An outburst of anti-Semitism in the Mexican Chamber of Deputies has shocked this country into an awareness of the inroads being made by the propaganda of such organizations as the native fascist National Sinarchist Union and the Spanish Falange, and has brought about a demand for an investigation of the links between these organizations and certain Mexican legislators.
The outburst occurred when Mexican Liberal Deputy Felix Diaz Escobar introduced a measure intended to exempt Jews born in Axis countries from governmental restrictions against Axis nationals. Mexican Deputy Zinounegui Tercere and his rightist colleague, Marquez Ricane, took exception to the proposal with a violent attack against Jews in general.
“When I heard the proposal,” Deputy Tercero declared, “I thought for the moment that I was in the obscurity of a synagogue rather than the Mexican Congress. The Jews,” he went on, “have greatly harmed our people.” He added that he was “horrified at the work of international Jewry.”
Considerable applause greeted Tercere’s attack. Mexican Labor Deputy Alejandro Carrillo, former president of the Chamber, took up the challenge and condemned Terrcere’s viewpoint vigorously. “Whoever accepts such theories,” Carrillo said, “is dangerously close to Nazi ideology. We cannot tolerate attacks against any race.”
Deputy Marquez Ricans then took the floor and began Tercere’s tirade all over again, shouting that the Jews are “pitiless exploiters.” Mexico’s usually staid Chamber of Deputies broke into an uproar with half the members trying to attract the chairman’s attention. A Liberal Deputy finally interrupted on a point of order and the debate was closed.
While this was not the first time that anti-Semitism has had the floor in the Mexican Congress, it was the first occasion since Mexico’s entry into the war against Fascism that anti-Semitic spokesmen have felt bold enough to speak frankly. Observers recalled that both the Sinarchist and Falangist propaganda has recently been stressing attacks against the Jews in general and Jewish refugees in particular. Some quarters tended toward the conclusion that the outbursts were carefully calculated to start a wave of anti-Semitic agitation in Mexico.
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.
