today, and a large part of this population were immigrants fleeing persecution.
LAUDS ISRAEL’S “GOOD INFLUENCE” IN THE MIDDLE EAST
“It was not easy for the poor and young country to receive them all, but its citizens cheerfully reduced their meager rations to share with the suffering and homeless. Their spirit of welcome to all who wished to live and worship freely was the spirit on which our own United States was founded and all Americans feel a kinship with the pioneers of Israel. We recognize them today as our ally in the fight for democracy.
“The new state is a profound influence for the good for the Middle East and, therefore, for the entire world. It is bringing a high culture, and material and spiritual progress to a divided and underdeveloped part of the globe. And we in America are doing our best to make sure that the Arabs who have been displaced from Israel are receiving aid and encouragement for their resettlement and better settlement in their new homes. We have given aid to the Arab as we have to the Jew and believe that both groups will live together in a developing Middle East in cooperation and progress for all.
“I think the Jews will bring to this part of the world, as they have to all the other countries in which they have come to live, enrichment in all fields of art, science, business, professions and the humanities. Jews who have since become Americans have made the United States a richer nation, and, in the same way, Jews, in building a country of their own will make a good neighbor and staunch ally to all the free peoples of the world.”
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