Czech Radio Intensifies Anti-zionist Campaign; Goldsteucker, Kaspar Assailed

Czechoslovakia’s state-owned radio is continuing its criticism of Zionists and Jews. Three broadcasts by the commentator Pavel Novek were devoted to the subject last week. In one, Mr. Novek claimed that after World War II, wealthier Czech Jews tried to retrieve their property and they were the first to go to Israel. He said that the “Jewish question” in Czechoslovakia had been solved by the end of the 1940s but “pseudo-humanism spread with the advent of the Dubcek regime and a small number of Jewish intellectuals occupied leading positions out of proportion to their number.” Mr. Novek said in a second broadcast that “a vogue to denounce anti-Semitism helped inflate literary mediocrities such as Mnacko and Kohout and contributed to a pro-Israel attitude.” In his third broadcast, Mr. Novek accused Arnost Lustig of having made a “Zionist speech” during the writers’ congress of 1968. He added that under the Dubcek regime, “Czechoslovak television looked as if it might be intended for Tel Aviv.” Last week Bratislava Pravda and Radio Prague accused Professor Edouard Goldstuecker, the first Czech ambassador to Israel, of “defeatism and cowardice.” The media also accused Vlado Kaspar of harboring “secret ultra-nationalist Zionist sentiments while pretending to be a Czech patriot when he acted as president of the Federation of Czech Journalists and of the Czech National Council.”