Oil Lobby Seeking to Split U.s.-israel Ties

Jacob Stein, chairman of the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations, warned today of a “new propaganda onslaught that takes the tack that the United States’ foreign policy must veer away from friendliness to Israel and be replaced by a pro-Arab stance if we are not to suffer a serious diminution in the oil allotted to this country” by the Arab oil-producing countries.

This “specter of an energy crisis in the United States is being used by the oil lobby as part of a pro-Arab, anti-Israel campaign,” Stein said in a speech scheduled for delivery tonight to the biennial convention of the National Women’s League of the United Synagogue of America.

U.S. MUST RESIST PRESSURE

“Jewish organizations in this country must join hands with those forces seeking to develop alternate sources for energy,” the United Synagogue president told the women’s group, which recently Joined the Presidents Conference. “The U.S. must now allow itself to be placed in a position where it can be blackmailed by the selfish and corrupt Arab oil-producing countries,” Stein said.

He added that “It is to our own self-interest as Americans that we find and develop new sources for oil as well as use our vast technological skills to create new techniques for the utilization of atomic and all other sources of power that can be converted into the energy that is so vital for the industrial way of life of which we are the world leader.”

Such an effort, Stein said, is necessary “not only because the oil lobbyists would sacrifice Israel to appease the Arab countries, but because it is in America’s best interest,” and “we must take the leadership with those forces in this country that are seeking to develop a program that will remove us from the threat of a shortage of energy to turn the wheels of industry and provide us with the luxuries to which we have become accustomed.”