Z.O.A. Asks “firm Guarantee” of Israel Borders by U.S. Government

The United States Government was called upon today to extend a “firm guarantee of Israel’s present frontiers” including the Negev, in an address delivered by Dr. Harris J. Levine, chairman of the national administrative council of the Zionist Organization of America, to the council. “Such a guarantee would not only have a sobering effect on the current military dictators of Egypt who, in a recent statement, declared their intention to wrest the Negev from Israel, but would go a long way to end the frequent clashes along the Arab-Israel borders,” the Zionist leader said.

Dr. Levine scored Secretary of State John Foster Dulles for his failure to issue the long-promised declaration guaranteeing Israel’s borders. He charged that Mr. Dulles had used the Gaza incident of February 28 as a pretext for not issuing such a statement. He further maintained that the sooner President Eisenhower “asserts his influence with the State Department in the direction of an iron-clad American guarantee of Israel’s borders and the signing of an American-Israel mutual defense pact, the sooner may we expect the attainment of America’s goal in the Near East which is a durable peace and a strong bulwark against totalitarian aggression.”

Dr. Emanuel Neumann, chairman of the ZOA executive, told the meeting that “Israel’s international situation has deteriorated to an alarming degree. The exclusion of Israel from the Arab-Asian conference in Bandung and the hostile atmosphere generated there is but another grave symptom we cannot ignore.” Noting that the President and State Department had failed to heed appeals for reconsideration of its Middle East policy, Dr. Neumann called for a “realistic appraisal” by American Jews of their methods and the adoption of “more effective and more vigorous courses of action” to influence the United States Government in Israel’s behalf.