Black Columnist Back from Israel Reports Favorable Impression

Dick Edwards, a columnist for the New York Amsterdam News, the largest Negro weekly newspaper in America, says he thought “This will be the pablum tour” when he was invited to participate with nine other black journalists in a fact-finding tour of Israel. He said he was convinced that the Israel Government issued the invitation in order to score propaganda points. But in the first of a series of articles, titled “Black Man in Israel” which began in the Amsterdam News this week, Mr. Edwards wrote: “I am going to admit that all of my suspicions were lulled because the tour also included a session with hostile Arabs and Arab leaders and they really showered down on the Israelis, even though we taped the session.”

Mr. Edwards said his group was briefed in Jerusalem by Mordechai Lador, of the American desk of the Israel Foreign Ministry who told them that Israel was concerned over Arab efforts to influence the black community in the United States. The journalists asked him how he thought the Arabs were doing in their campaign. Mr. Edwards quoted his reply at length: “Our Arab friends and neighbors, in their activities–what they are trying to project is that here are the Israelis, of European origin, therefore they have pinkish, or a white or a colorless pigmentation–which is only partly true as there are as many dark skinned Israelis as fair skinned….Arabs are not all black either, but many of them are dark or brown. Of course, Israel has ties with western countries, especially the United States. Anti-establishment sentiment which is in the black communities is played up these days. Here is Israel, a friend of the establishment; you are anti-establishment, we are anti-Israeli, therefore you are our friend, says the Arabs.” Mr. Lador went on to say, Mr. Edwards reported, that “There is always this kind of mathematical logic which equates certain things and tries to make a full circle out of it. We believe that, rather than try to get out and win everybody over into fighting our neighbor, we try to sit down and settle our differences with our neighbors.” Mr. Edwards reported that the Israeli official told the black journalists that he could offer no prediction as to when peace and understanding with the Arabs would come about.