It is with a profound sense of regret, sorrow, apprehension and embarrassment that I rise this morning to express to you feelings which you no doubt share with me. The sorrow and the apprehension refer to the precarious and critical situation… Israel. The regret and the embarrassment in that I, a loyal and devoted citizen of America, must publicly acknowledge that my beloved country has, in its diplomacy, veered from its traditional path of morality, principle and decency, and has become immoral and cynical as it has never been before. It is easy for someone who does not love his country to say those words of condemnation. It is painful, embarrassing, heart-rending and excruciating for me to say them and for you to hear them.

I speak about the Middle East crisis today because many of you, my congregants, have requested it. I speak about it because it is a period of great and terrible emergency, an “If not now, when then?” I speak about it, despite my customary dislike for using the pulpit for topics that some might interpret as encroaching upon politics, because of late there has been a terrific barrage of pro-Arab propaganda in Springfield that is subtly beginning to mold public opinion. I speak as I do because, unfortunately, despite the multiplicity of organizations in our community, there is not one single one which makes any attempt to counteract this evil propaganda and educate the public to our point of view, and, let alone the non-Jewish public, even the Jewish public.

I recognize the fact that it is completely unnecessary for me to have to convince you of the urgency of the situation precipitated by the Egyptian-Russian arms deal, fostered by the spinelessness, narrow-mindedness and, as we shall see, immorality, of those who guide our foreign policy. But allow me to summarize, very briefly, some of the essential facts with which you might not be overly well acquainted.

Our administration, speaking as it does with so much self-righteousness and sham piety, of “strict neutrality and impartiality,” is naturally concerned, and rightly so, with securing its interests in the Middle East in its constant struggle against Communist expansion. One would imagine, therefore, that our State Department would be fully justified in its one-sided and prejudiced pro-Arab approach if Israel had rejected its requests for a formal, real and concrete pro-Western orientation. What are the facts?

First, not only has Israel not rejected American requests for cooperation, but it has voluntarily offered them. It is a fact than on three separate occasions Israel has offered the U.S. air bases in its own territory. Its offers have been, and to this day are, completely ignored. It is one of the many significant facts which our Secretary of State failed to mention to the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.

It is a fact that the security pact which Israel has been so anxious to secure from our country, (and which, at this stage of development, may no longer serve its purpose), was first broached not by Israel, but the very same Secretary of State who now refuses to consider it. It happened two years ago when, in Mr. Dulles’ office, he first mentioned it to Abba Eban. … Yet, America, which has security pacts with 44 countries, refuses one to Israel. Aside from Switzerland, Israel is the only country in the world with no security pact from a major power. The differences between Israel and Switzerland, further, are intense: Switzerland is surrounded by mountains, while Israel is surrounded by Arabs; Switzerland is surrounded by those who want to climb her Alps – Israel is surrounded by those who want her scalps.

What are the reasons advanced by the State Department for this policy? Let me mention some, and allow you to judge for yourselves whether or not there is in them any degree of sincerity, decency or morality.

First, the Tripartite Pact: It is a fraud! If Arabs should be the aggressors, will England send its army against Egypt – especially when it still has ties with Suez? Will it send its army against Jordan which, as of this day, it still supports? Will the U.S. send troops against Iraq, a country which it supplies fully as part of the Baghdad Pact? Will it fight against Saudi Arabia, which gets what it wants from us because oil is more influential than democracy?

Second, Israel is too small: Dulles told the Senate Committee, probably with tongue in cheek (the habitual resting place for that organ with diplomats) that no arms will be supplied to Israel because it is too small, so there is no use in arming it. Let us accept that argument at face value and not try to delve into the deep layers of cynicism and ludicrousness it is based upon. But let us confront this Secretary of State with facts: The U.S. has involved itself in various locations across the world, no matter their size, whether it was Formosa, Guatemala, or Iran!

Third, no arms race means that peace will be maintained: This is the excuse uttered by everyone from the Secretary of State down. I regret that I lack the eloquence with which this specious piece of nerve should be answered. Logically, it is absolutely absurd. I cannot believe that a man who had achieved such great fame as a military commander could say that and mean it. It is equivalent to saying that if thieves are breaking into your neighbor’s home, you should make no attempt to help him, because that would be starting a fight… or not saving someone from being lynched because it might make things disagreeable. Of course there is no arms race! There is no arms race because the Arabs are getting all, while Israel is getting none! If the administration followed the same logic with regard to its own security situation it would have no defense program, because that would involve arms competition with Russia!!!

Before we begin to throw full blame on the diabolical masterminds of Communist Russia, remember, this same administration that so deplores arms races is: (1) shipping heavy arms, without restriction, to Iraq and allowed an anti-Israel clause to enter into the Baghdad Pact, (2) shipping arms to Lebanon, and (3) shipping arms to Saudi Arabia – and the farce with the tanks is only a drop in the bucket. It was Britain, with American consent by silence, that first suggested truncating Israel by recommending ceding the Negev to Egypt. It was not Russia who pressured Israel, but the West. Would Great Britain be willing to cede Scotland to France? Would the U.S. cede Texas to Mexico, or Alaska to Russia. This is not diplomacy in the great moral tradition of America. Rather, this is undisguised hypocrisy in the grand tradition of Communism. The Secretary of State maintained that Russia is adopting our techniques; I would rather suggest that he is adopting their techniques….

Of course, consideration of American security should be a prime mover in our diplomacy. If it weren’t, then we Americans would be impelled to damn this administration. but don’t forget that in the past it was the policy of all administrations to give security second place, and reserve the first for morality and decency. We Jews, too, believe that “pikuach nefesh docheh…,” that a threat to a person’s life permits the temporary abrogation of the Torah. However, this is not true for an abrogation that involves “giluy arayos, shfichas damim and avodah zarah” – illicit sexual relations, murder, and idolatry – and our present administration has fostered the idolatry of oil interest, the condoning of possible mass murder of all Israelis and the base, abject, undiminished and disgraceful immorality as no other government this great country ever has.

What is the moral position? Israel’s pro-democratic, anti-red stand needs no reviewing for you. America, a land of 100 odd million, has a number of its patriots languishing in Russian and Chinese prison camps – a handful! Israel has its patriots, by the thousands and thousands rotting away in Siberia because they will not renounce their love for Israel. Now, look at the Arabs: our Secretary of State who rightly makes issue of every instance of Communist injustice, dismisses as a “matter of taste” the tyranny of Saudi Arabia where a handful of families are fabulously wealthy while the rest of the country is stuck in feudal serfdom; where a common thief is punished by courts with chopping off the hand; where young African girls, lured by religious pilgrimage, are captured as slaves and sold to wealthy Arabs as members of their degrading harems – and we arm them as pro-American and pro-democracy! What has happened to our beloved America to deserve such degradation, such shame???

But forget the moral position – and our foreign policy makers have indeed done so. Is it not a patent fact that our security is safest with Israel, not against it? Is it not obvious to any man with the intelligence of a ten-year-old that the Arabs simply cannot be trusted? How long will American and British diplomats have to be slapped down until they wake up from their fairy tale fancies about proud and powerful and dignified Arabs? How many more such instances are necessary, as: Iraqi cooperation with the Nazis in World War II; the Suez crisis in Egypt; Egypt and Syria; the USSR with its military missions; and now: Jordan-Glubb Pasha?

I cannot help but agree with Henry the Montor’s characterization of our Secretary of State as the Ernest Bevin of America. This is appeasement in the ignominious tradition of Chamberlain. That infamous umbrella has been dusted off, and our Secretary of State now carries it with him and indeed it serves the admirable purpose of shielding him from the truth which is as obvious as the sunshine.

The “kiyor” (wash-basin) in tabernacle was made of “maros tzov’os,” metal mirrors. A great rabbi said (Toldos Yaakov Yosef): it was made out of mirrors so that the people can see themselves as they are, with all their dirt, and thus be moved cleanse and purify themselves.

Let our present leaders take a good look at themselves, and they will see a red blush breaking through the immoral stains of their faces and dirt on their hands. Let them begin to wonder what has happened to the American way of the past, the American way which opened its doors wide to persecuted refugees of all nations, which voluntarily gave freedom to the Philippines, which protested so eloquently and valiantly when Romania began to make pogroms against its Jews? Let them see the moral blemish, and let them bow their heads before G-d, clean their hands in his “kiyor,” wash their blemished faces and purify their hearts.

And let not American Jews dismiss this whole matter lightly as a thing for Israelis to worry about or as “politics as usual.” Former President Truman in his memoirs recently stated that he regrets to acknowledge that there are men high up in the State Department who are outright racialists and antisemites. And that antisemitism, which I believe implicitly is not without influence on the present conduct of American foreign policy, is already affecting us as American Jews. For now: (1) firms dealing with Arab countries must be “judenrein”… this has shades of Hitler!; (2) the U.S. cannot send Jews in military or diplomatic missions to Arab countries (our own govt is consenting to discriminate against its own Jewish citizens); (3) American tourists to Jordan are checked as to their religion, and Jews are kept out. The fantastic lengths to which they go to discriminate against Jews are condoned by our State Department: The Jordanians found that some gentiles have Jewish names, and some Jews have gentile names. They then hit upon the ingenious method of investigating Jewishness by anatomy, until the Americans protested this grotesque indignity (probably, if only Jews had complained, the complaint would have been rejected because of “diplomatic” reasons or reasons of “taste”). Finally, Jordan requires all Americans entering the country to swear an affidavit that they are not Jewish.

And this, my friends, is tolerated by a country – our own beloved America – whose very life and existence is predicated upon equality of all its citizens, a country which condemns the very same thing when perpetrated by other nations, a country which prides itself on its great American heritage.

I cannot help but utter the words of the liturgist: “oy l’oznayim she’kach shome’os,” woe to the ears that have heard such words, and woe to the eyes that have seen such deeds. Israel is today facing a great crisis. But America is facing an even greater one. Israel stands to lose the bodies of its youths, chalilah. But America stands to lose its soul. As I stand before you today, I fear more for America than I do for Israel. And more than all, I fear for ourselves. For it is we who shall be most strictly judged by history and by G-d. for it is within our power to save the bodies of Israel and the soul of America. We know what to do, we even know how to do it. Now we must do it. We must lead our beloved America and help it to find cleanliness, morality, purity. In other words, to help America rediscover itself – its soul.