Boston City Council Adopts Resolution Against Arab Boycott

The City Council has adopted unanimously a resolution declaring that, ” as a matter of public policy, the City of Boston declares that it will not trade with any company or corporation which practices discrimination against persons of Jewish faith.”

The resolution, drafted by Councillor Christopher A. Ianella and adopted earlier this month, added that the city’s “Director of Administrative Services and the Purchasing Agent be…requested and directed to enforce the above policy with respect to all goods and services purchased by the city.” Ianella noted that the Arab League has been promoting practices which include discrimination against “the hiring of persons of the Jewish faith; the serving in managerial or executive positions of persons of the Jewish faith; trade with the State of Israel; or the ownership of such companies by persons of the Jewish faith.”

Despite the unanimous passage of the resolution, one of the City Council members, in retrospect, condemned the move. Councillor Frederick C. Langone said the Council action was “polarizing people” and called lanella a “demagogue” for proposing it. “What are we doing taking sides in the Arab-Israeli dispute?” Langone asked. “Whatever we say in this dispute is meaningless, not worth the paper it is written on.”

An aide to lanella said: “We are not anti-Arab. we are anti-discrimination. We sponsored another resolution recently deploring violence in Lebanon.” The aide said lanella’s teen-age son is an altar boy at Cedars of Lebanon Church in Jamaica Plain, a largely Lebanese congregation.

Albert Schlossberg, president of the Jewish Community Council of Metropolitan Boston, in a letter to lanella, wrote: “We applaud your courageous and forthright stand, which is in the best tradition of America. As you so well understand, the Arab boycott does not only harm members of the Jewish faith, but it discriminates against all true believers of democracy and the principles of free movement and free trade.”