Arab League in America Launches Campaign Against Jewish Claims on Palestine

Members of the Senate and of the House of Representatives are being flooded with anti-Zionist propaganda by an Arab group in America styling itself “League of American-Arab Committees for Democracy” which is considered a pan-Arab “front” organization in this country.

In a letter circulated among senators here and dated Flint, Michigan, Najoab R. Samra, secretary of the League, claims that American Arab groups “have made several attempts to persuade Zionists to suspend their damaging activities, for the duration at least, but without any apparent success.” He attaches a copy of a communication allegedly sent to Dr. Chaim Weizmann on April 21, 1941, by Faris Malouf and Shukrey Khoury, president and secretary of the Arab National League, respectively.

Deploring the persecution of Jews in Axis-held Europe, the Arab letter to the Congressmen states that, nevertheless, the Arabs “can never countenance such a miscarriage of justice as the rape of Palestine by a group of people claiming that their ancestors once occupied the country some thousands of years ago.” It asserts that “political Zionism must concede to the people of Palestine the free exercise of self-determination,” adding that “any form of imperialism, be it Zionist or not, is detrimental to the interests of the United States and to the future peace of the world.”

The letter charges further that “it is decidedly contrary to the best interest of the United States to deliberately antagonize some sixty million Arabs and two hundred and fifty million Moslems by permitting political Zionism to consumate its audacious ambition in Palestine.” It concludes by declaring that the Arabs have “contributed far more than their share towards the rehabilitation of Jewish refugees from Europe, since they have already accepted more than half a million of them in a country about the size of Vermont.”