Sen. Daniel Moynihan (D. NY) charged today that the Soviet Union is at the “heart” of a world-wide, systematic and coordinated anti-Semitic and anti-Israel campaign that grows with each passing day. He said that this campaign is a threat not only to Jews but to democracy and liberty and the very essence of Western civilization.
Addressing a rally against anti-Semitism at the New York Statler Hotel, attended by some 1,500 women volunteers to mobilize support for the 1981 United Jewish Appeal-Federation of Jewish Philanthropies Campaign, Moynihan said that the aim of the Soviet Union’s anti-Semitic policy is to make Israel “a delegitimized entity, a pariah state, a non-state.”
“This is an assault of totalitarianism on liberty and freedom and pluralism in the world,” the former U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations declared. According to Moynihan, the Soviets launched their anti-Semitic campaign following the 1967 Six-Day War, after it became clear that Israel, with American military support, “is invincible.”
The USSR then launched a new approach, Moynihan said, in which the Jewish State could be overwhelmed “by denying it legitimacy” and by discrediting the Jewish people.
In 1971, Moynihan pointed out, an article in Pravda claimed that Jews were collaborators of the Nazis, and, in fact, are their successors. “Goebbels himself could not conceive a greater lie,” Moynihan said. The 1975 UN resolution equating Zionism with racism was the international version of Soviet anti-Semitism, Moynihan observed, charging that every year since then the Soviets and their allies have intensified their anti-Semitic policies.
NEW LEVEL OF INTENSITY
The New York Senator charged that with the success of the Camp David accords, the Soviets had “attained a new level of intensity” in their attack on Israel and the Jewish people.
In a series of resolutions last year in the UN Security Council and the General Assembly, Moynihan pointed out, Israel was found guilty of war crimes and was made an “outlaw” state. He said that last March a resolution by the Security Council accused Israel of violating the Fourth Geneva Convention which was designed originally to make Nazism a crime. “The United States voted for this resolution and you were silent, “Moynihan told the gathering, which met under the banner of “Silent No More.”
According to Moynihan, the scope of the anti-Semitic and anti-Israeli policies became “a torrent” at the beginning of this year. He cited the recent Islamic summit meeting in Taif, Saudi Arabia, and the non-aligned countries’ conference in New Delhi last month.
He said that the non-aligned meeting was a dangerous “anti-democratic, anti-West, anti-Israel and anti-Semitic event.” Only the U.S. and Israel were denounced by name, Moynihan said, noting that the meeting called for the expulsion of Israel from the UN, called for the return of “all Jerusalem” to the Arabs and condemned Israel for the annexation of the Negev and Galilee.
“The accusations and the lies about Israel are obscene,” Moynihan declared. “It is something we can no longer be silent about.”
MAJOR EVENT TO RAISE $112.5 MILLION
Today’s rally was a major event in the drive in New York City, Westchester and Long Island to raise $112.5 million this year for UJA-Federation agencies aiding nearly four million people in Israel, the U.S. and elsewhere in the world.
Among the speakers at the rally were Mikhail Brailovsky, brother of jailed Jewish dissident Viktor Brailovsky, who called for increased efforts on behalf of his brother and other Jewish dissidents in the Soviet Union, and Samuel Pisar, a Holocaust survivor and author of “Of Blood and Hope” who spoke of his struggle to survive the Nazi concentration camps as a teenager.
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.
