Concern Expressed over Rise of Anti-semitic Literature in Japan

Officials of the Anti-Defamation League of B’nai B’rith have expressed concern to Japanese Ambassador Nobuo Matsunago about the rise of anti-Semitic literature in Japan.

They told Matsunago at a meeting here Monday that the ADL wanted “to work with the Japanese by making available materials to reduce prejudice and stereotyping,” according to Jess Hordes, ADL’s associate Washington director. Hordes was accompanied to the meeting at the Japanese Embassy by Burton Levinson, ADL national chairman, and Abraham Foxman, ADL associate national director. Matsunago was “Open and appreciative of the proposal and said he would convey it to the government,” Hordes said.

The meeting was prompted by press reports in this country of a popular Japanese author, Masami Uno, who claims that his country’s recent economic woes are due to a conspiracy by “international Jewish capital” and that Jewish-dominated interests have begun a “targeted bashing of Japan.”

According to a recent article in The New York Times, Uno has charged that “America is a Jewish nation” and that Jews form a “behind-the-scenes nation” controlling major U.S. corporations, including IBM, General Motors, Exxon, Standard Oil, Ford, Chrysler and AT and T.

Other books and articles that have recently appeared in bookstores include titles like “The Jewish Plan for Conquest of the World,” “How to Read the Hidden Meaning of Jewish Protocol,” and “Mysterious Judea.”

Articles assert that Jews were behind the Lockheed Aircraft bribery case that led to the criminal conviction of a former Japanese Prime Minister, Kakuei Tanaka, and the Watergate scandal. A book, “The Secret of Jewish Power to Control the World,” was written in 1984 and is still in circulation. Its author, Eisaburo Saito, is a member of Parliament’s upper house.

CHARGES AND DIATRIBES

Uno, in his book, “If You Understand Judea, You Can Understand the World,” claims that Jews caused the Great Depression of the 1930’s and are plotting a second one for the 1990’s. In his second book, “If you Understand Judea, You Can Understand Japan,” Uno asserts that the number of Jews killed in World War II was exaggerated. The two books have sold a total of 650,000 copies. Uno describes himself as a Christian fundamentalist and head of an Osaka-based organization called the Middle East Problems Research Center, according to the Times.

Matsunago told the ADL that Japan guarantees freedom of speech and that anti-Semitic views are not representative of the people or the government. The Japanese Embassy refused to comment about the meeting.

In a letter to The New York Times, Itari Umezu, director of the Japan Information Center, said that “anti-Semitism has no roots in Japanese history.” During World War II, when Japan was an ally of Nazi Germany, some Japanese aided Jews in escaping from Europe. There also have been disclosures of a prewar Japanese project, the “Fugu Plan,” to invite German Jews to settle in Manchuria.

But reports of current anti-Semitism in Japan prompted a letter by Rep. Charles Schumer (D. NY) and Sen. Arlen Specter (R. Pa.) in which they told Prime Minister Yasuhiro Nakasone that “the raw anti-Semitism in your country cannot go unchallenged.”