ADL Obtains a Show Cause Order Aimed at Stopping PLO Leaders from Entering the U.S. to Address UN

The Anti-Defamation League of B’nai B’rith obtained a show cause order in a federal court today aimed at preventing Yasir Arafat and other Palestine Liberation Organization leaders from entering the United States on the grounds that their “crimes of murder, acts of barbarism and savagery “put them into a category of persons prohibited by U.S. law from coming into the country.

Judge Mark A. Constantino has scheduled a hearing for 11 a.m. tomorrow in the Eastern Federal District Court in Brooklyn on the order requiring the federal government to show why the PLO representatives, who are coming here to address the United Nations General Assembly. should not be denied entry to the U.S.

Lawrence Peirez, the ADL’s attorney in the suit, submitted a list of 234 acts of terrorism committed by the PLO, and plans to submit documentary evidence on 158 of the incidents at tomorrow’s hearing. The suit, which was filed by the ADL and Seymour Graubard, its national chairman. Dore Schary, honorary chairman, Benjamin R, Epstein, national director, and Arnold Forster, general counsel, also asked as an alternative that if the PLO leaders are admitted their travels and activities should be supervised and restricted. Peirez said, as an example, restrictions could prohibit their participation at public rallies, speaking engagements, and at any other actions that do not deal specifically with the UN debate on the Palestine Question.

PAST PRECEDENTS CITED

At a press conference at ADL headquarters, Graubard said the ADL believes that the PLO leaders should be barred to prevent any harm to American lives or property that might result from their visit, since the PLO has threatened action against anyone who supports Israel. He noted that he and the other three petitioners along with other American Jewish leaders have been given police protection at various times because of police information of danger to their lives. He stressed while he did not believe the PLO leaders would personally try to kill anyone they could meet with “thugs” or set the situation for later terrorist acts. Graubard’s affidavit noted that “history has shown that the only souvenirs of their (PLO) travels are death, violence and tragedy.”

Peirez said there were several cases when the U.S. had barred persons from attending UN sessions because of their past criminal activities. He said none of these people committed as serious crimes as the PLO had admitted to having done. He noted that in 1954 the then U.S. Ambassador to the UN, Henry Cabot Lodge, told the UN that the US. agreement with the UN does not include admitting “desperados and trigger men” to the U.S. Peirez labelled the PLO leaders as “desperados and thugs.”

The ADL suit is filed against Secretary of State Henry A. Kissinger, Attorney General William Saxbe and Treasury Secretary William Simon, all of whose departments can bar foreigners from the U.S. Peirez said he asked for the government to produce a Central Intelligence Agency recording of Arafat in Khartoum in 1973 applauding the murder of the American Ambassador.