Fuad Isa Shatara

Dr. Fuad Isa Shatara, president of the Arab National League of America, was listed by the police yesterday as a suicide after his body had been found in his offices, where he also lived, at 153 Clinton Street, Brooklyn. He was 48 years old. A note Dr. Shatara left for his wife, before taking poison, said: “My nerves are frayed, my health undermined, and I cannot go on any longer.”

Dr. Shatara, where organization represented some 10,000 persons of Arab and Syrian nationality or origin in this country, often spoke at meetings and forums. Born in Palestine, Shatara presented the Arab views on the Palestine question. A graduate of the New York College of Physicians and Surgeons, Dr. Shatara had been on the medical staff of the Cumberland Hospital for twenty years.

NSNL New Syria National League (Jamʿiyyat Suriya al-Jadida al-Wataniyya). Established in New York City and Boston in 1918. Chairman Jurj Ilyas Khayrallah. Executive members included Najeeb Saleeby, Faris Malouf, Fuad  Shatara, Philip K. Hitti, and Abraham Mitrie Rihbany. Promoted independence for greater Syria and, in 1919, a United States Mandate in cooperation with the Arab nationalist movement. Aligned with Cairo's Syrian Moderate Party and Buenos Aires' Free Democratic Nationalist Party. Disbanded after 1920, but reemerged in Michigan in 1925 as the New Syria Party.

Dr. Fuad Shatara, whom it is reported is to be appointed the Arabian minister to the United States by King Hussein of the Hedjaz. He will be the first officially accredited representative from an Arabian state to a Christian country since the fall of Arabian rale in Spain. He is an American citizen, having become naturalized while studying medicine at Harvard universify. He was born in Palestine.

Time. (1924). United States: Time Incorporated, p. 12. Mar 3, 1924.

Woman's Club Lecture... Dr. Shatara, a native of Palestine...

"The Arab feels that Palestine does not belong to one country, and never will, but wants the right of the majority to decide, there being 80 per cent Arabian and 20 per cent Jewish inhabltants."

For many months now the front pages of the world have- been crowded with the blow by blow description of a struggle which has finally reached the United Nations . . . The problem has been how to find a place under the warm Palestinian sun for the living skeletons who, from 1933, suffered the foul tortures of Hitler's fevered brain.

Arrayed against this pitiful group of human beings is a wicked clique of men who, despite their hostility to the Allies, have been granted powerful voices within the United Nations. Sitting on the sidelines — and whipsawed by the Arabs into hatred for one another— are the United States and Great Britain. . .

This week, a United Nations Committee decided to hear all the facts. The Arabs answered with threats of war. War is a horrible crime. Now, then, is the time to point an accusing finger at the real criminals — and to document the charge with incontrovertible evidence.

The whole Arab world is led by a Hitler stooge, a dictator in his own right. His name: Haj Amin El Husseini— otherwise known as the Grand Mufti of Jerusalem.

Those who speak for the Arab cause (at the UN) do so under his direct supervision and control. Here, in a capsule, is the political career of this Arabian Fuehrer. In Iraq, Italy and Germany, the Grand Mufti organized Arab legions to foul up the Allies in 'Europe and Africa. He stimulated the Baghdad pogrom (in '4l) resulting in the murder of 400 innocents. He inspired a revolt by the Iraq army against Great Britain in April '41. When the Iraq revolt flopped he fled to Italy as Mussolini's guest. In December '41 he went to Berlin where Hitler set him up in a special office with branches in Germany and Italy— for propaganda, espionage and sabotage against the Allies. The Mufti didn't spend his time playing parchesi. 'He had offices in Istanbul and Geneva; in Athens established a sabotage school; in the Hague trained students in wireless transmission, high explosives and demolitions; parachuted agents into Turkey, Syria and Iraq to cut telephone wires, oil pipe lines, and to sabotage railways and bridges . . .

And who has this great "statesman" chosen as his spokesmen beiore the United Nations Assembly?

Have a few looks:

Dr. F. Jamali: Chief spokesman for the Arab League and Foreign Minister of Iraq, a country that fought in World War II as an Axis partner. British intelligence describes this Iraqueteer as the principal agitator for the Nazi movement in Iraq. Jamali calls himself an "educator" — but the British Defense Security Office says: "In 1937 Dr. Jamali. at that time Director-General of Education, visited Germany where he was accorded an official welcome and was lavishly entertained. On his return Dr. Jamali was prevailed upon by the Germans to send a delegation to the Nuremberg Rally of 1938. A delegation was sent and the Iraq youth movement was reorganized on the lines of the Hitler Jugend. The Iraq Ministry of Education (headed by Jamali) worked actively on behalf of the Germans against the British and against the interests of their own country."

Farrid Zein ed Din: Syria's gift to the UN Assembly and one of the Arabs' most important representatives. In 1941 this man was arrested as an Axis agent by the Allies in Syria and thrown into prison for three years. When freed he was immediately welcomed back by his pro-Nazi Iraquislings — to become an important spokesman at the U.N. in the U. S.

Emil Ghouri: He pronounces his name "GORY" (how accurate!) ... This Arabilbo is the chief of the York. three-man delegation sent by the Arab Higher Committee to the UN. . . British Intelligence brands Ghouri as a Chief Advisor to the Grand Mufti—when the master .war criminal was organizing the Iraq Rebellion against the British. B. I nails this Arabum as "responsible for propaganda, intrigue 'and subversive activities inside and outside of Iraq" during the dark -days when the English were being crushed from the East and West by the Nazi blitzkrieg.

Wasef Kamal: A delegate of the Arab Higher Committee to the UN — and a close pal of the Grand Nazi... This Arabigot was Hitler's honored guest in Berlin. He was so bad that the British excluded him from the amnesty they granted to other Arab leaders. Which apparently qualified him as an Arabian spokesman. Before the Arab League sent its flunkies to the UN the groundwork for its position was set in the U.S by imported sympathizers.

Ahmed Hussein: Arrived in the U S. a few months ago as a "correspondent" for Cairo newspapers, By his own admission he-is a high- pressure Arab press agent. Hussein is the head of the Fascist "Young Egypt" Party and and a pal of the Grand [Mufti]. Was the chief speaker at a recent New York meeting of the German -American Republican League — organized by two convicted hate-peddlers named Kurt Mertig and Ernest Elmhurst.

H. L. Katibah: Old-time professional Arab propagandist and editor-in-chief for the Institute of Arab-American Affairs. This outfit is the successor to the Arab National League which (prior to Pearl Harbor) cooperated closely with the Nazi German-American Bund. The late president of the Arab National League, Dr. Shatara scurried around, speaking before pro-Nazi organizations in the U. S. Katibah and his Institute of Arab-American Affairs continue feeding the American public the "truth about Palestine."

These are the men who now tell the people of the world (gathered at the United Nations) how to establish "justice for all" in the Holy Land. Since 1935 these Arabandists have been part and parcel of the Nazi propaganda and military machines.

Now, May, 1947, Hitler's, Fifth Column has emerged from its burrow in Asia to raise its voice in the Boro of Queens. This Arabnoxious clique makes Britain look like a monster, the U. S. a puppet, and the Jewish people (millions of whom died fighting the Axis) carpet-baggers. Give these Arabs hoods to match their sheets and you've got — that's right!— an Asiatic Knights of the Ku Klux Klan. Or in lusty lingo — phony Arabian Knights.

Well, the middle East undercover men are now out in the open. The only thing missing is the goose step, but an Arab's sandal on the neck of freedom feels the same to the people whose face is being pushed into the dirt. The Arabs, by their own admission, describe the economy of their country as depending upon the unpaid servant class.

In plain English, this means slavery.

[...] Outstanding publicist for the various Arab groups involved is H. I. Katibah, editor of the monthly Bulletin, and of other publications of the Institute for Arab-American Affairs, Inc. Katibah, the Anti-Nazi League charges, was one of the original incorporators and most active workers in the notorious Arab National League, founded shortly after Hitler seized the German chancellorship and incorporated at New York in 1938, and used to disseminate totalitarian propaganda among Americans of Near Eastern antecedents. The Arab National League operated in close association with the German-American Bund, then under the leadership of Fritz Kuhn, and its activities were regularly reported in the Nazi newspaper, Deutscher Weckruf und Beobachter, until that publication was sealed up by the FBI after the attack on Pearl Harbor. In addition to Katibah, whose name appears near the top of the institute's letterhead, it is significant that both the original bund-associated body and the present institute were formed under New York corporate charters containing much identical language and written by the same lawyers. Furthermore, the names of several of the other top officers of the institute, including the present chairman of its executive committee, are to be found among the names of the eight original incorporators of the old bund-associated Arab National League. This same H. I. Katibah, on May 2, 1946, and again on May 9, 1946, was the signer of full-page paid advertisement appearing in a number of principal newspapers, advancing the propaganda cause of the Arab League, and attributed to a high nebulous source called the League for peace with justice in Palestine. The original announcement address of the latter organization is merely the address of an advertising agency located at 345 Madison Avenue, New York City.

The President of the Arab National League, the late Dr. F. I. Shatara, according to Deutscher Weckruf und Beobachter articles and other published reports, addressed many pro-Nazi groups, including meetings of Fritz Kuhn's German-American Bund and of the German Citizens Protective League. (The head of the latter organization, Kurt Mertig, was recently sentenced to jail for inciting to riot at a Queens County, N. Y., Christian Front meeting).

Arab Racist Propaganda Rebuked by Judge. Extension of Remarks by Hon. Arthur G. Klein June 19, 1948

... The most conspicuous Arab publicist in the United States, H.I. Katibah, was revealed as the author of the lead article on pro-Hitler propaganda monthly published in Boston, Mass., in 1933.

On May 5, 1948, Hon. Maurice Simmons, Justice of the Court of Special Sessions (New York), dismissed a complaint for criminal libel made by Habib I. Katibah against the publisher of the New York Daily Mirror. The complaint was based upon ...a Winchell column published in the Mirror on May 16 , 1947. Mr. Justice Simmons ' opinion upon which his dismissal of the complaint was based, is so revealing of Katibah and his associates that we feel that we are performing a public service by publishing the greater part of it.

We quote:

While the determination of the future political status of Palestine was the subject of debate before the Assembly of the United Nations at Lake Success, New York, in which the participants were primarily the representatives of the Arab nations and the Jewish Agency, there was published in the May 16th , 1947 issue of the New York Daily Mirror the following column: 'WALTER WINCHELL IN NEW YORK; Meet the Arabianazis ...

Corporation brought by Habib L. Katibah was dismissed recently by Judge Maurice Simmons following a hearing in a Manhattan Magistrate's Court. The suit was based upon unflattering statements about Katibah which appeared in two Walter Winchell columns in Hearst's morning paper, the N. Y. Mirror. Simmons, after examining the evidence linking Katibah with pro-Nazis and anti-Semitic propagandists, held that charges made in the Winchell columns "were a very feeble understatement." [...] Indicative of the essence of his propaganda and the calibre of his collaborators is the leading article authored by him, and other contributions in the July 15th, 1936 issue of the WORLD MONTHLY, chief pro-Arab ́mouthpiece in America.

One of these scripts by DR. FAUD SHATARA identified in Winchell's column as president of the Arab National League, of which complainant was ex-ecutive director and secretary, is entitled 'Palestine Belongs to the Arabs,' and bears the imprint of the swastika, which at that time was casting its sinister shadow over the European Continent. These two opening articles are reinforced by those of anonymous writers, from which latter typical excerpts are:

'No one can deny that the most brutal wars in all history were fought by the Crusaders in the name of the Cross. The wild beasts of Europe had no more conception of Christianity than the people of the Old Stone Age . . . The land which witnessed a great deal of the Crusaders ' savageness and brutality is witnessing today another horrible con- quest of a peaceful, God-fearing people. British soldiers are massacring innocent children and women in the Holy Land. Zionism and Jewish capita[sic]l add to the misery inflicted upon the owners of Palestine. Thus we see a Crusade repeated, but not in the name of the Cross this time. It is rather in the name of ...'

'Palestine can never become Jewish. It belonged to the Arabs. It still belongs to them; it shall always belong to them; and there is no power on earth that will ever succeed in taking it away from them. The Jews never had a home and never will have one....'

'Will Mussolini and Hitler fall for "British scheming? There a no question that Mussolini is determined to fight to the end. He does not believe in starting and quitting . He did not quit one in fight yet. Hitler has won every battle he waged diplomatically; so he will not th quit.'

'No sensible observer can believe that Hitler will arrive at his objective by by force . He loves peace and thinks that peaceful efforts are more resourceful than force.' [...] the fez that crowns his brow lacks the traditional crescent of the Orient. It is replaced by a swastika in flaming red Bedeck- wing both fez and swastika is the accolade, 'THE HITLER OF PALESTINE.' BENEATH THE PORTRAIT IS THE OLYMPIAN COMMENDATION, 'BENITO'S SINCERE FRIEND AND HITLER'S SYMPATHIZER.' [...] The MUFTI, the FUEHRER and IL DUCE, these are the trinity of humanitarians who fill pedestals in KATIBAH'S Hall of Fame. The caption of complainant's article heralds the Grand Mufti as 'His Eminence, Haj Ameen El Husseini, the head of the Supreme Moslem Council of Palestine and President of The Arab Higher Committee ...'

- Grand Mufti confers with Hitler -

Each of its phrases is headily perfumed with laudation of his Arabian demi - God - the great leader and patriot, with whom he boasts he was closely associated in the work of the Arab National League. He charges that 'Zionism is a criminal...

But more of this Mufti who seeks to stand astride the Arab World as the direct lineal descendant of Mahomet, True Pro _ phet of Allah. The exhibits in this proceeding drape his figure with the guilt of abhorrent criminality, as do the archives of the Allied War Crimes Commission.

Through the tragic web of the recent decades runs the black thread of his Machiavellian designs and deeds, which have earned for him the title of 'THE MURDEROUS MUFTI.' In his striving to seize power in Palestine he instigated the assassination of the influential NASHISHIBI family , respected by all the Palestinian Arabs. His gangsters purged hundreds of other leading Islamites , whom he regarded as obstacles to the attainment of his evil goals. Until his irruption in the Holy Land, both Jew and Arab had lived in friendly neighborliness.

Not only did he kindle the flames of pogrom and massacre in the Middle East, but he joined hands with HITLER, MUSSOLINI and HIROHITO to balk the allies.

Warned in 1937 of his impending arrest for the murder of thousands of Arabs, Britons and Jews, he fled Jerusalem.

In October, 1941 he discussed in Italy with MUSSOLINI, CIANO and ALFIERI a proposed Arab-Italian collaboration against the Allies . Under the supervision of GOEBBELS he broadcast against the Allied cause from Berlin and also directly from Rome, and by transcription from Tokyo. The United States Monitor Service on March 4th, 1944 recorded his message to the Arab World: 'Arabs! Arise as one and fight for your sacred rights. Kill the Jews wher- ever you find them . This pleases God, history and religion. This saves your honor. God is with you.' [...] On November 3rd, 1943, in one of his numerous exhortations to the Arabs, he broadcast from Berlin: 'The treaty of Versailles was a disaster for the Germans as well as Europe. But the Germans know how to get rid of the Jews. That which brings us close to the Germans and sets us up in their camp is that up to today the Germans never harmed any Moslem and are fighting our common enemy who persecute the Arabs and the Moslems.'

On the front page of the WIENER ILLUSTRIERTE ZEITUNG, in 1943, he is photographed in the regalia of a Moslem potentate reviewing a group of Mohammedan Storm Troopers, whom he had recruited in Yugoslavia to fight with the Nazi Army.

DR. SHATARA, whose article in the WORLD MONTHLY is headlighted by Pamphlet by Ahmad Hussein, Egyptian propagandist for the Arab cause..

.. the swastika, was linked intimately with the complainant in pro-Arab strategy, propaganda and ideology. As already stated, SHATARA was President and KATIBAH the executive director and secretary of the ARAB NATIONAL LEAGUE. The latter revered him 'as one of the great leaders of Arab-Americans.' The subterranean activities of the former won for him the imprimatur of the DEUTSCHE WECKRUF UND BEOBACHTER, official organ of FRITZ KUHN'S GERMAN-AMERICAN BUND the little Fuehrer, convicted and jailed by our Courts and later deported to Germany.

SHATARA sowed the seeds of subversion with the notorious KURT MERTIG, the would - be Storm Trooper, condemned and incarcerated for inciting a riotous assembly, where he had distributed copies of the infamous tract known as the 'Protocols of the Elders of Zion.'

SHATARA associated with the slimy creatures, bigoted, traitorous or semi- psychotic, who filled the letter - boxes of the public and their own reptilian news sheets, with corrosive Fascistic un-American propaganda. Immediately after the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, the agents of the FBI being hot on his heels, he commited suicide. This Arabian patriot also fills a niche in his disciple's Hall of Fame.

THE WORLD SERVICE of March, 1938, published in Erfurt, Germany, by the official German Propaganda Office, recommended to our people that we help save America from the folly of other nations by having them subscribe and contribute to the support of certain organizations, included in which are the JAPANESE CHAMBER OF COMMERCE and the ARAB NATIONAL LEAGUE.

There was nothing in Winchell's column that had not already been published in leading newspapers and periodicals and which had not been presented to the American public by its Representatives in Congress. The sources for Winchell's articles are authoritative and impressive. The substance of the accusations made by him had appeared in both the European and American press, sponsored by distinguished journalists and publicists. What Winchell did was to fashion verbal bayonets from this mass of published subversive material. With these weapons he struck at the nest of alien pro-Nazi, pro-Fascist and pro-Arab reptiles, who were poisoning the arteries of American public opinion. His bitter, unorthodox and epigram- matic words helped arouse millions from their lethargy to a knowledge of the menace that was at work in our homeland. His barbed words were bullets, aimed at the vitals of a strange tribe of saboteurs, who had trooped here from their feudal lands in the Middle East... The personalities excoriated by Winchell presumably were diplomatic or political figures, involved in a transaction of vital historial import. The situation is summarized in the opening paragraph of the columnist's article: 'For many months now the front pages of the world have been crowded with the blow by blow description of a struggle which has finally reached the United Nations.. The problem has been how to find a place under the warm Palestinian sun for the living skeletons who, from 1933 had suffered from the foul tortures of Hitler's fevered brain.'

Here was a new story of global dimension, resonant in press, screen and radio. The columnist's attack was levelled at a system, an ideology, the Arab world itself. Not the private lives of the individuals paragraphed, but their public performances were inveighed against.

The late Justice Bright of the Southern District of New Yotk said: "If the public is to be aided in forming its judgment upon matters of public interest by a free interchange of opinions signal public service. A paradoxical it is essential that honest criticism and comment, no matter how foolish or prejudiced, be privileged.'..

And further: 'The accused article itself can hardly be called a scientific monograph. It bears evidence, as Judge Crane wrote in the Briarcliff case.. ... Complainant takes umbrage at the use of the hybrid terms, 'Arabashtid,' 'Arabigots' and the other verbal ephemera, which seems to spring in such promiscuous profusion from the caustic quill of this stormy petrel of columnar journalism. The Winchell-ogism 'Arabashtid' is not found in the Oxford dictionary of English or in Mencken's opus on American Slang. Grant that this exotic linguistic concoction is the equivalent of the words with the I.Q. of Mortimer Snerd could find therein any denigration of the chastity of the mothers of the Arabian group of representatives. Let it again be stressed that this verbal barrage was levelled not at in- dividuals , as such, but at the political principles and powers that they represented.

The Court is compelled to the conclusion that complainant has failed to establish a prima facie case either of criminal libel or of conspiracy to commit a crime.

By their timely unmasking of the motives and background of the Arabian agents, participating in the dispute before the United Nations Assembly, the defendants rendered a phenomenon of recent years has been the attempt by the spokesman of absolute rulers and totalitarian states to use our courts in an endeavor to sup press the freedom of our press, a freedom which is non-existent in au- tocratic regimes.

In the present proceeding this Court will not sanction any such attempt to undermine this pillar of the American Bill of Rights.

The motion of the defendants to dismiss the complaint is granted.

Walter Winchell. Judge Dismisses Libel Action Against Winchell. From the Associated Press May 5th. "Special Sessions Justice M. Simmons, in dismissing a complaint of criminal libel against the Daily Mirror the Hearst Corporation and said: 'The remarks in Winchell's column about him (H. I. Katibah) are a very feeble understatement and characterization'."

Memo from Girl Friday:

"The judge delivered a lengthy oral opinion in which he said you and the Daily Mirror 'had made, a great contribution to the public welfare in printing the Meet the Arabianazis column'."

Dr. Fuad Isa Shatara, Brooklyn physician and president of the Arab National League, was listed by the police yesterday afternoon as a suicide after his body had been found in his offices, where he also lived, at 153 Clinton Street, Brooklyn. He was 48 years old.

Arabs Linked American Fascists.

New York (JPS) Documentary evidence that the Arab Office in Washington and affiliated pan-Arabic propaganda agencies in the United States are closely allied with native fascist individuals and groups in a widespread propaganda campaign to stir up hatred against the Jews, in an attempt for Arab demands in Palestine, has been presented to President Truman by the Non-Sectarian Anti-Nazi League. The League urges President Truman to institute immediately an investigation of the Arab Office and its network of agencies to determine whether their propaganda activities might have been financed directly by funds made available to the Arab League countries, through lendlease, or indirectly, through the treasury of a third power, and whether these activities violate the Foreign Agents Registration Act or other United States Statutes.

The Arab Office in Washington is registered with the Justice Department as American agent for the seven Arab countries which constitute the Arab League.

According to documents presented to the President by the Anti-Nazi League. Anwar Bekir Nashashibi, of the Arab Office’s executive staff, on occasion joined forces with Gerald L. K. Smith, America First party leader, the National Blue Star Mothers of Pennsylvania and similar groups, in the promotion of anti-Semitic propaganda In Philadelphia, New York and else where.

Also involved in these activities are Khlousy Khairy, officially registered Secretary Director of the Arab Office, and other members of the staff.

The Anti-Nazi League also charged, in its presentation to President Truman, that leaders of the old Nazi-supported Arab National League, including former associates of Bund Fuehrer Fritz Kuhn, currently are active in pan-Arabic propaganda, through the Institute of Arab American Affairs, Inc. H. I. Katibah, whose name appears on the Institute’s letterhead, is the signer of several full-page advertisements in The New York City press assailing Zionism and soliciting American members and funds for the Institute. The Anti-Nazi League also presented documented evidence of anti-Jewish activities by Arabs in South America, particularly in Argentina.

"Truman Urged to Investigate Arab Office in Washington. Non-Sectarian Anti-Nazi League Charges Group With Associating With Anti-Democratic Forces in U. S.; Activities Spreading to Detroit Area." The Detroit Jewish News, May 17, 1946, 8