The House Rules Committee today cleared the way for the full House to debate and vote on anti-boycott legislation tomorrow that has won virtually unanimous approval in the chamber’s International Relations Committee. With the Administration having given its acquiescence to the measure, most Democrats and Republicans are understood to be ready for passage of the legislation.
A panel of five Republicans and Democrats acting as a working group for the Rules Committee reached a compromise with the Administration and private groups in providing “unilateral selection” that opens the way for Arab countries to name firms with which they will not do business but American companies cannot comply with discriminatory demands based on race, religion, national origin or sex on the ground that they do business with Israel.
Meanwhile, American businessmen and organizations trading with the Middle East have mounted a major campaign to amend federal anti-boycott bills now pending with the Senate and House which, they contend, could ruin American trade with the Arab countries if adopted as they are.
That view was expressed at a meeting held here yesterday of about 250 corporate representatives at the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and in Mailgrams sent to about 450 other senior corporation executives. The hastily called meeting was sponsored by the Business Roundtable, the National Association of Manufacturers and the Emergency Committee for American Trade.
The businessmen attending claimed that the Senate version of the bill would make it difficult to do business in the Middle East and the House version would make it virtually impossible, according to Richard L. Lesher, head of the Chamber of Commerce, who presided. The Senate bill is not expected to reach the floor until next month.
The campaign against the anti-boycott measures came several days after an advertisement was published in the Wall Street Journal and other newspapers in which Richard Robinson, a professor of international management at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology warned that the passage of tough anti-boycott laws might create a backlash against American Jews because people would identify Jewish supporters with strict anti-boycott laws that “threatens jobs.” In an angry response. Rep. Benjamin Rosenthal (D.NY), charged: “To suggest something has the potential for turning, into an anti-Semitic campaign is to submit that the campaign should happen.”
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