The American Zionist Council today took issue with the Labor Zionist Organization which challenged the right of the Council to criticize the L.Z.O’s endorsement of one of the Presidential candidates. A statement issued by Louis Lipsky, chairman of Council, said:
“The American Zionist Council has accepted responsibility for the public relations policy of the Zionist movement in the United States. The Labor Zionist Organization is included in its membership and is actively participating in the framing of its policies.
“By unanimous agreement for almost a decade the American Zionist Council has maintained a bi-partisan approach in connection with public relations focusing on the Washington scene. This policy has been accepted in fact by all Zionists who have been participating in this action with great devotion. In 1948 and in 1952 the Council sought and received from both major political parties and their leaders endorsement of pro-Israel platform planks. It has resisted successfully local and national pressures to breach this policy for the sake of this or that candidate.
“Conceding the right claimed by the Labor Zionist Organization, we submit that it is stopped from exerting that right by reason of its voluntary membership on the Council, its active participation in framing the policies of the Council and by its recorded affirmative vote on the policy we have been following.”
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