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The Southern Israelite
A Weekly Newspaper for Southern Jewry - Established 1925
\fol. XLVII Atlanta, Georgia, Friday, July 28, 1972 Two Sections—12 Pages No. 30
in brief.... Nixon’s Policy Vindicated
Kenen Tells Young Republicans
LONDON (JTA) — The
Russians, not the Nazis, prob
ably killed those 11,000 Poles in
Katyn Forest near Smolensk in
1941, according to secret Brit
ish documents released this
week.
Sir Owen O’Malley, then Brit
ish ambassador to Poland, wrote
that “a considerable body of
circumstantial evidence” had
convinced most of his staff of
the Russians’ guilt.
The report said the British de
liberately kept quiet about this
to maintain Allied solidarity.
0 0 •
JERUSALEM (JTA) — The
Foreign Ministry has sharply
rejected an offer by President
Idi Amin of Uganda to buy the
former Israeli embassy building
in Kampala. Amin, who re
cently ousted Israel’s diplomatic
and commercial missions from
Uganda, announced last week
he intended giving the building
to the Palestine Liberation
Organization.
Israel’s rejection was con
veyed via the Italian govern
ment, which has been handling
Israel’s interests in Kampala
since April. Under international
law, property belonging to for
eign embassies remains inviol
ate even when relations be
tween the countries involved
are severed.
• • •
BONN (JTA) — The Jewish
Theater of Warsaw will perform
in West Germany for the first
time in the theater’s history.
The group will perform before
German audiences in various
cities throughout the Federal
Republic.
Performances will be in Ger
man, though the group usually
performs in Yiddish.
An Israeli theatrical troupe
from Tel Aviv is also scheduled
to perform in German cities at
the beginning of 1973, the sour
ces reported.
* • •
JOHANNESBURG (JTA) —
Two South African rabbis have
made guarded expressions of
sympathy for university stu
dents—Jews among them—who
recently clashed with police on
campuses here and in Cape
Town.
Chief Rabbi Bernard Casper
of Johannesburg said he hoped
the Jewish students involved
might show an equal interest in
and understanding of Judaism
and the fortunes of the Jewish
people. Failure to do so indi
cated a confusion of priorities,
he said.
But he also observed that
much wisdom and patience was
needed in dealing with the stu
dent outbursts which, for all
their inconvenience and harass
ment, stem basically from idea
listic motivations.
Rabbi A. H. Lapin, Chief
Minister of the Cape Town He
brew Congregation observed in
a statement to the press that
peaceful protest was part of the
citizen’s right to disagree. He
said those who protested were
obliged to remain within the
law but at the same time were
entitled to protection from vio
lence.
“The exercise of restraint by
authority is as necessary for its
successful function as obedience
to it," Rabbi Lapin declared.
Israel’s 25th Theme
For Jewish Book Month
NEW YORK—The 25th Anni
versary of the State of Israel
will be the theme of Jewish
Book Month which this year
has been designated by the Jew
ish Book Council of the Nation
al Jewish Welfare Board (JWB)
as the period between October
27 and November 26
Israel permeates the program
resources issued by the JWB
Jewish Book Council to assist
in planning programs for Jew
ish Book Month. “Programming
on Israel with Books,” a 26-
page publication by Hannah
Grad Goodman, is available
with program ideas for organi
sations, arts and crafts project
activists and children, drama-
zations, book projects for youth
ideas and other material
WASHINGTON (JTA) — Re
duction of the Soviet military
presence in Egypt has been des
cribed to the Young Republican
National Federation by the
American-Israel Public Affairs
Committee (AIPAC) as having
“vindicated” President Nixon’s
maintenance of Israel’s “deter
rent strength.”
I L. Kenen, AIPAC’s execu
tive vice chairman, in a pre
pared statement that he pro
vided in testifying before the
Federation’s platform committee
at the Washington Hilton Hotel,
said that the purpose of Nixon’s
policy “has been to deter Rus
sians and Egyptians from open
ing a new military offensive.”
“The present developments in
Cairo,” the AIPAC statement
said, “indicate that the Rutsian*
have realized that the Egyptians
are not in a position to win a
new war and that they may not
be ready to make additional
large-scale investments in the
Egyptian military machine.’
The AIPAC statement claim
ed, however, that continued
American military and diplo
matic support for Israel “are
still essential” to “persuade the
Egyptians that they cannot
mount a new war nor win a di
plomatic offensive to force Is-,
rael’s surrender to their terri
torial demands. They should
come to recognize that the only
rational course is a peace ne
gotiated by the parties them
selves.”
The United States should con
tinue, the statement added, to
provide Israel with the military
equipment, necessary financial
credits economic supporting as
sistance and diplomatic backing
to forward this policy.
The statement pointed out
that AIPAC is a non-partisan
organization that does not make
endorsements or participate in
the political campaigns “but
since 1944, we and our predeces
sor organization have always
presented our views to the ad
ministration, to Congress and to
the national political conven
tions.”
“Our proposals,” the statement
said, “have the endorsement of
the Conference of Presidents of
Major American Jewish Organ
izations, which comprise 26 na
tional Jewish organizations. The
American Jewish Committee
also concurs in our recommen
dations,” the AIPAC statement
said.
In its presentation to the
Young Republicans, AIPAC pro
posed the following “key points”
for inclusion in the 1972 Re
publican platform, which are
similar to the ones adopted by
the Democratic Party Conven
tion in Miami Beach namely to:
“1) Promote direct Arab-Israel
negotiations to achieve a final
peace based on agreed and de
fensible frontiers; 2) Maintain
Israel’s deterrent strength by
providing her with planes, soph
isticated equipment and econ
omic supporting assistan c e ;
3) Maintain US strength in Eur
ope and the Mediterranean area
to preserve the balance of
strength and prevent an erup
tion of hostilities; 4) Recognize
Jerusalem as the capital of Is
rael and move the US Embassy
there; 5) Assist Israel and the
Arab states to rehabilitate and
resettle refugees.
Judy Shapiro Asks Bush's
Help To Be With Husband
NEW YORK (JTA) — Judy
Silver Shapiro, tears streaming
down her face and faint from
the Tisha b’Av fast, confronted
US Ambassador to the UN
George Bush on a hot, busy
mid-Manhattan street last week
and pleaded, “My husband, my
husband, Mr. Bush please help
my husband!”
Bush agreed to talk with her
after she and a group of pro
testers had foUowed the ambas
sador from the US Mission to
the restaurant where Bush ate
lunch.
Bush held Mrs. Shapiro’s
hand and promised her that he
'was “doing everything that we
can and will continue to help
you and your husband. Presi
dent 'Nixon is personally con
cerned and very aware of the
happenings in your case.”
Mrs. Shapiro’s attempt to see
Bush began at 11 a.m. July 20
when she and a group of about
50 women and students held a
vigil at Dag Hammarskjold
Plaza near the UN.
The demonstrators were rep
resentatives of the Student
Struggle for Soviet Jewry, the
Long Island Committee for Sov
iet Jewry and 11 national wom
en’s organizations. At noon the
group moved to the US Mission
to the UN.
Mrs. Shapiro, by then feeling
the heat, used a megaphone to
beg Bush, Nixon and the US
government to help her obtain
a visa, to be with her husband
when his trial convenes this
week in Moscow.
Richard E. Combs, Jr., US
Mission advisor on political
and security affairs, emerged
from the building and tried to
comfort Mrs. Shapiro by putting
his arm around her. He walked
her across the street, giving
Bush an opportunity to leave
the Mission to go to lunch.
The demonstrators saw him
leave and followed him to the
restaurant. Once at the restau
rant, Mrs. Shapiro, accompanied
by several women and Glenn
Richter, national coordinator of
the SSSJ, tried to enter the
establishment. They were not
allowed to enter.
The demonstrators formed a
Continued on page 5
Twenty-Fifth Anniversary Year Finds Thousands of Refugees Working In Israel
WOES AND JOYS OF GAZA
By David Horowitz
The woes and joys of the in
habitants of the Gaza Strip are
recounted in a detailed article
appearing in the current News
letter published by the United
Nations Relief and Works Agen
cy for Palestine Refugees in the
Near East (UNRWA).
Considering the lot of ref
ugees, there may not be too
many “joys,’ but, as the writer
points out in the lengthy article,
the woes are far less today
under the Israeli Administra
tion than they were under the
former rigid military rule of
the Egyptians who deliberately
kept the refugees as political
pawns in a state tantamount to
slavery.
The UNRWA article, which
opens with the statement that
the Strip, in a sense, "is a vast
refugee camp for some 70% of
its population” and which goes
back in history to the year 1500
B.C.E. “when Pharaph Thutmose
III had used Gaza as a base of
operations against Syria,” later
becoming a tributary to Assyria
in 735 B.C.E., mentions the
“ancient Israelites under Sam
son and other judges fighting
for this heartland of Philistia.”
The author of the article then
cites Joshua 15-47: “Gaza, its
town and villages, unto the
brook of Egypt and the great
sea, and the border thereof”
‘were intended for the Tribe of
Judah when the early nomadic
Jews burst out of the wilder
ness into the Land of Canaan’,
thus conceding that the entire
Gaza Strip, according to the
Bible, was reckoned as being
within the territory belonging
to Israel.
A vital point in the article
has to do with the thousands
of refugees who “have found
work in Israel, mainly in agri
culture and construction where
there is a shortage of unskilled
and semi-skilled labour. But,”
the article adds, “this employ
ment became controversial—the
Palestinian fedayeen groups re
garded it as a form of col
laboration . . . and so in
1971 buses of men waiting for
them in the grey dawn were
several times the target of gre
nade attacks. There have been
no recent attacks, and workers
continue to commute into, Israel
and back, leaving the Strip by
bus in the morning and return
ing before sundown.
“The Israeli press put the
number of these commuters at
8,000,” the author of the article
points . out. He notes further
that “UNRWA provides rations
for 199,600 persons in the Strip
and CARE, in cooperation with
the Israeli authorities, provides
a social welfare program for
feeding abotu 20,000 ‘economic
refugee*’ ineligible for UNRWA
assistance. Without this assis
tance,” he says — assistance
which the refugees must still
supplement as they can by bar
ter, the produce of small gar
dens and work when it is avail
able —• thousands of human
beings would go hungry.
“The citrus harvest brings
seasonal income to many in the
large group of refugees who are
usually unemployed. Since 1967
three additional citrus packing
plants have been built in the
Strip, and all four plants have
come into operation each offer
ing employment to approximate
ly 600 men ...”
The entire article gives the
clear impression that since the
Six-Day War in 1967, the Gaza
Strip, “perched on the lip of the
Negev Desert,” has entered an
era of renewed life and one may
well say now that the Egyptian-
enslaved refugees have been
liberated from their previous
state of despair and hopeless
ness.
“From November through
late spring it is harvest time in
the Strip’s orange and lemon
orchards,” the UNRWA article
exclaims. “Spring is the time
for red poppies in the wheat
fields along the Road—a main
thoroughfare—and return of the
sap to grape vines which man
age to grow in the sand dunes
along the coast. But,” UNRWA
bemoans, “beauty is not bread.
The Strip itself cannot possibly
support its population of about
2,850 persons per square mile.”
The total of some 400,000 reside
in less thah 140 square miles.
"The population includes 270,000
of the 316,000 refugees of 1948
and their descendants who, are
registered with UNRWA in
Gaza as well as 135,000 Gaza
residents ...”
Illustrated, the article also
contains a map of the Strip,
pin-pointing the camps, towns
and villages. Two of the photo
graphs show classes of young
school-children, smiling, looking
content and well-fed.