The U.S. government’s official involvement in a financial organization in Lebanon that has been blacklisting Jewish banking houses surfaced today as an investigation by federal agencies widened and deepened on the Arab boycott and discrimination against Jews and companies linked to Israeli business enterprises, State Department sources acknowledged that the Credit Commodity Corporation, a subsidiary of the Department of Agriculture, has shares totaling $11 million in the intra Investment Co, in Beirut, one of a half-dozen large Arab concerns blacklisting Western banks that deal with Israel.
According to these sources, the CCC acquired $22 million in shares in a private bank that had failed and was taken over by the intra Investment Co, Since then it has reduced its holding by half and they now amount to about 5 1/2 percent of the bank’s capital. Last week in Paris, the bank’s chairman revealed it as blacklisting Jewish firms and those linked to Israel.
The State Department emphasized to the Jewish Telegraphic Agency that “the United States did not concur in the chairman’s decision, had no say in it, and does not endorse it,” It said that the U.S. is arranging to dispose of its shares to the Lebanese government. Intra Investment was described as being mainly owned by Lebanon, Kuwait and Qatar and has been involved in funneling Arab petrodollars into the money market, Kuwait is one of the countries most hostile to Jewish concerns.
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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.
