Arab Office in New York Consults with Professional Anti-semites

The Anti-Defamation League of B’nai B’rith charged today that the new Arab Information Center in New York, operating with semi-diplomatic status, has been consulting with “professional anti-Semites” to develop an Arab propaganda campaign in the United States.

The center, financed by the Arab League, was opened in recent weeks as an informational and cultural exchange. But, ADL declared, in its program to win sympathy for the Arab League states and discredit Israel, the center has, through Arab League intermediaries, conferred with anti-Semitic leaders about methods of arousing public feeling against Jews in this country.

Chief of the center is Kamel Abdul Rahim, one-time Egyptian ambassador to the United States. Rahim arrived here in November as UN representative from Yemen, with rank of ambassador. This grants him diplomatic immunity. The information center, however, is to be registered with the U.S. Justice Department as “a foreign agent.”

The ADL report revealed a policy statement by Rahim, made in a letter sent October 25th from Cairo before his departure for the United States, to Dr. Omar Haliq, Arab League representative in New York. Rahim wrote that the Arab center welcomes the cooperation and assistance “in all fields and ways” of professional anti-Semites.

In the same letter, Rahim emphasized that such activities were to be handled discreetly so as not to expose the Arab center as anti-Semitic or compromise its character as “a cultural and informational exchange.” He said he intended to deal with this matter personally.

GETS $400,000 SUBSIDY FOR FIRST YEAR OF OPERATION

The ADL report also disclosed that Dr. Halls had reviewed for the Arab League the activities of Gerald L.K. Smith, who runs the Christian Nationalist Party; Joseph P. Kamp, head of the Constitutional Educational League; Allen Zoll, whose American Patriots, Inc., was listed as “fascist” by the Justice Department; and Benjamin H. Freedman, confessed financier of anti-Jewish publications, and had advised his superiors in Cairo what cooperation the propaganda center could expect from them. Also set forth in the ADL report are:

1. A statement by Rahim last November to a group of Arab diplomats that the information center would by “high pressure” and, when fully established, would “cope with” every important Jewish organization in the United States.

2. An acknowledgment by Rahim that he has a subsidy of $400,000 for his first year’s operation. This is exclusive of executive salaries and rents for the New York center and branch centers that are to be established elsewhere in the United States and Canada.

3. A report by Rahim on his meeting with Merwin K. Hart, head of the anti-Jewish National Economic Council, a New York group. The two men, said ADL, discussed methods of raising funds among Americans for Arab causes.