An estimated 300 PLO supporters participated in an anti-Israel rally in the center of the city last Friday. The participants shouted anti-Zionist slogans and denounced Israeli Premier Menachem Begin and Defense Minister Ariel Sharon. When a group of Bnai Akiva youngsters sought to distribute leaflets depicting PLO atrocities, they were attacked by the crowd. Leaders of the rally called off a scheduled march on the U.S. Consulate after police persuaded them not to stage the protest march.
The rally, which was sponsored by some leftwing groups, including the illegal Communist Party and some members of the Peace Now movement, was denounced by Katan Rezwan, president of the Lebanese League in Brazil. In a statement published in Jornal do Brasil, he termed the leaders of the rally as “false spokesmen” because they are “supporting the PLO and terrorism.” The rally had been advertised as “a manifestation for peace in Lebanon.”
In a statement to the Jewish Telegraphic Agency, Abraham Foxman, associate national director of the Anti-Defamation League of B’nai B’rith, and Rabbi Morton Rosenthal, the ADL’s Latin American affairs director, who are visiting Brazil, said: “The propaganda themes we have heard in Brazil are those we are hearing in Europe and the United States. So, too, is the tactic of giving undue prominence to critical statements by small numbers of Jews. The Brazilian Lebanese League’s public repudiation of the pro-PLO propagandists is very significant.”
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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.
