Ben Natan Says Leftists Who Disrupted Speeches Served Anti-semitic Purposes

Israel’s Ambassador to West Germany said today that while he did not think left-wing student demonstrators who disrupted his attempts to speak at two German universities last week were “consciously” anti-Semitic, they were nevertheless serving anti-Semitic purposes. Asher Ben Natan was shouted down by Arab and left-wing German students as he was addressing large audiences at Frankfurt University and the University of Hamburg on Middle East peace. He said the Arabs and left-wingers were using each other, the former to spread anti-Jewish slogans in West Germany and the latter by trying to inculcate Arab students with Marxist class conflict theories to back up their anti-Israel attitude.

The Israeli envoy said he thought the demonstrations occurred in Frankfurt because that city is the center of the left-wing German Socialist Students’ League and probably of Arab students who support terrorists of El Fatah and the Palestine Liberation Front. After Frankfurt they decided to try their luck at Hamburg, Ambassador Ben Natan said. He had spoken on seven previous occasions at other German universities without incident.

A leader of the Socialist Students League told the press last week that the demonstrators were only trying to get Mr. Ben Natan to apologize for a remark he allegedly made last year that the students were “neo-Nazis.”