Israel Reasserts Fight Against Anti-semitism in U.N. Debate

Israel reasserted here today its right to insist on General Assembly passage of a resolution outlawing anti-Semitism, racial prejudice and religious intolerance, insisting that, as a State which is 90 percent Jewish, it has a duty to speak out on situations in other countries “where our fellow-Jews are threatened or suffer discrimination.”

Michael S. Comay, Israel’s chief delegate, who, on Monday, opened a debate on the issue of anti-Semitism in the Assembly’s Social, Humanitarian and Cultural Committee took the floor again this morning when his Government’s attitude on the issue was denounced by an Arab spokesman. The latter, Ashraf Ghorbal, of Egypt, charged that “political Zionism” is “playing a racial discrimination myth” here. He alleged that Jews smear swastikas on synagogues for propaganda purposes, and backed a Jordanian delegate, Miss Wijdan Nasser, who yesterday injected the Israeli-Arab disputes into the current debate dealing with human rights. He also questioned Israel’s right to speak for all Jewry.

Asserting that Miss Nasser had no business bringing the Middle East tensions into the current debate, Mr. Comay said: “The representative of the United Arab Republic seemed very worried about what he seemed to regard as political designs behind our participations in this debate. He should spare himself the intellectual labor of raising bogeys about dual loyalty. Israel does not have for expect the political allegiance of anyone other than its own citizens, Jewish or Arab. But is it really hard for him to imagine that in a State which is 90 percent Jewish in the composition of the people, which has profound ties of brotherhood, history and religion with Jews elsewhere, which has welcomed to its shores hundreds of thousands of the survivors of Nazi Germany–we should feel uninvolved and undisturbed with our fellow Jews elsewhere which are threatened with or suffer discrimination?”

“He might as well demand that the representative of an African state should turn his back on the situation of Africans elsewhere. I would have thought that the moral right and duty of the State of Israel to come here and express our concern in this debate would not have been challenged–not even by those who are hostile to us.”