Jewish Leader Calls for Cooperative Effort to Rid World of Terrorism

Howard Friedman, president of the American Jewish Committee, warned that terrorism constituted the most perilous threat to civilized society.

Delivering his presidential address at the annual meeting of the Committee’s national executive council at the Hyatt Regency Miami Hotel, Friedman demanded a new cooperative effort to rid the world of terrorism. He praised the U.S. government for its “courageous and steadfast action” after the seizure of the Achille Lauro by Arab terrorists.

Branding efforts to portray terrorists as freedom fighters, Friedman stated that “freedom fighters do not shoot and kill paralyzed tourists in wheelchairs; terrorists and murderers do,” adding that those who bombed the Santa Ana (California) headquarters of the Arab-American Anti-Discrimination Committee and killed the group’s regional director were also terrorists and murderers, not freedom fighters.

In a wide-ranging analysis of current domestic and international problems, Friedman called for vigilance against “efforts of far-right political and religious extremists to exploit the tragic conditions of America’s farmers by charging that Jewish bankers and the Eastern establishment are conspiring to appropriate the land of hard-pressed family farmers.”

Another focus of bigotry, Friedman declared, has been the “gutter anti-Semitism” of the Black propagandist, Louis Farrakhan. “In speeches before large Black audiences, Farrakhan coupled that anti-Semitism with appeals to Black separatism and Black hostility to whites unprecedented in recent times,” Friedman stated.

The moderate leaders of most respected farm groups and Black groups have forthrightly rejected these appeals, said Friedman, adding that despite occasional tensions, Blacks and Jews share the goal of making the promise of America real for all.