ADL Official Warns Arms. Sales Endangers Israel

Nathan Perlmutter, national director of the Anti-Defamation League of B’nai B’rith, warned that “neutral arms salesmen” pose a greater danger to Israel and the Jewish people than outspoken anti-Semites

The “soberest” lesson for the Jewish community, came according to Perlmutter, in the debates over the sale of AWACS reconnaissance aircraft to Saudi Arabia and proposals to supply modem U.S. weaponry to Jordan. “It was a debate in which anti-Semitism figures late and only incidentally and whose stench exceeded its substance. The Saudis were not nearly so much helped by anti-Semitism as they were by Semitically neutral arms salesmen,” Perlmutter told 400 ADL leaders attending a session of the agency’s four-day National Committee meeting here Saturday night.

The arms salesmen, he said, did not spout anti-Zionist rhetoric but “talked of jobs, of black ink for the aerospace industry and of recycling petrodollars … These arms salesmen are today a thousandfold more telling adversaries (of the Jewish people) than juveniles painting swastikas on Jewish buildings,” the ADL national director said.

JEWS QUESTION WHO ARE FRIENDS

Perlmutter, in his annual report, said American Jews are questioning who their real friends are. In that connection, he noted that “The more liberal one’s Christian theology, the less likely is that person to harbor anti-Semitism; the more fundamentalist, the more likely to harbor anti-Semitism.”

But, Perlmutter added, “the theologically liberal National Council of Churches, long a leader in Christian-Jewish dialogue, has — again — adopted positions favorable to the Palestine Liberation Organization, ignoring Israel’s security and ignoring the PLO’s resolve to undo the Jewish State.” On the other hand, he said, “theologically conservative fundamentalists … support Israel’s security needs. The one is academically sympathetic to religious differences but in action is allied with those who would kill Jews; the other is academically unaccepting of our religious differences, but in our need becomes a friend in deed.”

Perlmutter also observed that “popular wisdom has long held that younger people are less anti-Semitic than older people,” but that assumption breaks down in the case of many young liberals who are not as favorably disposed towards Israel’s security needs as are young conservatives. He noted that in Europe, youthful peace activists are frequently activists in pro-Arab causes.

BIALKIN NEW CHAIRMAN

Kenneth Bialkin, a New York attorney, was elected national chairman of the ADL, succeeding Maxwell Greenberg of Los Angeles who held that post since 1978. Bialkin, 52, is chairman of the American Bar Association’s Section on Corporation, Business and Banking Law.

Last Friday, two ranking State Department officials told the assembled ADL leaders that the East-West Madrid talks have become a weapon with which to call the Soviet Union to account for human rights violations. Elliott Abrams, Assistant. Secretary of State for Human Rights and Humanitarian Affairs and Lawrence Eagleburger, Undersecretary of State for Political Affairs, addressed an ADL luncheon honoring Max Kampelman, chairman of the U.S. delegation to the Madrid meeting on the Conference on Security and Cooperation in Europe and to the U.S. Commission on Security and Cooperation in Europe.