Administration and Congressional anger against the United Nations Third Committee’s definition of Zionism as a form of racism is continuing despite Egyptian President Anwar Sadat’s presence in the United States. Some of the anger has been vented against Sadat himself.
In San Francisco last Thursday, President Ford, during a political speech, vowed his Administration will fight the slander in the General Assembly should the committee’s draft resolution get there. He did not, however, mention Sadat’s National Press Club remarks attacking Zionism and the Jewish people.
Meanwhile, 10 Democratic members of the House issued a Statement Friday deploring Sadat’s “virulently anti-Semitic remarks” at the Press Club. “For a man who claims to be a recent convert to the cause of peace, he has a strange way of expressing his new-found creed,” they said.
“Mr. Sadat’s comments that the Jews of Egypt ‘had our economy in their hands up till 1950 or more’ not only distorts Egyptian history but also recalls the more blatant but no less vicious charges by Jew baiters and haters throughout history. To describe Zionism as the cause of ‘bitterness, violence, hatred (and) killing’ in the Middle East, as Sadat does, is to ignore history and deny truth.”
The statement was issued by Reps. Jonathan Bingham, Elizabeth Holtzman, Edward Koch, Richard Ottinger, Stephen Solarz and Benjamin Rosenthal, all of New York; Philip Burton of Calif. and Charles Vanik of Ohio.
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