New Committee at UN Seeks to Oust Jewish Ngos from World Body

A new committee composed of members of anti-Israel non-governmental organizations(NGO) at the United Nations met here publicly today for the first time to seek ways to oust Jewish NGOs from the UN, it was reported today by Dr. Horris Schoenberg, director of B’nai B’rith’s UN office.

According to Schoenberg, the new committee comprises members of the Christian Peace Conference headed by Dr. Philip Oke; the World Assembly of Youth, headed by Ellen Chrisman, two NGOs affiliated with the Soviet Union and supported by it.

Schoenberg disclosed that the campaign against the Jewish NGOs was launched by Oke last month during a meeting of the UN Special Political Committee. At that meeting, Oke charged that Jewish NGOs maintain close relations with Israel despite Israel’s “sinister alliance with South Africa.”

Oke was supported by Ms. Chrisman who accused the Jewish NGOs of not only supporting Israel and South Africa but of also maintaining ‘official chapters and even headquarters in these countries,” in violation of UN resolutions against South Africa and Israel.

On November 11, Oke and Ms. Chrisman organized a new NGO committee on the “inalienable rights of the Palestinian people,” and, according to Schoenberg, announced that its objective is to mobilize “world-wide popular support for the Palestinian struggle” against Israel.

In a statement issued here today, Schoenberg accused the new committee of serving the PLO “whose purpose and principles are contrary to those of the UN Charter.” He also charged that the attempt to deligitimize the Jewish NGOs “can only prepare the ground for new anti-Semitic violence of a type all too familiar in Prague where the Oke-Chrisman committee is based) and other capitals of Central and Eastern Europe.”