The results of a four-year study on political anti-Semitism in the United States, West Germany and the Middle East were made public here by the Anti-Defamation League of B’nai B’rith which is now holding its national executive committee meeting at the Mayflower Hotel. The study established the following facts:
1. Religious bigotry had crept into some areas of the Federal security program in this country. The ADL asserted flatly–on the basis of its own investigation that many of the Federal employees suspended during the 1953 security investigations at Fort Monmouth, N.J., were “hapless victims of anti-Semitism, pure and simple.”
2. Official delegates from Arab nations, operating in the United States “with diplomatic status and immunity,” are engaged in “an organized and well-financed conspiracy to stimulate anti-Semitic feelings in this country–their purpose being to thwart American sympathy and aid for Israel.”
The ADL report challenged the good faith of some “apparently respectable” right wing political action movements in the United States–promoted and supported largely by “extremists” in both parties–because of their “intermittent and cautious acceptance of professional bigots and anti-Semitic hate propagandists.” It described the “political atmosphere” of recent years as “one in which dissent and non-conformism may be maintained only at the cost of a man’s livelihood and the risk of his reputation for patriotism.” As a result, “the security of minority groups, largely dependent upon the strength of our democratic institutions, is imperiled,” the ADL said.
The report characterized the Fort Monmouth investigation as “a scandal” which had created “an unfortunate public impression that Communism was rampant among the suspended personnel at the installation.” Not only was this false, said the ADL, but its own probe “leads us to the conviction that anti-Semitism was involved in the initiating of the suspension or declassification of scientists there almost all of whom have since won vindication, although not without having paid an irretrievable penalty in emotional anguish for themselves and their families.” It revealed that evidence to this effect was submitted last week to Secretary of the Army Wilbur Brucker and to the Federal Bureau of Investigation with a request for “corrective action.”
ARAB DIPLOMATS CHARGED WITH ACTING AGAINST JEWS IN U.S
In its review of Arab propaganda methods, the ADL accused Arab diplomats of seeking “the utter destruction of Jewish prestige in America.” It noted a similarity and duplication of anti-Semitic propaganda themes used by both Arab spokesmen–many of whom sit high in United Nations councils or hold important embassy and legatio posts- -and the “rabid Jew-bathers of America who make a profession of religious bigotry.” This is the first such propaganda tie-up between foreign governments and “native gutter bigots” since pre–World War II, said the ADL, when German consulates played the same game with the German-American Bund and like organizations.
The ADL identified the Arab League, operating in the U.S., as the central headquarters for the Arab propaganda assault on American Jews “whether they are Zionists or not.” It also named Kamil Abdul Rahim, a former Egyptian ambassador to the United States; now executive director of the Arab Information Center in New York, as the chief Arab propagandist here–his program bolstered by a $700,000 budget for 1956 To give him diplomatic status, said ADL, Rahim was appointed a member of Yemen’s UN delegation, the ADL pointed out.
The ADL named Abdul Khakel Hassouna, secretary general of the Arab League; Omar Haliq, a member of Saudi Arabia’s UN delegation; Faiz El-Khouri, former Syrian minister to the U.S., Ezzat Tannous, director of the Arab-Palestine Office which deals with refugee matters; Awni Khalidy, former Iraqi delegate to the UN, and Ahmed Galal Abdelrazek, formerly with Egypt’s UN delegation, among Arab diplomats who have had “mutually-acceptable” dealings with professional hate-mongers in America.
In Germany, the ADL found a current of nationalism on the rise, noting that “anti-Semites are reorganizing, anti-Jewish publications are increasing, and the courts are becoming more lenient in sentencing the initiators of anti-Semitic incidents.” While anti-Semitism does not function so strongly as a political weapon “simply because there are not enough Jews left in Germany to make attacking them worthwhile, its value as a conveniently gaudy signpost to guide the dispersed fascist elements to each other must not be underestimated,” the ADL report warned.
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.
