Anti-Defamation League Activities

In an article on the “ADL spy network” (April 17), the regional director of the Anti-Defamation League was quoted as saying that the ADL has a “right to educate the public about what critics of Israel say and write.” What he is implying is that Americans who criticize Israel are suspect.

I challenge the ADL to educate the public about what many respected and credible Jewish critics of Israel say and write. Many Israelis and American Jews are working hard to bring self-respect to Israel, to pull it out of the scandal of its human rights violations and flouting of international law.

In your editorial (April 14), you appropriately acknowledged the ADL’s good works in combatting racism, and we join you in that. Then you went on to express your understanding of why the ADL would surveil such groups as the KKK and the White Aryan Resistance but gently scolded them for collecting information on respectable organizations such as the NAACP, Greenpeace, and the United Farm Workers, plus several members of Congress.

In the files seized by police from the ADL’s offices, 4,500 of the 12,000 names contained in those files were names of Arab-Americans--clearly the principal target of the ADL’s politically motivated spying. Yet, in your listing of the “good guys,” Arab-Americans were conspicuously absent. Can you imagine how offensive and dangerous your implication is? While I would assume it was inadvertent, you have many readers who might not.

DONALD S. BUSTANY, President

American-Arab Anti-Discrimination

Committee, Los Angeles