Jewish groups are calling on the Clinton administration to take the League of Arab States to task for refusing to consider ending the economic boycott against Israel at its meeting last week.
The National Jewish Community Relations Advisory Council and the Anti-Defamation League each expressed disappointment at what they called a broken promise by Arab League officials to discuss terminating the boycott at their March 27 meeting in Cairo.
This promise was made to Commerce Secretary Ron Brown by a high-ranking Arab League official in January during Brown’s trip to the Middle East.
A source at the State Department said Monday that the administration is “disappointed” that the termination of the boycott was not discussed.
The source said the administration will continue to raise the matter with Arab governments.
At its March 27 meeting, the Arab League’s council of foreign ministers agreed not to reach a final decision on lifting the boycott.
Qatar, Oman and Kuwait had apparently been prepared to lift the ban, at least partially, following pressure from the United States and Germany.
But Syrian Foreign Minister Farouk al-Sharaa declared that “the reasons for the imposition of this ban have not yet been removed.”
He explained that the boycott is “connected with the state of war between Israel and the Arab states, and Israel’s conquest of Arab lands.
“We believe the boycott should be ended (only) with the ending of the occupation of all the Arab lands that Israel has conquered,” he said.
Israeli political observers believe the Arab League decision is also partially a function of Arab fears of Israel’s economic and technological strength.
PRINCE WARNS OF ‘ECONOMIC HOLOCAUST’
Crown Prince Hassan of Jordan is on record as having spoken of an “economic holocaust of the Arab world” if the boycott is lifted without firm controls being in place beforehand.
An Israeli diplomat who requested anonymity told the Jewish Telegraphic Agency that the Israeli government “would like to see concrete steps taken by the Arab League” to end the boycott, which has been in effect since before Israel’s founding in 1948.
Secretary Brown announced from Cairo during his trip in January that Arab League secretary-general Esmat Abdel-Meguid had told him the league would consider rescinding its secondary and tertiary boycotts at its March meeting.
The secondary boycott affects companies doing business with Israel; the tertiary boycott is imposed on companies doing business with those firms.
Jewish groups have hoped since last September, when Israel and the Palestine Liberation Organization signed their autonomy blueprint at the White House, that progress would be made toward ending the boycott, which also includes a primary boycott of Israel itself. Thus far, however, Jewish groups have been disappointed.
In a letter to Brown following last week’s Arab League meeting, ADL’s leaders wrote of their “serious concern about the failure of the Arab League to take action on ending the secondary boycott.
“The Arab League’s failure to address the boycott issue violates commitments made to you and other senior Administration officials,” wrote Melvin Salberg, the group’s national chairman, and Abraham Foxman, ADL’s national director.
Martin Raffel, associate executive vice chair of NJCRAC, told JTA that “for the Arab League not to move” toward ending the boycott “is a disappointment.”
More than 60 members of Congress had written to Secretary-General Meguid, seeking assurances that the boycott would be discussed at the Arab League meeting.
The March 25 letter, initiated by Rep. Charles Schumer (D-N.Y.) and Ileana Ros-Lehtinen (R-Fla.). urged the Arab League to end the secondary and tertiary boycotts its meeting.
“Even though some Arab nations are reportedly relaxing enforcement of the boycott, the League of Arab States must send a clear signal that the boycott has been voted out of existence,” read the letter, which was signed by 63 other representatives.
The Social Democratic Party announced it will seek the new legislation following a recent ruling by the Federal Court of Justice that repeating the denials of others that the Holocaust ever occurred — the so-called “Auschwitz lie” — is not in itself a punishable offense.
The Federation of Jewish Communities in Germany has already called for a change in the law in order to ban Holocaust denial explicitly.
In a newspaper interview, the vice chair-woman of the Social Democrats, Herta Daubler-Gmelin, said her party will put forward “as quickly as possible” an appropriate draft of legislation that will make the spreading of the “Auschwitz lie” a punishable act.
“Someone who denies the Holocaust does not do so out of a harmless stupidity, but knows that Auschwitz is one of the most horrible parts of German history,” she said. “It is unbearable that through this lie millions of victims are insulted and survivors are mocked.”
On March 15, the Federal Court of Justice reversed a lower court’s decision against Gunter Deckert, chairman of the extreme right-wing National Democratic Party. At a 1991 rally, Deckert ert was a translator for Fred Leuchter, an American Holocaust denier. In addition to translating comments made by Leuchter, Deckert said he supported Leuchter’s theories.
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The Archive of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency includes articles published from 1923 to 2008. Archive stories reflect the journalistic standards and practices of the time they were published.
