The 34th Democratic Party national convention approved here last night a platform for the 1964 campaign pledging vigorous support for Israel, deploring Soviet persecution of Russian Jewry, and calling for revision of the United States Immigration and Naturalization Act to eliminate the “discriminatory” national origins quota system.
The platform also denounced extremism, “whether of the right or the left,” assailing specifically “the extremist tactics of such organizations as the Communist Party, the Ku Klux Klan and the John Birch Society.”
The immigration plank asserted that “the immigration laws must be revised to permit families to be reunited, to welcome the persecuted and oppressed, and to eliminate the discriminatory provisions which base admission upon national origins.”
Another plank on domestic issues called for the elimination of all discrimination in the field of employment based on race, color or religion.
NEAR EAST PLANK STRESSES PEACE, EMPHASIZES DESALINATION PROJECT
The Near East plank pledged the party to “work for the attainment of peace in the Near East as an urgent goal, using our best efforts to prevent a military unbalance, to encourage arms reductions and the use of national resources for internal development, and to encourage the resettlement of Arab refugees where there is room and opportunity. The problems of political adjustment between Israel and the Arab countries can and must be peacefully resolved and the territorial integrity of every nation respected.”
The denunciation of Soviet harassment of Jews in Russia was contained in a plank which pledged to encourage by all peaceful means the growing independence of captive peoples living under Communism, and to hasten the day when captive nations would achieve full freedom and self-determination. The plank said specifically that “we deplore Communist oppression of Jews and other minorities.”
Another portion of the platform outlined the determination of the United States to Israel through cooperative research in the application of nuclear energy for desalting sea water.
REFERS TO AID TO ARABS AND ISRAEL; CITES ROLE OF U. N. POLICE FORCE
A supplement to the platform, “An Accounting of Stewardship,” which reviewed the party’s accomplishments, cited the 1960 Democratic plank pledging pursuit of Arab-Israel peace by preventing an arms imbalance. The supplement declared that this policy had brought the Arab countries and Israel “closer to peace and stability than at any time since World War II.”
The platform declared: “Economic and technical assistance to Israel and Arab nations continues at a high level, although with more and more emphasis on loans as against grants. The United States is determined to help bring the revolution in the technology of desalination to the aid of the desert regions.”
The platform also reviewed United States participation in the United Nations to strengthen the UN’s capacity as a peace keeper, mentioning the continued UN “guard on armistice lines” in the Near East. The “guard” referred to the United Nations Emergency Force, which protects Israel from Egyptian attacks by being posted on the Egyptian side of Israel’s Gaza Strip border, and along the heights of Sharm el-Sheikh, in the Sinai Desert. The latter UN outpost guarantees Israel’s freedom of shipping in the Gulf of Akaba.
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.
