World-wide Anti-israel Campaign Waged by Communist Regimes and Leftist Movements

The world-wide anti-Israel campaign carried on by Communist regimes and leftists movements has been accompanied by anti-Semitic persecution in eastern European countries and has resulted in serious tensions in some of the countries of western Europe, Zacharian Shuster, director of the European office of the American Jewish Committee said today at the closing session of the four-day AJ Committee’s 64th annual meeting. “This campaign has been carried on with such violence that it is sometimes barely distinguishable from old-time anti-Semitism, although it is couched in contemporary political terminology.” Mr. Shuster stated. “In the USSR itself, the attacks against Israel since the Arab-Israel war of 1967 have caused apprehension among large numbers of Jews who fear that the consequent national climate will result in personal attacks against them,” he declared. In Poland, Mr. Shuster reported, thousands of Jews have been forced to leave the country in the past few years, adding that most of the 8,000 Jews now remaining in the country are “completely cowed and elderly.”

Although the Jews of Czechoslovakia are slightly better off than those of Poland, he continued, there have been constant attacks against personalities of Jewish background since the Russian invasion of 1968. “In western Europe, the Communist parties are the major exponents of the pro-Arab line and are openly supporting El Fatah and other terrorist groups,” Mr. Shuster stated. In the universities of Germany, France and Italy, he continued, Jewish students are constantly exposed to attacks by leftist groups that have openly embraced the Arab cause. Madrid is the distributional center for thousands of anti-Israel and anti-Semitic booklets translated and printed by the embassy of the United Arab Republic. Philip E. Hoffman was reelected to a second term as President of the American Jewish Committee here today. Max M. Fisher, of Detroit, was reelected Chairman of the Executive Board. Mr. Hoffman, a communal and civic leader, is completing his first year as President of the AJCommittee. Mr. Fisher is General Chairman of the United Jewish Appeal, President of the Council of Jewish Federations and Welfare Funds, Treasurer of the United Israel Appeal, and member of the Administrative Committee of the Joint Distribution Committee.