Friends of Israel here expressed astonishment and scorn today over Foreign Minister Hans-Dietrich Genscher’s failure to react to a speech by Chedli Klibi, Secretary General of the Arab League, made in his presence, which they described as one of the most vicious attacks on Israel and the Jewish people ever made at an official event in Bonn.
The occasion was a dinner given during Klibi’s visit here last week. Although it took place on July 21, the content of the Arab official’s speech and Genscher’s silence were disclosed only today by friends of Israel who attended the dinner. One leading newspaper interpreted the incident as yet another sign of Bonn’s policy of wooing the Arabs and snubbing Israel.
Klibi, a Tunision, described the Arab-Israeli conflict as a confrontation between a colonial and racist aggressor on one hand and a refugee people suffering inhuman conditions but determined to resist foreign rule. He denounced Zionism as a regressive ideology supported by a modern superpower and claimed that Zionism manifested itself by racial and religious discrimination and the forcible annexation of land.
The fact that Genscher said nothing was contrasted by friends of Israel with the defense of Israel voiced by former West German President Walter Scheel two years ago when President Hafez Assad of Syria similarly attacked Israel during a visit to Bonn. They said Genscher’s failure to emulate Scheel was in character with his pro-Arab position and the leading role played by Bonn in shifting the policies of the European Economic Community countries in favor of the Arabs.
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