American Zionists Question Egypt’s Good Faith in Offering Anti-blas Resolution to U.N.

The Egyptian resolution against racial and religious persecution adopted by the U.N. General Assembly yesterday was given qualified approval today by the American Zionist Emergency Council which at the same time questioned Egypt’s good faith in presenting the resolution.

Pointing out that it speaks “for the entire Zionist movement in the United States,” the Zionist Emergency Council issued a statement recalling Egypt’s attempts to close Palestine to Jewish refugees, the boycott of Jewish goods from Palestine, the sheltering of the ex-Mufti of Jerusalem and the anti-Jewish riots which were permitted in Egypt by the government last year. The statement reads:

“The adoption by the Assembly of the United Nations of a resolution condemning persecution and discrimination is welcome as far as it goes. The circumstances of its passage nevertheless arouse certain misgivings.

“The resolution was sponsored by the delegation from Egypt which only a few days previously had sought to obtain passage of a resolution with reference to the International Refugee Organization which, while ostensibly seeking to promote interests of a generally humanitarian character, was in fact aimed at closing Palestine as a refuge to the victims of Nazi and other persecution and at putting an end to the development of the Jewish National Home. Fortunately, that resolution failed to pass.

“It must be recalled that it is Egypt, now posing in the Assembly as the defender of the persecuted and the oppressed, which, as the leading member of the Arab League, is responsible, in conflict with the letter and spirit of the United Nations Charter, for the continuing boycott of Jewish exports from Palestine. It is Egypt, further, which is at this moment giving shelter to the ex-Mufti of Jerusalem and which, despite its pledged word to the contrary, is providing this associate of Hitler and of Himmler with every facility to carry on political activities calculated to lead in due course to widespread bloodshed in Palestine and to attacks upon the Jews there. And it is the same government, finally, which permitted the murderous anti-Jewish riots in Cairo and Alexandria in November, 1945, with their accompanying destruction of synagogues and churches, which riots, spreading also to Tripoli, were responsible for death under gruesome circumstances of large numbers of defenseless Jews.

“In view of these facts, we can only hope that the Government of Egypt will be the first to take to heart the true intent and purpose of the resolution adopted by the Assembly.”