Aj Committee Charges Black Panther’s Anti-zionist Statements Close to Anti-semitism

The American Jewish Committee charged today that the activities and statements of the Black Panthers had been so consistently anti-Zionist and anti-Israel that it was almost impossible to make the distinction between that attitude and anti-Semitism. In a report issued by Seymour Samet, Director of its Intergroup Relations and Social Action Department, the Committee noted that “for a variety of reasons, attacks on Jews as Jews are no longer politically effective in this country. In recent years the anti-Semite has conveniently camouflaged his purpose under a cover of anti-Zionism.” The study, prepared by Milton Ellerin, Director of AJC’s Trends Analyses Division, includes compilations of public statements during the past few years by Panther functionaries, and editorials and news stories in The Black Panther, the Party’s official publication, all of which indicate the group’s support of El Fatah and the Arab guerrillas, and opposition to Israel and its supporters.

The AJ Committee study quotes Panther Minister of Information Eldridge Cleaver, in a December 1969 interview in Algiers, as stating that “Zionists, wherever they may be, are our enemies. We totally support the armed struggle of the Palestinian people against the watchdogs of imperialism.” The report also quotes a news story from the International edition of the Herald Tribune, which reported on December 29, 1969 in a story from Algiers that El Fatah leader Yassir Arafat and Cleaver hugged and kissed each other at a meeting with Palestine refugees here, then Cleaver climbed the rostrum to deliver a fierce attack on American Zionists. The study quotes the Jan. 30, 1970 report of CBS correspondent Richard C. Hottelet from Algiers on an El Fatah-Black Panther alliance. The El Fatah guerrilla organization, Mr. Hottelet declared, “is discussing training Black Panthers in actual combat against Israel to prepare them for a sabotage and assassination campaign in the United States.”