Resolutions calling for Arab-Israel peace by direct negotiation and opposing the sending of arms by the United States to the Arab countries as long as they did not conclude peace with Israel were adopted today at the concluding session of the national conference of the American Christian Palestine Committee, attended by more than 300 Christian leaders from all over the country.
Other resolutions supported the efforts being made by the U.S. Government to persuade the Arab states to accept Israel as a free and sovereign nation within the Near East region. They lauded the constructive efforts of the U.S. Government to aid all peoples of the Near East and also commended Secretary of State John Foster Dulles for “forthrightly supporting” direct negotiations between Israel and Jordan.
The conference also adopted a resolution applauding the “sacrificial efforts” on the part of American Jews to provide both gifts and capital funds for Israel. At the same time, it praised the Zionists and the friends of Zionism throughout the world for having sought to provide a homeland for Jews, “so that Jews who felt the sting of discrimination and the lash of persecution might live in freedom and dignity.”
The conference deplored the repeated statements of Arab leaders that they will never negotiate a settlement with Israel, but will seek to destroy it. “We deplore the fact that Arab nations went to war against Israel in protest against the United Nations partition resolution of 1947,” one of the resolutions stated.
Another resolution praised Israel’s acts of friendship and good faith, and lauded the Jewish State for having established a democratic society with civil, religious, cultural, and political freedom for all its citizens.
URGES CONTINUATION OF U.S. AID TO ISRAEL AND ARAB STATES
The conference also recommended that the U.S. Government continue to help both Israel and the Arab states by contributing to the relief and resettlement of each party’s refugee population, and by granting increased economic and technical assistance.
The delegates went on record as supporting the appointment of an international commission to be authorized to supervise only the Holy Places in Jerusalem, but to leave all political concerns in the city to the respective governments of Israel and Jordan.
The U.S. Government was urged to protest to the United Nations Security Council the illegal stoppage by Egypt of Israel-bound ships in the Suez Canal and the Gulf of Eilath. The government was also urged to continue to work in cooperation with the United Nations for the most equitable solution of the Arab refugee problem by resettling the refugees in the potentially plentiful lands of the several Arab nations.
The conference said in a resolution that it was “shocked by the reported statement of King Saud of Saudi Arabia that ‘Israel, to the Arab world, is like a cancer to the human body and the only way to remedy it is to uproot it just like a cancer. We Arabs total about 50,000,000. Why don’t we sacrifice 10,000,000 of our number to live in pride and self respect.’ This is a direct challenge to the spiritual foundations of the United Nations,” the resolution stated.
Sen. Guy M. Gillette, speaking at tonight’s closing session, called for a stronger and more positive United States policy to bring about peace in the Middle East, Sen. Gillette is a member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee and of its Near Eastern Subcommittee. He is widely regarded as an expert on the problems of Israel and her neighbors. None of the Israeli-Arab problems can begin to be solved until there is peace, said Sen. Gillette.
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.
