June 14, 1946

English foreign secretary shocks U.S. Jews

Leading Americans, Jewish and non-Jewish alike, were shocked today at Associated Press reports from Bournemouth, England, quoting Foreign Secretary Ernest Bevin as making this statement at the Labor Party Conference:

“The agitation in the United States and particularly in New York for 100,000 Jews to be put into Palestine — and I do not want the Americans to misunderstand me — is because they do not want too many of them in New York.”

At this writing, no further explanation of that charge has been carried by press wires. Bevin’s words, however, came as a shock in the light of American public opinion that the plight of Europe’s displaced Jews demands quick emigration of the 100,000 to Palestine as recommend by the Anglo-American Committee.

The opinion was generally expressed that if Bevin was quoted correctly, his remarks could be construed only as “a malicious attempt to becloud the issue.”

Dr. Stephen S. Wise referred to Bevin’s works as “vulgarly insulting remarks,” declaring that, “we Jews and all the American people have a right to resent them.”

June 16, 1986

Jews protest SFSU session linking Israel to apartheid

Jewish students at S.F. State University leafleted a campus meeting Tuesday to protest attempts by the session’s organizers to link Israel with South African apartheid,

“This is a cynical attempt to attack Israel by using the anti-apartheid movement,” Reuben Haller, chairman of the Jewish Student Action Committee of S.F. State, said of the noontime meeting in the Student Union.

The committee and San Francisco Hillel were involved in the protest action at the meeting, which featured speakers from organizations with ties to the PLO.

The forum inside the Student Union, entitled Israel & South Africa: The Apartheid Connection?, was sponsored by the General Union of Palestinian Students, Committee for Peace in the Middle East, and Pan-African Students Union.

Haller said the groups sponsoring the event are anti-Israel. The Pan-African Students Union, for example, showed films featuring anti-Semitic statements by Rev. Louis Farrakhan, according to Haller.

“They’re singling out Israel,” Haller said. “It’s a real distortion. South Africa gets 76 percent of its oil from Arab countries, but Arab countries aren’t criticized by the left wing.”

Haller added that a 1984 International Monetary Fund report showed that Israel’s trade with South African constitutes one-half of one percent of South Africa’s total trade.

“These people are scapegoating Israel by saying that Israel is responsible for apartheid,” Haller continued. “This is part of a consistent pattern on campus to link Israel with apartheid.”