Scali Told U.S. Jews Disturbed over His Meeting with Mehdi

Rabbi Israel Miller, chairman of the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations, told the U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations, John Scali, that American Jews were “profoundly disturbed” by the interview which Scali granted to Arab propagandist Mohammed Mehdi last Thursday.

Rabbi Miller said Friday that by consenting to meet with Mehdi. Scali had “lent the prestige of his office and thus legitimized a notorious apologist for Arab terror.” Rabbi Miller noted that Scali did not see everyone who sought an appointment with him.” When Meir Kahane sought an interview with you,” Rabbi Miller told Scali, “you sent a Junior aide to meet him in the lobby of the U.S. Mission for a brief conversation in which your staff member did not even sit down.”

“Yet when an appointment is requested by Mohammed Mehdi, a citizen of Iraq who wrote a book defending Sirhan Sirhan the assassin of Robert F. Kennedy, the permanent American representative to the United Nations himself welcomes Mehdi into his office for an exchange of views.” American Jews, Rabbi Miller added, “are profoundly disturbed by this peculiar show of deference to a non-citizen and apologist for Arab terror.”

Earlier, a spokesman for the U.S. Mission had explained that Scali would listen to what Mehdi had to say. Just as he had conferred the previous week with Rabbi Miller.

Rabbi Miller also told Scali that the Jewish community would consider a U.S. abstention from the expected UN resolution on the Palestine Liberation Organization as a negative act and retreat from the moral position adopted by the U.S. in voting against the General Assembly resolution to invite the PLO to take part in the Palestine debate. Scali replied that no decision has been taken because no resolution on that subject had yet been offered. The debate on the Palestine issue is scheduled to begin Wednesday and to continue for two weeks.