The National Press Club is holding an “Arab night” festival May 28 and has included the Palestine Liberation Organization as a “country” in the gala. Officers of the Club, questioned about this listing by the Jewish Telegraphic Agency, said they are not considering excluding the terrorist group from the function.
Robert Williams, chairman of the Club’s entertainment committee, said he initiated the event and that the Club and the Arab League, whose 200 members include the PLO, are “cosponsors” of it. He insisted to the JTA that the PLO is “not part of the function” since the “League and not any individual member is a cosponsor.” However, Williams also said, in another context, that “all” the League’s members are cosponsors.
Asked whether he would take steps to exclude the PLO since it vows to destroy Israel, Williams replied “no.” Williams said no such step has been taken “to my knowledge.” Drew von Bergen, president of the National Press Club which has some 5000 members, denied that the Club and the Arab League are cosponsors. Von Bergen told the JTA: “We decide what will take place up there. We run the event.” He said the function will be “a social and cultural event, and not a political night. I am confident that will be the case.”
Noting that “no flags of nations or anything like that” will be in evidence at the function since, he repeated, “this is not a political event but a social event,” von Bergen said “we are taking great pains to insure that is the case.” He said the Arab League would be assisting the Club.
The Club’s weekly house organ, “Record,” announced in April that “countries represented, through the League of Arab States, are….” and then included the PLO. In its following edition, the “Record” said that “Arab night guests will enter another world” when they “step out of the elevators for a truly magical experience” May 28. They will be “hosted by the ‘beautiful people’ clod in the native dress of the many diverse countries in the Arab world.” Admission is $17.50.
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.
