22 JULY 1960, Page 15

SIR,—As a Fulliright student who has just returned from a

course of research in American politics, I would like to contribute some facts to the debate on anti-Zionism in the hope of lowering the tem- perature in this heated exchange of views.

Yolk correspondent Mr. J. Theberge, of New College, Oxford, asserted unreservedly last week that the Zionist pressure groups of America have (1) 'seriously handicapped' US policies in the Middle East, (2) have mobilised a formidable Jewish elec- toral vote to press forward their designs, and (3) have triumphed in the total absence of counter- pressure groups presenting the Arab viewpoint. In making these remarks, Mr. Thebergc has displayed a contempt for such scholarly books as Lawrence Fuchs's empirical study The Political Behaviour of American Jews or Donald Blaisdell's classic American Democracy Under Pressure. If his aca- demic application will allow, I suggest he will find some disconcertingly impartial information there, such as : (I) The prevailing resistance of US policy in the Middle East to any Jewish or Israeli pressure, as seen in the US rejection of Israel's claim to the freedom of shipping in the Suez Canal and of Israel's requests to buy arms. The Truman Ad- ministration showed a great bias for the creation - of the State of Israel, but it would be difficult to show how the US has ever endangered its relations with the Arab States since 1948 through its con- sideration of Israel's defensive needs for survival. Massive credits were extended to Egypt, despite its refusal to obey the Security Council's resolutions on the Suez Canal. Boycotts of Israeli trade acid travel (as forbidden by the 1949 Arab-Israel Agree- ments) have never encountered the official disappro- val of the State Department, and the Saudi Arabian insistence that no Jewish servicemen should ever be posted to the huge air base at Dahran has led the USAF into a discriminatory practice without constitutional precedent!

(2) The repeated charge about the 'formidable Jewish vote' seems strange in its origin, this time, from the pen of a scholar presumably devoted to the pursuit of verifiable knowledge. A brief glance at the US census would reveal that the Jewish vote totals less than 5 per cent. of the electorate, that it is concentrated heavily in only one of the fifty States (of course, New York), and that there is only one other State with a sizeable Jewish community (Illinois). To claim, therefore, that the political aspirations and office-holders of one State can dominate any one aspect of Federal policy is naive.

(3) The belief that the Jewish pressure groups meet no Arab or counter pressure is as absurd as alleging that the ownership of Hollywood shows proof of a Jewish conspiracy. I have often visited the meetings of the lavishly endowed American Friends of the Middle East, and the equally anti- Zionist American Council for Judaism; I have re- ported elsewhere on the popular Congressmen and civic leaders who grace their platforms, the press releases which advertise their resolutions and the • greetings which their annual conventions received from President Eisenhower, Mr. Dulles, Admiral • Radford, etc. I have also encountered some of the hundreds of Arab students who are obliged to cir- culate the propaganda of the clamorous Arab In- formation Offices on their various campuses, and I have met with the courteous and semi-official Middle East Institutes, whose personnel and re- sources are drawn from the giant oil companies. The influence of oil company personnel on US policy (and even on the staffing of the State De- partment) has been pointed out by many exponents of 'government by experts,' not the least being Mr. Dulles himself. Our own MPs, in both parties, took pains in 1951 to show that Dr. Mossadeq's expro- priation schemes at Abadan were intimately coun- selled by oil company executives seconded to diplomatic service in .Teheran; and one should also comment on how complete has been the boycott by US firms of the refineries at Haifa since the very day that the Mandate ended.

Bearing these sort of facts in mind, might I sug- gest that the remainder of your debate on Israel and Zionism should be fought on levels other than those of blatant prejudice and unwarranted generali- sation? It would be interesting to see, for instance, how long the allegation that Zionism is now a political conspiracy foisted on a gullible community could live if one were to quote the number of Jews affiliated to synagogues and organisations which have openly committed themselves to the interests of Israel and which have never repudiated the Zionist sentiments expressed by their leaders. The statistics about Jewish activities and the record of their resolutions are easily available.—Yours faith- fully,

23 Windsor Court, W2

WALTER GOLDSTEIN