Anti-semitic over Tones in Greece’s Hostility Toward Kissinger, U.S.

Secretary of State Henry A. Kissinger is becoming a target of mounting Greek hostility toward the United States in Greece and Cyprus. Athens newspapers recently carried a declaration by Bishop Chrysostomos of Piraeus, the Greek Orthodox Metropolitan, stating: “The German Jewish Secretary of State of America is making suspicious trips throughout the world for the purpose of destroying Cyprus. Someone should be found to put a violent end to his attempts.”

In addition, Israel is being depicted as the chief motivating force of U.S. foreign policy in the Mediterranean region, according to reports from Athens, and U.S. bases in Greece are presented as intended primarily to support Israel while the U.S. is pictured as having fomented strife in Cyprus to extend its bases on that island.

The plight of 150,000 to 200,000 Greek Cypriotes driven from their homes by the Turkish invasion last July following the coup d’etat which overthrew Archbishop Makarios has also created an emotional identification with the plight of the Palestinian refugees among many Greeks and Cypriotes.

“GERMAN JEW KISSINGER”

Last August, the Jewish Telegraphic Agency in London reported that a climate hostile to Israel with clear anti-Semitic overtones had developed in Greece as a result of the Cyprus crisis and the feelings in Athens that Kissinger’s policies betrayed Greece. The anti-American resentment in Greece took on a Jewish edge when at least one leading Athens newspaper repeatedly referred to Kissinger as “the German Jew Kissinger.”

The left-wing Athens daily, “Athenaiki,” declared at that time in an editorial that Greece no longer wants to be the “sole means of survival for any more Israels,” The Greek government was at that time described by Dr. Joseph Lovinger, president of the Central Board of Jewish Communities in Greece, as neither supporting nor encouraging anti-Semitism. Nevertheless, current reports note that references to Kissinger’s Jewishness continue to be injected into conversations and newspaper articles.