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MEII/X BR|EFS
Israelis rally for peace
TEL AVIV, (JTA)—An estimated 25,000 Israelis demonstrated
Monday night to urge the government to be more forthcoming in
the quest for peace. The rally, which was orderly throughout, was
organized by a group of 300 reserve officers who recently
petitioned Premier Menachem Begin to agree to territorial
compromises on all fronts in the interests of a peace settlement.
Last week the reserve officers said they had a petition with 10,000
signatures.
Arafat hedges on ceasefire
NEW YORK, (JTA)—Yasir Arafat, head of the Palestine
Liberation Organization, refused to give a direct “yes” or “no”
when he was asked in an interview shown Sunday whether the PLO
would observe the ceasefire in south Lebanon ordered by the
United Nations Security Council.
Interviewed in Beirut Friday on ABC-TVs “Issues and
Answers,” all Arafat would say is that he “offered all my facilities”
to the United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon (UNIFIL) when
he met with UN officials last week “so that they can be able to carry
on with their task of the withdrawal of the Israelis from Lebanon.”
Congress asks for arms delay
WASHINGTON, (JTA)—Sen. John Heinz (R. Pa.) and 28
members of the House of Representatives have written to
President Carter urging him to delay his proposed Middle East
aircraft package for “six to eight months.”
Having Congress act “now would jeopardize the delicate
structure of negotiations already in place in the Middle East and
would lead to a divisive debate in our own country which could
divert public support from a negotiated settlement,” the signers
said.
New AJCongress head
MIAMI, (JTA)—Howard M. Squadron, a New York City
lawyer and long active in Jewish communal affairs, was elected
president of the American Jewish Congress at its national biennial
convention here. He succeeds Rabbi Arthur Hertzberg who had
served three two-year terms. Squadron, 52, is the first president of
the organization in 45 years who is not a rabbi. He was elected by a
vote of 230-98 votes. The 98 votes were received by Rabbi David
Polish of Chicago, the only other candidate.
ToUrists to Israel unafraid
NEW YORK (IGTO)—Ten percent more tourists came to Israel
in the two weeks following the terrorist attack on the Tel Aviv-
Haifa highway last month, than in the corresponding period of
1977.
Announcing these statistics in New York, Israel Zuriel, Israel’s
commissioner for tourism to the United States apd Canada, said
that, “Life in Israel has not changed. The streets are safe. The hotels
are full and visitors are enjoying the multitude of attractions which
Israel offers the vacationing tourist or pilgrim—and the American
public realizes this.” •
The fighting in Lebanon did not disrupt normal life in the
country—and tourists continued to tour the country undisturbed.
Soviets jam Israeli radio
JERUSALEM (ZINS)—The Soviet Union is reported as
employing no less than 6,000 transmitters to jam radio programs
broadcast by Israel to Russia, according to a statement by Viktor
Greivsky, director of the Department of Foreign Radio
Broadcasts. He said that the Soviets are jamming these programs
despite the fact that they do not attack the Soviet regime, but are
merely concerned with information on the problems of aliyah to
Israel. Despite these difficulties, Greivsky added, the Israeli.
broadcasts are heard by a large number of listeners in all parts of
the Soviet Union. Israel employs some 14 transmitters to reach
their listeners in the Soviet Union.
Saudi provides PLO aid
WASHINGTON, (JTA)—Sen. Clifford Case (R NJ) told the
Senate Foreign Relations Committee that Saudi Arabia in 1976
provided $45 million to A1 Fatah, the military arm of the PLO that
took credit for the terrorist attack on Israeli civilians March 11.
Case’s statement came during a hearing of the Committee where
Sen. John Sparkman (D. Ala ), the Committee’s chairman, bore
down on Saudi Arabia’s continuing financing of the PLO and two
top State Department officials conceded they have been unable to
persuade the Saudis to stop funding the terrorist organization.
Israel producing oil
TEL AVIV (JTA)—Israel is producing oil from two oil wells off
the shore of A Tour, in the Gulf of Suez in an operation that began
this week. Yitzhak Modai, Minister of Energy, said a dozen more
wells were planned in the next 18 months to reduce oil imports.
JJ2
tters to the editor
Christian leader speaks out on Israel
Editor:
I write this as a Catholic
concerned about the survival of my
Jewish brothers and sisters in
Israel and the preservation of
human rights in the Middle East.
Those influential voices in the
media and more particularly those
at the very top level of our
government who deplore the so-
called “intransigence” of present
Israeli leadership regarding its
terribly precarious security and
call upon the Begin government to
give the West Bank back to the
Palestinians are simply not facing
up to a number of frightening
facts—particularly frightening
facts to any Israeli who has had his
country invaded three times in the
last 25 years. These facts should
make it clear to any reasoning
human being that such a move
without safeguards of great
magnitude could not only
jeopardize peace in the Middle
East, but world peace itself. The
shocking and utterly damaging
facts are these:
1. The PLO would obviously be
the new ruling elite of the
Palestinian government of the
West Bank. The PLO is,
unfortunately, still deemed by
many governments and the UN as
the authentic voice of the
Palestinians. Arafat was welcomed
to the UN with a pistol on his hip
by a majority of its members (not
the U.S., thank God) who went on
to vote overwhelmingly to damn
Zionism as the equivalent of
racism—a clear indication of the
vast, worldwide extent of anti-
Semitism.
2. The West Bank under PLO
police state domination, if not
total dictatorship, would very soon
become a Soviet-dominated,
Soviet-armed satellite next door to
Israel -not unlike Castro's Cuba.
When tiny Cuba, a full 90 miles
away from our coast, appeared to
be threatening giant, powerful
USA simply by the presence of
Soviet arms, although there were
no Cuban guerrillas invading our
country, blowing up our buses or
killing our children, we mounted a
major military solution to the
problem.
3. The PLO were driven from
Jordan by King Hussein after that
Soviet-financed group of skilled
terrorists and murderers
attempted to assassinate him and
destroy his government. They then
retreated to Lebanon and
proceeded to turn that beautiful
country into a battleground
between Muslims and Christians.
The Lebanese Christians
responded bravely, but few
Christians elsewhere protested —
indeed, Christians and supporters
of democracy worldwide were
disgracefully silent, not unlike the
1930s when Hitler was on the
march. The PLO went on to
virtually destroy that country and
demolish the lovely city of Beirut.
4. The most recent madness ot
the PLO in killing 35 people and
injuring 76 in a sneak attack upon
a public bus is but one of fourteen
such PLO attacks in the past eight
years. Israelis cannot easily forget
the assault in an El A1 passenger
terminal in Athens in 1969, the
killings at Lod Airport in 1972, the
cold-blooded murder of eleven
Israeli athletes at the Munich
Olympic Games, the killings in
1974 in two apartment houses and
a school, the murder in a Tel Aviv
hotel and the bombing in a
crowded Jerusalem square in 1975,
the explosion of a booby-trapped
motorcycle on a main thorough
fare and the explosion of a loaded
suitcase at Ben Gurion Airport in
1976, and that same year the
hijacking of 104 people held
hostage in Uganda until Israeli
commandos liberated them.
5. Every thinking American
must be aware of the relentless
Soviet pressure in the Middle East,
but too few Americans appear to
realize that it is our (U.S.) arms
and Israel's guts, to put it bluntly,
that have prevented and continue
to prevent a Soviet takeover of the
whole Middle East.
As the minimal first step toward
achieving such a peace, let all to
whom captured territory is to be
returned first recognize Israel and
her right to exist. Then let the U.S.
and others who truly believe in
t democracy and freedom take the
necessary stringent military
international law enforcement
steps to insure Israel's “genuine
security” and “real peace” and
Israel will no longer be
intransigent but will welcome such
an accord.
David Hyatt
President. National Conference
of Christians and Jews
Questions on Skokie
Editor:
I was quite taken by the
Goldberger—Rosen debate last
week, held at the AJCC. However,
it was an event which created more
questions in my mind than
answers; unfortunately questions
which may not have answers.
Both men recognized that the
national attention this case was
getting was giving this band of 15-
20 self-proclaimed Nazis more
attention than they deserved. Both
men described these fanatics as
“less than worthy,” with Rosen
going a lot further in describing
them as “sick, hostile, demented
deviants.” But neither man
addressed himself to the question
of who “wins" in a case like this.
Somewhere in the stinking,
slimy cellar where Collins and his
raunchy recruits are meeting, I
sense they are laughing and
celebrating at the incredible
publicity they are receiving due to
the legal gymnastics we civilized
Americans are playing! Through
out the evening, Goldberger and
Rosen_ dueled with legalisms
dealing with Constitutional Law,
until an articulate member of our
community, a Holocaust survivor,
said what had to be said in
heartfelt, emotional truths The
crowd responded but the two
Chicago lawyers only sympath
ized...then they proceeded ahead
with their legal jargon.
When will we listen to our hearts
and instill within the law the
human concerns that our law
makers lack? Shouldn't the
passionate pleas of six million
dead Jews be reason enough to
strongly, but politely say, “No Mr.
Collin...your group is not
welcome on our streets, or in our
state, or in our country, or in our
world r
A glimpse of hope did emerge
that evening, after the “show" was
over. 1 asked Mr. Goldberger what
he suggested the rest of us do if he
“wins” and the march goes on? For
a moment he hesitated, I would
like to think with a Jewish
conscience, and answered, “I am
the wrong person to ask. I’m too
involved at this point to
say...however, Jews cannot pull
down their shades and expect this
to go away. Maybe counter
marches are the answer. At least
you would be showing you care!"
Somehow, someway, we must
show how much we care!
Otherwise our human questions
may only get textbook answers.
Paul S. Bodner
Director of Southern Region
Atlanta Council BBYO-AJCC
Carter wrong about Saudis
by Hirsch Goodman
Officials in Israel expressed “amazement” at President Carter's
statement that Saudi forces never actively participated in fighting
against Israel.
They point out that in the 1973 Yom Kippur War the Saudis sent
to the Golan a mechanized infantry brigade, which fought in the
Tel Mari region and suffered casualties. The brigade remained on
the Golan Heights after the war and took an active part in the
subsequent war of attrition there between Israel and the Syrians. It
was only withdrawn in 1976.
The Saudis also dispatched armoured forces to Jordan in 1967
and again in 1973- when during the Yom Kippur War they
bolstered Jordan's line with Israel south of the Dead Sea and
allowed Jordan to release its 40th Armoured Brigade for active
duty on the Golan.
The sources also point out that Saudi Arabia in 1973 ordered 38
Mirage V fighters from France planes which it then transferred
to Egypt, thus contradicting another part of Carter’s reasoning.
Jerusalem Post
Page 5 THE SOUTHERN ISRAELITE April 7, 1978
