Newspaper Page Text
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SOUTHERN ISRAELITE
mwA
ER
A Weekly Newspaper for Southern Jewry
Established 1925 • OUR 50th YEAR
VOL. LI
One Section. 12 Pages
Atlanta, Georgia, Friday, July II, 1975
NO. 28
Israeli Cabinet Agonizes Over Interim
Settlement Decision with Egypt
Reveal Plot Against
Prominent British Jews
by DAVID LANDAU
LONDON (JTA) — Police are
guarding prominent British Jews
after the discovery last week of a
plot to kill or kidnap them.
The Jews were included in a list
of top people found together with
an arms cache in a West London
flat. The arms cache was said to be
the property of a South American
named “Carlos Martinez." Police
and forensic experts are looking
for more clues in the Bayswater
apartment where the arms were
found.
Meanwhile, security for the
Marks and Spencer family was
stepped up because of a possible
link with the 1973 shooting of its
president J. Edward Sieff. One of
the guns discovered in the arms
haul was a nine millimeter pistol
— the same caliber as that used by
the man who burst into Sieffs
home and shot him in the face.
Sieff, 69, recovered, but his
assailant was not caught.
A Marks and Spencer official
would not comment about the
possibility of “Carlos" being the
man who shot their president But
he said all members of the family
were aware of the security situa
tion It was recalled that the
terrorist Leila Khaled warned in a
BBC television documentary on
terrorism that Arab gangs had “a
list of prominent Jews" in the
diaspora “which did not just in-
clude the Sieffs and the
Rothschilds."
Leading figures in the entertain
ment world were mystified when
they found out that their names
were on the “death list." Im-
pressario Sir Bernard Delfont said
"It seems strange to me. I can't
understand it at all."
Conductor Norman Del Mar
said: “I can't imagine what this is
about. I have no political activities
at all, and it can't have to do with
Jews, because I'm Church of
England myself."
Yehudi Menuhin, controversial
figure in the Jewish community
here due to his frequent statements
supporting the Arabs and his re
cent refusal to sign protests of
leading artists and intellectuals
against the exclusion of Israel
Trom UNESCO said: “I am not
surprised. Lists of this sort appear
from lime to time."
A spokesman for British Herut
told the JTA: "There have been at
tacks on Jewish people in Britain
before and one has to face the
realities of the possibility of more
attacks on Jews ... All one can do
is be vigilant and cooperate with
the police."
Never Too Late
For Bar Mitzva
JERUSALEM, (JTA) — It is
never too late to celebrate one's
Bar Mitzva, not even at 82. When
Benjamin Swig of Taunton, Mass,
reached 13 in 1906 he could not
celebrate his Bar Mitzva because
the small Massachusetts town had
only eight Jews and no rabbi.
However, he never gave up the
idea of celebrating his Bar Mitzva,
and so he did, at 82, with a simple
ceremony at the Western Wall.
Now a well known San Fran
cisco philanthropist. Swig could
afford to waive the rights for a Bar
Mitzva present, and contributed
instead a $150,000 gift to the
Jerusalem Foundation fora unique
archaeological garden to be
created in the city. The gift was
handed to Jerusalem Mayor Teddy
Kollek, who is also chairman of
th£ Jerusalem Foundation.
JERUSALEM, (JTA) —- The
Israeli Cabinet decided Sunday
not to decide — yet — whether to
conclude an interim settlement
with Egypt. Ambassador Simcha
Dinitz, who had been called in for
consultations, was sent back to
Washington to elicit further infor
mation from Secretary of State
Henry A. Kissinger on Egypt’s
settlement terms.
The Cabinet ministers felt they
still did not possess all the details
they wanted before buckling down
to their fateful task: deciding
whether to accept or reject the
Egyptian terms which have been
heavily endorsed both by the
Secretary and by President Ford
himself.
But the final decision will not be
deferred for long. Premier Yitzhak
Rabin left Tuesday for Germany
for an official visit. Rubin is to
meet with Kissinger on Saturday
in Bonn.
Next Sunday the Cabinet will
meet again, and by then the re
quired additional information is
expected to be in — and the
decision-making process will begin
in earnest.
The “basic problem facing the
Cabinet," a highly placed source
here explained this week, is
whether to enter into “sharp con
frontation" with the U.S. now, or
whether to postpone the confronta
tion for two or three years. The
confrontation, the high source
Leaders of New BBW Region
B’NAI B'RITH WOMEN leadership at the first board meeting of the
newly established Southeastern Region included (I to rl Brenda Merlin.
Atlanta: Louise Kopp of Decatur, \ice chairman: Janet Feldman of
Memphis, chairman: Sara Bagen of Atlanta, secretary and Gail Solomon
of Atlanta. The changeo*er from districts to an eventual 17 regions is be
ing made gradually over ten years with the new regions acting as field of
fices for the national organization rather than as autonomous districts.
The Southeastern Region, with offices in Atlanta, includes BBW chapters
in Alabama. Arkansas. Georgia and Tennessee.
America
Traditional Haven For the Oppressed
by HERBERT G. LUFT
Today we hear a greaQdeal
about the inscription at the foot of
the Statue of Liberty in New York
harbor. The words by poetess
Emma Lazarus, written in the
1880s, are widely quoted to stress
our tradition never to refuse
shelter to those who seek freedom
on the shores of these United
States. The flood of Vietnam
refugees is compared with
Hungarian and Cuban expatriates
of the 1950s and 1960s.
Yet the sentiment was different
a generation ago when America
joined the world at large to close
the doors to those who were con
demned to die in Nazi Germany.
The odyssey of the SS St. Louis
and her homeless passengers is but
one example of the callousness of
the Western world at the eve of a
mass extermination unprecedented
in the history of mankind. It was in
May of 1939 when Jews were still
able to exit Germany if they had
valid papers and left their earthly
belongings with the Nazi regime,
that the trek of the SS St. Louis
began in Hamburg. A group of 937
Jews: men, women and children,
boarded the boat seeking survival
across the ocean.
They had bought visas at Cuban
consulates in Germany. Yet, when
their ship arrived in Havana, the
government refused to honor the
visas, though similar papers had
been recognized as valid at many
previous arrivals. The cause for the
change of policy can be traced to
the International Conference on
Refugees held at Evian-les-Bains
in the fall of 1938. At that time the
large countries on the face of the
earth decided to play God by refus
ing to help Jewish minorities to es
cape the death-trap of Europe.
Actually, before President
Roosevelt convened Evia, some
governments tried to look the
other way when Jewish fugitives
entered their countries illegally.
But the ill-fated conference, called
upon to help Jewish civilians to es
cape mass murder, made the
civilized nations suddenly aware of
an influx of newcomers from the
continent. It triggered the decision
not to grant extraordinary
privileges or simple protection, in
fact to strengthen established
restrictions.
When the Cuban administration
turned away the SS St. Louis
from her shores, the German cap
tain tried vainly to disembark his
cargo of human misery off the
Florida coast but the ship was forc
ed back by U. S. gunboats. The
captain was reluctant to return his
passengers to Germany knowing
that they would be murdered.
There were no funds for refugees
except moneys collected by
American Jewish organizations.
The leaders of the Joint Distribu
tion Committee contacted
Western European governments
and finally the small number of
937 Jews was divided between
England, France, Belgium and
Holland I was registering new
comers at the Kitchener camp in
Richborough when the contingent
for the British Isles arrived, ap-
—Tl RN TO PAGE 8
said, was ultimately uavoidable —
because the U.S. had consistently
opposed, and still opposed, Israel’s
demands for substantial border
changes in an overall peace.
If there is no interim agreement
with Egypt now, then the U. S. will
call, together with the Soviet
Union, for a resumption of the
Geneva peace conference, and will
present there its own overall peace
plan. This has been made abun
dantly clear to Israel by both Ford
and Kissinger.
Israel knows enough of what the
overall U. S. peace plan will entail
to have extreme misgivings over
its presenttion. The thrust of
Israel's dialogue with the U. S. in
connection with the interim settle
ment negotiations has been aimed
at ensuring that Washington will
not proceed, once an interim
settlement has been concluded, to
draw up an overall settlement plan
"without coordination" with
Jerusalem.
Israel has sought assurances
that, at least for the duration of the
interim agreement (understood to
be a period of three years), there
will be no pressures from
Washington to conclude a similar
agreement with Syria, and no
attempt to promote an overall
settlement at Geneva without prior
and ongong “coordination" with
Israel.
What are the arguments in favor
of delaying the confrontation, if it
is in any event ultimately in
evitable? Basically, the highly
placed source explained, these
arguments hinge on the broad
American perception ol the current
opportunity for the U. S. to
enhance its role and position in
Egypt. Washington feels the in
terim settlement approach offers
an historic opportunity for Egypt
to be encouraged to continue and
accelerate its swing away from the
Soviet orbit of influence and
toward the U.S. Western orbit.
Following an interim agree
ment, the Egyptian government,
with American and other Western
aid would hopefully devote more
of its energies to its internal
economic and social problems At
the same time, the process of "nor
malization" would continue in the
Suez Canal zone, also contributing
to a further pacification of the
area. The Soviet influence, and
flow of Soviet weaponry to Egypt,
would concomittantly wane, ac
cording to this thesis, and Egypt
would gradually lose some of the
intensity of its war drive.
Israel, the highly placed source
said, did not dispute the broad
American contention, that an
enhanced American role and
presence in Egypt and the Midcast
would be to Israel's long-term
benefit.
But Israel is striving to ensure
— I I RN TO RAGE 8