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ZOA Protests PLO Posters in the Library of Congress Exhibit

December 13, 1976
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The Zionist Organization of America has strongly objected to the inclusion of four anti-Israel posters in an exhibition on “paper weapons” organized by the Library of Congress in Washington. The ZOA said that the posters call for the creation of a secular Arab state in place of Israel and carry messages of hate for Israel. Together with one poster glorifying Egypt as the defender of Arab oil, they are the only representations of the Middle East in the exhibition, the ZOA said.

In a letter sent Friday to Dr. Daniel Boorstin, Librarian of Congress. Joseph P. Sternstein, BOA president, listed that except for one Innocuous Soviet poster praising labor and one Chinese poster encouraging South American revolutionaries, all the other posters in the exhibit came either from Latin America or from the American labor movement, None the letter noted, were from Israel or from such Middle Eastern trouble spots as Cyprus and Lebanon, and none were from Italy Spain or India, where the poster art is justifiably famous.

In the letter, Sternstein refused to accept the appearance of four Palestine Liberation Organization posters out of an exhibit of 25 as accidental. “By displaying them in such a fashion,” he said, “the Library of Congress indicates a recognition of this terrorist gang that our State Department has repeatedly refused to grant, thus contradicting our government’s policy.” (The library’s information officer told the Jewish Telegraphic Agency that Sternstein’s letter had apparently arrived but not yet read by Boorstein.)

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