Black nationalist attacks against Israel were described today by the American Jewish Congress as demonstrating “vast ignorance” of Middle East history and “a complete disregard of the facts of Israel’s close and positive relations with the countries of Africa.” In a statement issued in pamphlet form, the Congress charged the Student Non-Violent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) and other “extremists” with “inciting primitive anti-white and anti-Jewish sentiments” while supporting the Arab cause.
Rabbi Arthur J. Lelyveld of Cleveland, AJC president, recalled his association with SNCC in Mississippi in 1964 and declared that “since those days, SNCC had become an advocate of that which was once its adversary; it has become the embodiment of those forces it once opposed. We witness today the tragedy of SNCC’s decline and we can only regret that it lacked courage and conviction to make its own principles work. Where SNCC failed, however, we are convinced others will yet succeed. In that effort, the American Jewish Congress will be at the side of those who seek full equality in a free society for all Americans.”
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