U.S. Middle East Policy Criticized at Convention of Jewish Congress

Sharp criticism of the United States policy on the Arab Israel issue was voiced here tonight at the opening session of the biennial convention of the American Jewish Congress, which is being attended by 1,000 delegates from all parts of the country.

Governor Averell Harriman of New York told the session that “signs of bankruptcy in American foreign policy are multiplying with perilous speed, while the faith of our friends and allies is sorely shaken.” He charged that “nowhere, perhaps, is our diplomacy more barren in dealing with the Soviet menace than in the Middle East.”

Dr. Israel Goldstein, president of the American Jewish Congress, asserted that U. S. “policy has been pro-Arab” despite official pronouncements that this country was practicing “impartiality” toward Israel and the Arab states. Rabbi Philip S. Bernstein, chairman of the convention charged that “there has been too much Arab appeasement by the United States. There has been too much oil strategy, disregarding moral considerations. There has been too much indecisiveness, vacillation, encouraging aggression rather than deterring it.”

A highlight of the Convention session was a ceremony commemorating the 13th anniversary of the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising, conducted by Dr. Robert Serebrenik of the World Jewish Congress. “If today the State of Israel is beleaguered again,” Dr. Serebrnik asserted, “we are not afraid. Jewish youth, steeled by the spirit of the Ghetto fighters, holds the old and new flag that is tainted with the blood of the Warsaw heroes. In grief mingled with pride, we remember their epic resistance that will remain at once a legacy and an eternal challenge.”

Mrs. Thelma Richman, communal leader of Philadelphia, was elected president of the National Women’s Division of the American Jewish Congress by more than 800 delegates from all sections of the nation at the closing session of the two-day national biennial convention.