Packets containing anti-Israel propaganda have been sent to members of Congress, the State Department and some Senators, among them four members of the Foreign Relations Committee, by the Embassy of Kuwait here. The materials, printed in Beirut, Lebanon, were handsomely packaged in a black plastic wrapper containing a Beirut post office box number.
Recipients of the literature have included Sen. J. W. Fulbright, Arkansas Democrat, Foreign Relations Committee chairman; George D. Aiken, Vermont Republican; Stuart Symington, Missouri Democrat; and Jacob K. Javits, New York Republican, known for his ardent pro-Israel position.
The packet contains a large brochure entitled “The Arabs Under Israeli Occupation” and is attributed to the Arab Women’s International Committee and was said to have been delivered to the Regional Conference on Human Rights in Beirut last December.
The enclosed documents charge that Israeli officials were guilty of mistreating prisoners of war, of torture, forcible deportation of Arab residents, and mistreatment of refugees. The packet also contains a number of booklets and pamphlets with the general theme that the founding and continued existence of Israel have been illegal.
Several booklets were published by the Institute of Palestine Studies, which is headed by Lebanon’s President, Charles Helou. Other pamphlets contain the imprint of the University Christian Center Forum, Beirut. They include: “Is the Old Testament Zionist?” and “Some Historical Aspects of the Clash Between Zionism and Arab Nationalism.” There is also a question-answer booklet distributed by the Palestine Liberation Organization Research Center in Beirut, which accuses Israel of aggression, political assassination and harassment of United Nations truce observers. There is also a reprint of an article by I. F. Stone, the American journalist, which appeared in August, 1967, in the New York Review of Books, discussing approaches to Arab-Israeli problems.
A spokesman for the Kuwaiti Embassy said that his Government had sent the material for distribution here. “One point of view has been put forward (in the United States) for the last 20 years. This material we are distributing gives the Arab point of view,” he said. The protocol office of the State Department said that foreign embassies are not permitted to lobby in Congress if their efforts are directed at specific legislation. But when there is an attempt to get a general viewpoint across, it is allowed unless the material is scurrilous or highly offensive to U.S. legislators.
“If (the literature) was terribly objectionable or obnoxious, or if it was so bad the other side objected, we would talk to the Embassy and try to get them to stop or to tone (it) down,” the official said.
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