The Anti-Defamation League of B’nai B’rith today rejected as “totally unfounded” allegations by Arab American leaders before the United States Civil Rights Commission that the ADL, among other American Jewish groups, had encouraged anti-Arab stereotyping and engaged in intimidation against Arab Americans.
“The record shows that the ADL, in its 73-year-history, has consistently and vigorously opposed discrimination, stereotyping and intimidation directed against any ethnic group, including Arab Americans,” declared Justice Finger, director of the ADL’s civil rights division.
He was responding to published reports on the Civil Rights Commission hearings at which two prominent Arab American leaders asserted that major Jewish groups as well as politicians and the news and entertainment media had encouraged a negative portrayal of Arabs.
Former Senator James Abourezk (D. S. D.), who heads the American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee (ADC), told the Commission yesterday that the Arab-Israel conflict and the 1970’s oil embargo “have given rise to an ugly, racist type of anti-Semitism toward people of Arab descent living in this country.”
He also said that “Arab Americans have become scapegoats for tensions and violence half a world away with which they have absolutely no connection.” Abourezk and James Zogby, executive director of the Arab-American Institute, cited recent incidents of violence against Arab Americans, including the bombing murder last year in Los Angeles of Alex Odeh, the ADC’s West Coast coordinator.
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.
