Page Two

THE JEWISH NEWS

Arab League 'Democracy'

Heard in
The Lobbies

An Editorial in New York Post (July 18, 1946)

By ARNOLD LEVIN

(Copyright, 1946. Independent Jewish
Press Service, Inc:)

ROOSEVELT-TRUMAN
The egg the late President Roosevelt
laid in Ins lamentable Palestine talk with
King Ibn Saud only now is being hatched
by the Department of State, and perhaps
by President Truman himself. It is an
evil-smelling egg too, this purported An-
glo-American plan to restrict the Jewish
National Home to a strip of fifteen hun-
dred square miles, which would be a kind
of Indian reservation for the Jewish peo-
ple. The powerful may plot, but they're
underestimating the great potentials of
Jewish wrath, once the Palestine Jewish
community decides that the doublecross
is global.

*

*

*

DISSERVICE
A little bomb was planted in Jerusalem
last week which passed unnoticed follow-
ing repercussions of the bombing of the
King David Hotel. The little bomb, be-
longing to the stench category, was an edi-
torial in the otherwise respectable Hebrew
daily, Haaretz, which called for the resig-
nation of the Executives of the Jewish
Agency and the Vaad Leuumi, although
the Executives admittedly are blameless
for the King David Hotel outrage. A new
leadership must come to power, said Haa-
retz, that would fight the terrorists. We
are afraid that the new' leadership Haa-
retz dreams of (perhaps Dr. Magnes and
persons of Aliyah Chadashah) is hardly
capable of any fight, whether it be against
terrorism or against Britain. The prestige
of Irgun and the Sternites rose in direct
ratio to the fall of the prestige of the mod-
erates. Had the moderates been less mod-
erate, Irgun and the Sternites would have
found themselves without followers. Be-
sides, we don't think that it is in order for
us to change leadership and thus tacitly
admit that all Palestine was an accom-
plice to the King David Hotel bombing.
And we still agree with Davar that the pri-
mary objective of Palestine Jewry is to
fight the White Paper.
*
*
*
JOKE OF THE WEEK
Foreign Secretary Bevin "promised to
end the system of visas that 'stop people
moving about the world'," according to a
New York Times dispatch. He qualified it
by stating that Britain was anticipating
a large turn-over of terrorists.

* * *

ACRE JAIL
Palestine law does not distinguish be-
tween criminal and political offenders,
Jewish political prisoners are herded with
Arab criminals. At Acre jail, a medieval
fortress with underground dungeons, san-
Rau conditions and medical arrange-
ments are such that Jewish political pris-
oners are exposed to perilous contagion
from the scrofulous dregs of Arab society.
The food is oriental, oily, and it takes a
European only three to six months of this
fare to get ulcers, and three months in the
dungeons to become afflicted with arthri-
tis. The food is unpalatable and there is
too little of it. Special treatment is recom-
mended in some cases, primarily for the
young among the political prisoners. This
entitles them to have food sent in from
the outside.

The guards at Acre are Arabs who know
no language but their own; prisoners who
do not understand Arabic and therefore do
not respond as rapidly as their jailors ex-
pect them to, are beaten for "infractions"
of the prison regulations.
*
*
*
INCOG-NUT-0
Judge William V. Daly of the Chicago
Felony Court has ordered a Behavior
Clinic examination for Charles Ander-
son, Jr., recently-defeated anti-Semitic
candidate for Congress who shot a 15-
year-old boy, according to the Home
Front newsletter. Said Judge Daly, I
wish to see whether Anderson has "a cog
or two loose upstairs." If all the loose
cogs in the heads of the rabid anti-
Semites were meshed and attached to a
motor, they might accomplish something
useful.

For I Was a Jew

Friday, August 2, 1946

/

By Laya G.
A 14-Year-Old Ottawa, Canada, Girl
I stood and watched her standing there,
Large dark eyes and curly hair,
A coloured girl, dressed in rags
Undoubtedly made from sugar bags.
She looked up, stared into my face
Conscious she was one of that lone black
race,
And I looked back, wondering if she knew
We had something in common
For I was a Jew.

The Arab League in recent months has been putting on a great verbal demon-
stration of its fealty to democracy. The Secretary General of the League has charged
that Jewish immigrants to Palestine spread "reactionary ideas."
The Arab High Committee cried out that proposals of the Anglo-American
Commission on Palestine were "high treason to democracy." And in answer to
the Commission recommendation that 100,000 Jews be given immediate entry to
Palestine, the High Committee demanded instead, "Establishment of an Arab inde-
pendent, democratic state in Palestine."
Fine words. And tricky ones. For they conceal a last-ditch attempt to preserve
a decaying stronghold of tyranny and mass exploitation. Nothing makes that
plainer than recent events in the leading Arab League state of Egypt.
Eleven cultural groups and the same number of publications, including the
organ of the opposition Wafd Party, were closed down this week by the Egyptian
police. Naturally, the charge is "Communism." Commented New. York Times' cor-
respondent Clifton Daniel on that hoary dodge so beloved of modern tyrants,
"Many of these (arrested) people would not by any known definition in western
countries be considered other than Liberals or Socialists."
The Christian Science Monitor sums it up this way, "King Farouk . . . seems
determined to continue his more or less dictatorial regime. His rule and that of
the wealthy Egyptian upper classes are increasingly threatened . . ."
No wonder. Here is a nation where four million peasants own less than an
acre of land and one per cent of the population owns three-fourths of the tillable
area; a nation in which at least 90 per cent of the people suffer from one or another
of the diseases of poverty.
It is to protect such a corrupt system, not only in Egypt but throughout the
Middle East, that the Arab League wages war on liberals within and on Jewish
immigrants—bearing progressive ideas—from without. We have to hand it to the
League, though. The "democracy" angle is a shrewd, demagogic touch.

Purely Commentary

THE FORGED FRANKLIN 'PROPHECY'
An old hoax is making the rounds again
in American society.
Last week, a post card arrived at the
Detroit office of Amalgamated Clothing
Workers of America reviving the outrage-
ous libel that Benjamin Franklin had
warned the United States that the Jew
"is a great danger."
This forgery was exposed 10 years ago.
Leading historians proved that the state-
ment ascribed by the anti-Semites to the
Journal of Charles Pinckney was a lie.
But the bigots are distributing it again.
It becomes necessary therefore - to revive
the facts regarding the lie so that Jews
may know how to deal with the falsehood
when it faces them so starkly and so
brutally.
*
*
*
BENJAMIN FRANKLIN VINDICATED
The good name of Benjamin Franklin
had to be vindicated, and outstanding
authorities joined in condemning the libel.
Nearly 10 years ago, the American Jew-
ish Congress published a pamphlet under
the title: "Benjamin Franklin Vindicated:
An Exposure of the Franklin 'Prophecy'
by American Scholars."
Among the scholars who contributed
articles to this pamphlet were: Dr. Charles
A. Beard, eminent historian; Dr. Henry
Butler Allen, director of the Franklin
Institute in Philadelphia; Alfred Rigling,
librarian of the Franklin Insitute; J. Henry
Smythe, Jr., compiler of "The Amazing
Benjamin Franklin;" Julian Boyd, librar-
ian of the Historical Society of Pennsyl-
vania; Carl Van Doren, eminent writer
and lecturer, author of "Benjamin
Franklin."
Historian Beard called the forgery "pure
fabrication."
Mr. Smythe made this declaration:
"As founder of 'Franklin Day,' as a
graduate of the University of Pennsylvania
founded by Dr. Franklin, and as a member
of the Benjamin Franklin Committee of
the National Society, Sons of the American
Revolution, I vehemently protest against
the circulation of anti-Jewish statements
wrongly attributed to Franklin. The libel
of the Jewish race is unjust both to Jews
and to the name and fame of Benjamin
Franklin. Numerous Franklin authorities
have exposed this hoax. I too have in-
vestigated this calumny and find no his-
torical basis."
But in 1946, after a lull in the spread
of this libel during the war years, when
Nazism was held in disgrace, this Nazi-
fabricated lie again is being circulated by
fools and bigots.
*
*
*
A 1937 REFUTATION
Turn to the issue of March 10, 1937. of
the Detroit Free Press, and you will find
a two-column refutation of the Franklin
"forgery", by this Commentator, who then
acted in his capacity as chairman of the
Detroit Chapter of the American Jewish
Congress.
At that time, we traced the forgery to
Nazi Propaganda Minister Goebbels' news-
paper Der Angriff. Copying the Nazis,
American anti-Semites spread the libel
in this country in 1934. In 1935 it was
printed in. Julius Streicher's Der Stuermer.
The Free Press nine years ago quoted
as folloWs:
"Dr. Beard first became suspicious of
the 'authenticity of the document after
seeing it printed as the secret diary of
Charles Pinckney, one of the framers of
the Constitution, in Liberation, a paper
run by William Dudley Pelley, of the Silver
Shirts (a Fascist organization in this
country).
"He came across it again as a release
sent Out by Robert Edward Edmondson

By PHILIP
SLOMOVITZ

Strictly
Confidential

By PHINEAS J. BIRON

Copyright, 1946, Seven Arts
Feature Syndicate, Inc.

GUEST COLUMNIST:
PIERRE VAN PAASSEN
Our good friend Pierre van Paassen has
generously consented to pinch hit for us
this week . . . His exclusive story why he
wrote his latest best-seller, "Earth Could
Be Fair" is a personal document of real
interest .. . We give you Pierre van Paas-
sen.—P. J. B.
*
*
*
"MY FATHERLAND IS WHEREVER
LIBERTY IS THREATENED"
By Pierre van Paassen
In the writing of "Earth Could Be Fair"
there has been no attempt to propagate
or defend any cause or idea, unless it is
an ideal to deal with the only cause I can
recognize, conscience.
I have sought in a simple manner to
picture the life of a generation, my own
generation, which began tranquilly enough
in the mellow atmosphere of the turn of
the last century and which ends in the
years now passing over us, years of chal-
lenge and of tumult that try the souls of
men. I give the story of my school-fellows,
and show how some of them waged the
struggle of free men for the undying fa-
therland which is beyond the land of our
birth.
Yet "Earth Could Be Fair" is not a war
book, although the war, inevitably, ob-
trudes here and there on the story. Fac-
ing open-eyed all the dangers this in- -
volves, some of these boys and men I
know would rather and actually did rather
repudiate life than the leadings of the
spirit. This was the case with Ary Brandt,
the burgomaster's son, with David Dalma-
den, the Jewish charity student, with Al-
fons Boogaert, who became a Catholic
priest, and with Adriana van Alphen, the
daughter of a wealthy family whose love
was stronger than an army with banners,
and who, all of them, might have avoided
the bitter struggle in which they became
involved, as so many managed to avoid it,
had they not been drawn ineluctably to
take sides when justice was involved. Their
feeling was that of the Italian volunteer
in the South African war who said : "My
fatherland is wherever liberty is threat-
ened," be that in the schoolroom, in the
playground, in the office or factory, or
wheresoever.
Yet again, "Earth Could Be Fair" is not
a thesis, a political or theological argu-
ment, nor a lay sermon. It is fashioned out
of the superabundance of life. It is not
fiction. It's a story, a chronicle of events
from the lives of six or seven Dutch peo-
ple, now interwoven, now separated as the
destinies of unseen brothers whose hands
nevertheless touch each others' and V I hope,
the readers'.
They are ordinary people who eat, drink,
love, quarrel, laugh, weep, fight, triumph
or go under. They are average men and
women, and the story is concerned with
what the critical years did to their minds.
My reason for writing this book was a
secret hope that unknown strangers may
derive some enjoyment out of its pages,
and, perchance, too, learn compassion,
greater compassion. For this is the high-
est heroism and the highest good; to
know life and still to live it, to know men
and yet to love them.

who, Dr. Beard said, has -been termed a
Nazi agent in this country, through the
Edmondson Economic Service of New
York."
*
*
*
TRACING THE LIBEL
Dr. Beard decided to investigate the
authenticity of the diary when quotations
from it began to appear in German and
Swiss newspapers. He asked Edmondson
for the source of the Franklin anti-Semitic
quotations and learned that they came
from Madison Grant of New York.
It was revealed by Dr. Beard that Grant
admitted he "had no information what-
ever as to the authenticity of the paper."
Dr. Beard noted obvious anachronisms
of speech and style in the forgery and
declared that it could not possibly have
been an authentic transcript of Franklin's
words. The eminent historian stated:
"Franklin not only did not utter the
sentiments expressed in the prophecy, but
there is positive evidence that he held
Jews in high regard. When the Hebrew
Society of Philadelphia sought to raise
money for a synagogue, Franklin signed
the petition of appeal for contributions to
citizens of every religious denomination
and himself gave five pounds to the fund."
Thus, the battle to expose falsehoods
goes on, our major problem being on how
to reach the masses, whose minds may be
poisoned by falsehoods which have been
exposed by great historians.
*
*
*
THE 'PROTOCOLS' IN WINDSOR
Closer to home, we were shocked last
week to find a reputable newspaper like
the Windsor Daily Star offering a platform
to a correspondent who gives credence to
another outrageous libel, the discredited
"Protocols of the Elders of Zion."
On July 16, the Windsor Star published
a letter from E. Claridge of Chatham
under the heading "Writer Comments
About Jewish Question," and gave its
columns to the following concluding words
in this letter:
"If the Protocols of Zion (I believe there
were 24 of them) that were the cause of
a court action before the courts of Geneva
in 1933, when the courts ordered the
Zionist party to pay the costs of the court,
amounting to some 30,000 francs, could
be published by the local press, they would,
I believe, make clear much that at present
is clouded in mystery and uncertainty."
By printing this letter, the editors of the
Windsor newspaper permit some people to
fall into error of believing that the writer
was relating the truth.
As a matter of fact, the Geneva court
Prof. Jacob R. Marcus of the Hebrew
established the falsehood of the "Proto- Union College tells in his "Jews in Amer-
cols." When Rev. Charles E. Coughlin ican Life," that "when the United States
published them he was challenged by facts Constitution was adopted on July 4, 1788,
and figures repudiating his hate-rousing Raphael Jacob Cohen, Minister of Mickve
campaign. For more than 25 years re- Israel (Philadelphia) marched in the pro-
sponsible Christians have led the fight cession in honor of the occasion. A con-
against this libel.
temporary writer wrote: 'The Clergy
But our neighbor in Windsor again offers formed a very agreeable part of the pro-
a platform to an officially refuted lie!
cession. They manifested by their attend-
*
*
*
ance, their sense of the connection be-
FIGHT TO PREVENT TREACHERY
tween religion and good government. They
Great Britain, having perpetrated a po- amounted to seventeen in number. Four
grom upon the Jews of Palestine, now and five marched arm in arm with each
seeks to complete her job with Hitlerian other, to exemplify the Union. Pains were
taken to connect ministers of the most
methods.
Reports from Palestine indicate that dissimilar religious principles together;
during the raids upon Jewish colonies thereby to show the influence of a free
British soldiers were permitted to loot government in promoting Christian char-
stores and to insult Jewish women.
ity. The Rabbi of the Jews, locked in the
Now, British authorities, under the cloak arms of two ministers of the Gospel, was
of liberalism supposedly represented by a a most delightful sight. There could not
labor government, undertakes to set up a have • been a more happy emblem con-
trived of that section of the new consti-
ghetto for Jews in Palestine.
But the Jews of Palestine won't stand tution, which opens all its powers and
for it. The Jews in the United States won't offices alike, not only to every sect of
tolerate it. The Jews in England won't Christians, but to worthy men of everY
religion'."
approve it.

Arm in Arm

