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PAGE 4 THE SOUTHERN ISRAELITE April 30. 1082
The Southern Israelite
The Weekly Newspaper for Southern fewry
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l J
Vida Goldgar
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I eonard Goldstein
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1980
1981
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Be it resolved...
This week’s actions in the United Nations shouldn’t be any
surprise. On Tuesday, it was a United States veto that shot down a
resolution in the Security Council condemning Israel for the April
11 shooting on the Temple Mount. As Prime Minister Begin said,
Turkey wasn’t blamed because one of its citizens attempted to kill
the Pope. But then, in the U.N., Israel is always to blame.
Following that there was another resolution, this time in the
General Assembly, that just fell short of demanding expulsion of
Israel from the United Nations and urged Palestinian statehood.
Interestingly, that resolution also called for condemnation of
the U nited States for vetoing Security Council resolutions against
Israel.
The resolution passed 86-20. Among the 36 abstentions was
Egypt.
Well, the United States has a few resolutions of its own.
Scheduled to be brought before the House Foreign Affairs
Committee next week (see story, page 7) is a resolution that would
suspend United States participation in the U.N. (and suspend
dollars as well) if Israel is illegally expelled, suspended, denied its
credentials...to participate in the General Assembly or any
specialized agency of the United Nations.
There has been a lot of support for the resolution from
members of the House of Representatives. That support includes
a number of our Georgia congressmen. We congratulate those
who have already signed the resolution and strongly urge those
who have not done so to add their names to its advocates.
The press release from ABC News made me think
that perhaps this time the television network would
present at least a balanced view of Israel after their
disastrously one-sided “20/20”
program aired in February
The release touted an “ABC"
News Closeup Fortress Israel,"
which, it said, would "examine the
impact of three decades of conflict
on Israel's national policies, the
personal lives of its people, and its
future "
I made u a point to hurry home
last week to see the show and
disappointed Admittedly, there was some
improvement, the hkatant antr-Israel bias of the earlier
show was muted and the message was much more
subtle, hut the message was there If Israelis weren't
so stubborn every Ivxfy could hve in peace. Where the
subtlety came in was that ABC transmitted its
message from the bps of Israelis.
But who did they choose? Miron Ben Venisti and
Ben Zion Munilz. Both are known to be in the small
minority of Israelis who oppose the government’s
policies. Munitz joined an Arab demonstration
against the Israeli army, but that was not clear in his
hitler musings. Did they interview Arabs who are
against the PLO? Of course, those they might have
questioned probably would have been afraid to speak
up lest they be murdered by the PLO like others who
have dared to oppose the terrorists.
The emphasis at both the beginning and the end of
the program on Holocaust survivors created the
misconception that all Israeli citizens are survivors.
There was no mention of the fact that there were Jews
in Israel (or Palestine as it was then) long, long before
World War 11, toiling tirelessly on their purchased
land.
On that point, much was made of the fact that
Miriam Levinger and her group had “taken over" a
building in “the Arab city of Hebron.” The
commentator didn’t point out that the building was
a Jewish-owned building Nor did it mention that
Hebron was a Jewish/Arab city under the Turks and
during the British Mandate and that only the
slaughter of the Jews by the Arabs in the massacre of
1929 turned Hebron into a city without Jews.
In citing ways that Israel has supposedly been
unfair to the Arabs one that has created a lot of
questions elsewhere was the banning of books. Now,
on the surface, that sounds terrible. The book titles
sound innocent enough. But are they? A recent article
in the New York Times by Shuel E. Moyal of the
Israeli consulate general in New York gave a clearer
picture of these books. They are out-and-out
propaganda weapons. A book with the innocent-
sounding title “A Smile on His Lips” has as its heroes
Palestinian terrorists who are united in their fierce
hatred for the state of Israel and in their driving
passion to liquidate Zionism. One passage quoted in
the Times piece has an Arab terrorist saying to an
Israeli soldier; “I shall kill you and drink your blood.
But your blood is filthy...disgusting., and it is not
enough to kill you once. Let me kill you the way I
want."
Then there is a Jordanian textbook for high school
freshmen that carries such phrases as “cancer must be
destroyed, so you Arab boys and girls must cling to
the slogan ‘Israel must be destroyed.’"
Even “The Merchant of Venice" as we know it, has
not been banned. But in 1979, a 15-page children’s
booklet bearing the same title was banned...not
because of Shakespeare's depiction but because the
booklet “was illustrated with vicious and Nazi-like
caricatures” and “set out to prove that those traits
Shakespeare attributes to Shylock continue to
characterize all Jews.”
So much for book-banning.
It is interesting that just days after ABCs program
NBC presented a program on approximately the same
subject. It was balanced, fair and informative. Why
does ABC have such problems getting a clear picture?
The Jews of Ethiopia
by Stanley M. Lefco
(Part Two)
The Israeli government has
declared a need to maintain
secrecy in its negotiations to free
the Falashas since publicity would
endanger rescue efforts. In
September 1979, Yigael Yadin,
then deputy prime minister,
affirmed this policy. That same
year, however, the Knesset
proclaimed, “There is no escape
but to move from the secret to the
known ..the government and the
Jewish Agency must act. They
should not keep silent."
In an interview in the February
1981 edition of "Keeping Posted,"
a magazine of the Union of
American Hebrew Congregations,
Benjamin Ahileah, deputy
consul general at the Israel
Consulate in New York, asserted
that efforts had been made to get
the Falashas out, but these efforts
could not be publicized for they
would be counter-productive.
Declared Yonn Bogall, a
Falasha leader, at the World
Union of Jewish Student
Programs at Hebrew University on
March 5, 1981, “...No one seems
interested in the fate of the Jews of
Ethiopia...They are forsaken."
Howard I enhoff, a professor at
the University of California
Irvine, and president of the
American Association of
Ethiopian Jews (AAF.J), founded
in 1969, stated in an article tnthelxJS
Angeles Times, “In Israel and in
America, Jewish people know
what's happening there and don't
say anything about it. Just as little
was said or done about the
situation in Europe during World
War 11. We Jews act as if we hadn't
learned anything from the
Holocaust.”
1.enhoff has claimed that
between 1975 and Jan. I. 1980.
only 150 Falashas came to Israel
while four hundred Vietnamese
boat people entered the country in
1979 alone. Between May and
September 1981, only seven
Falashas arrived in Israel In
October 1981 the AAEJ
announced plans to rescue
Falashas at a cost of $3,000 per
person to bring them out of
Ethiopia.
The Canadian Association for
Ethiopian Jews claimed that
officials and bureaucrats of the
I abor Party in the Begin
administration are opposed to his
commitment to save these Jews.
Israel’s consul, David Ariel,
stationed in Toronto, asserts that
the CAFJ is impatient and ill-
informed and (hat secret efforts are
underway to rescue the Falashas.
Chairman of the Union for
Saving Ethiopian Jewish Families.
Yechayahu Ben-Baruch, wrote in a
letter in the Jerusalem Post
(November 1981), that the Jewish
Agency was sabotaging efforts to
rescue Falashas. In response to
that letter. Zvi Eyal, a spokesman
for the Jewish Agency, wrote in a
letter to the editor of the same
paper that the “.. Agency is
involved in the saving of Jews
wherever and whenever they are in
danger of distress."
At a recent meeting of the
National Jewish Community
Relations Advisory Council,
attended by over 400 leaders from
local and national Jewish
community relations organizations,
chairman Bennett Yanowitz
acknowledged in an address before
the group a recognition of the
plight of Ethiopian Jewry, and
implied that attempts were under
way to rescue them. He warned
that protests or Entebbe-like
operations would be neither
p r o d u c t i v e n o r possible.
Admitting that the rate of
immigration was unsatisfactory
not only to the NJCRAC but to
Israel as well, he expressed
confidence that efforts underway
would result in more Falashas
leaving Ethiopia.
To he continued.
Perspective