The recently established Anti-Zionist Committee of the Soviet Public will open branches in major cities throughout the USSR in addition to Moscow where it is headquartered, the Soviet Communist Party newspaper Pravda reported today.
Pravda said the committee, chaired by Gen. David Dragunsky, the highest ranking Jewish officer in the Red Army, will operate “regional and provincial offices” and organize activities “in certain cities to fight the spread of Zionist propaganda.”
Pravda sharply attacked Israel and “world Zionism,” charging that they “used methods similar to those of the Nazis.” The Communist Party organ accused Israel of “operating concentration camps in which Arabs, Palestinians and Lebanese are held as the Nazis used to do.”
Jewish circles here fear that the Anti-Zionist Committee might try to spread its activities to other Soviet bloc countries. Such a move, they said, would endanger existing contacts and cooperation between the Jewish communities in countries such as Hungary and Czechoslovakia with Jewish organizations abroad.
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