De Gaulle’s Anti-israel, Anti-jewish Remarks Continue to Evoke Sharp Criticisms

Reactions to French President Charles de Gaulle’s attack against Israel and his thinly-veiled encouragement of anti-Semitism in general, as voiced at his Paris press conference on November 27, continued to pour in here today. From Paris and Rome, New York and Chicago and other points, non-Jews and Jews, including leading Frenchmen, criticized de Gaulle sharply.

In the French press, and among noted Frenchmen, the reactions to de Gaulle’s anti-Israel and anti-Jewish attitude were severely critical. Raymond Heymann, of Strassbourg, prominent in the resistance movement during World War II, sent back to Gen, de Gaulle the medal he had received for his heroic war work. A well-known writer, Edoyard Brumont, compared de Gaulle’s present stance to the utterances of notorious French anti-Semites and fascists. The International League Against Anti-Semitism announced in Paris it would meet tomorrow to consider de Gaulle’s remarks.

The Paris daily, L’Expresse, published an interview with Menahem Beigin, leader of Israel’s Herut Party and now a member of Israel’s Emergency Cabinet, castigating de Gaulle. Mr. Beigin recalled that, in 1957, de Gaulle told him Israel’s troops should not be withdrawn from the Gaza Strip, which Israel occupied during the Sinai campaign.

FRENCH POLITICIAN SEES ‘IGNORANCE’; DE GAULLE HIT HARD IN MANY LANDS

In New York, Francois Mitterand, leader of the French non-Communist left–and the politician who ran second to de Gaulle in the 1965 presidential election–said his President’s remarks show “just deep ignorance” about Israel and “its sociological and political realities.”

In Italy, the de Gaulle statement continued to exercise most of the press. II Tempo, of Rome, said de Gaulle was suffering from delirium tremens. Voce Republicana, organ of the Republican Party, a member of the Italian coalition Government, likened de Gaulle to a “Jackal.” La Stampa said that de Gaulle, while correct on some points having nothing to do with the Middle East, was “decidedly wrong on others, particularly his accusations against Israel.”

In New York, Rabbi Maurice N. Eisendrath, president of the Union of American Hebrew Congregations (Reform), charged de Gaulle with setting off “a percussion cap for anti-Semitism,” saying he was either suffering from senility or employing “a shabby tactic to woo the Arab states for commercial gain.”

In Chicago, Sen. Stuart Symington, Missouri Democrat, a member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, told an Israel Bonds meeting last night that Americans should cease buying French products or visiting France as tourists, as their response to de Gaulle’s attitude. He implied he considered de Gaulle “a renegade, an enemy.”