Soviet anti-Semitism, now repudiated by the Moscow Government, continued to be the subject of discussion today at the United Nations Political Committee during the general debate on the Polish item on measures to avert the threat of a new world war.
Byelorussian delegate Kuzma V. Kiselev said that the “fantastic” and “lying” allegations about supposed racial and religious persecutions in the countries behind the Iron Curtain had been derived from “filthy” sources. The Soviet peoples, he declared, consider it beneath their dignity to reply to such “base slander.”
Polish delegate Stanislaw Skrzesezewski stated that opposition to anti-Semitism and all forms of discrimination was an integral and basic part of the ideology and political principles on which the social system in Poland is now based. “Naturally,” he added, “my delegation had to oppose any outside interference by the State of Israel, or Zionist organizations in matters concerning Polish citizens.”
ANTI-SEMITIC “NUCLEUS” SEEN IN SOVIET UNION
Prof. Enrique Fabregat of Uruguay said he did not want to add bitterness to the debate, but he had to mention the case of the Moscow doctors, first accused and imprisoned on charges of acting as agents of American Jewish groups and later released. “This was praise worthy correction of police-state procedures, but it showed that there was an anti-Semitic nucleus in the Soviet Union,” he declared.
Referring to the “racial question,” which had given the world such anxiety lately when it re-appeared in the countries behind the Iron Curtain, the Uruguayan delegate said: “Mrs. Myerson, the representative of Israel, had spoken of it concretely. Indeed, she could not have failed to mention the great sacrifices of the Jews under the Nazis, the many martyrs. All were a tragic warning to our generation and future generations. The representative of Poland had indignantly denied all the charges, but for Israel especially it was a pressing need that this matter be aired.”
Dr. Salazar, representative of the Dominican Republic, charged that “anti-Semitism has become a permanent fixture of the international Communist policy” as could be seen in numerous publications. He wanted to point out in this connection that the Dominican Republic had been the first to take in Jewish refugee from Nazi persecution and is ready to take still more refugees now.
Dr. Nunez Portuondo, representative of Cuba, recalled the arrests of Jewish leaders and Communist officials of Jewish origin in Eastern Germany and in Hungary. “In view of all these facts,” he said, “the Cuban Government had recently issued a statement which emphatically condemned the persecution of Jews in the USSR and its satellite states and called upon all free nations to join in the demand that these persecutions, reminiscent of Hitler’s anti-Semitic acts, cease.”
The expected Arab attack on Zionism opened in the Political Committee this afternoon with Iraqi delegate Abdullah Bakr calling Israel “the greatest menace and terror” of the Middle East. He compared the destitution of the Arab refugees with Hitler’s persecution of the Jews. Mr. Bakr accused the Zionists of everything from demagoguery to murder. “We don’t acknowledge the right of Israel to speak for the Jewish peoples everywhere,” Mr. Bakr said.
In his address to the Political Committee, British representative Sir Gladwyn Jebb called upon the Soviet Union to maintain a consistent policy of racial tolerance.
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.
