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"Intifada against trees" |
Labor's new look
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56
Thursday, Jui
1^1 I I
Yitzhak Shamir
Eduard Shevardnadze
Thursday, June 16, 1988 Tamuz 1, 5748
Second Class Mail Registration Number. 1683 - Postage Paid at Toronto
60«
Orthodox fiercely oppose bill
eproposed
JERUSALEM (JPFS) -. The Knesset was almost empty last Week during most of the first reading of a bin that could revolutionize the country's poiit-ical.life. : ,^
The hill proposed two possibilities for changing the system, by which. the Knesset is elected.
The first would divide the country into 20 electoral districts, each returning four Knesset nVenibers (MKs), and the remaining 40 MKs would be selected on a national list as they are at present. This proposal is endorsed by the Knesset's law cohi-mittee.
The second pnvposal, largely an initiativeof Tel Aviv University professors and sponsored by a long list of MKs, divides the country into 60 electoral districts, each rev turning one MK. The , remaining 60 would be elected on a national list.
The speeches of support itidicated that MKs of all parties saw good and bad in both proposals and that a successful bill would probably be a compromise of the Wvo.
Introducing the measure, law committee chairman Eli Kulas said the reform would strengthen the links . between voters and Knesset : meinbers. and that would . :,ser\'edemocracy. He added that popular.support for the-bill was proven by several . public opinion polls. ;But Mapam's. Ch.aika Grossman disiigreed. Strcng-. thening the ties between electorate and elected de-pchds solely (Ml the elected deputies proving their .worth, she said. Local con-, s t i t u e n c y i-e p re s e n t a t i v e s were not necessary because the real problems were na-t ional. not local. she added.
The'National Religious Party's Avner Shaki went further. The. sysjem would • ..deprive large sections of the
electorate any share of the vote, he insisted, because, religious voters had not ghettbized themselves in pocket.s throughout the country.
All the Orthodox fac^ tions fiercely oppose reform. So do all the other small factions, except the Citizens Rights Movement and Shinui-Centre.
Although the Knesset members know their vote
will be crucial, they .seemed uninterested in listening to each other's views on electoral reform.
They knew that the vote would be held later, perhaps next week. When Kulas was introducing his committee's proposal in two alternative versions, about 30 MKs were there to hear him. After he sat down, manv of these left.
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ALGIERS -
The Ai'ab summit here pledged last week to channel about S400 million a year to the Palestinian up-' rising in the territories.
The pledge came ai the end of the .3'rday Arab." League meeting in the Algerian capital.
Observers said the funds would be channeled through the PLO.
Earlier, : Arab leaders gathered here listed their conditions for participating in Arab-Israeli peace talks:
•The return.of territories taken bv Israel in the 1967 war.
•The participation of all parties, including the PLO and the five permanent members of the UN .Security Council. .
•The establishment of an.independent Palestinian state.
.The communique .s'aid talks should be held under .the umbrella of an interna-' tional cohfereiice with full decision-making powers..:
to
on
VVASHINGTON(JTA)-
■ A Jew from Ethiopia has urged the United States to use. the "good atmosphere" ' in U.S.-Soviet relations following the Moscow summit to prod the Soviets into pressuring Ethiopia to allow the.re-niaining 8,00() to 20,000 Jews there to emigrate to Israel; , '
Solomon M.. whose last name remains a secret so a.s not to jeopardize the fate of his brother and uncle in jail in Addis Ababa, the Ethio-: plan capital, as well as two other siblings,. told a few dozen congressional aides and Jewish activists on Capitol Hill that he still is not ".absolutely free."'
"lego to work. I go to school. Physically, I am there," said Solomon M., who is studying at. the University of Califdrriia at Los Angeles; "But: I ani
lans
there
not ■ alwavs mentally/' : •;
An estimated .,16.000 Ethiopian Jews now live in Israel, sajd. William Re-<';ant, director of the Amerjr. Association for )ianJe\vs. But 1,500 of tW children have parents, who are still in Ethiopia.'
There are about 60 to 70 Ethiopian Jews still in the ^udari. Recant said. About 7,000 Jews-were rescued ■from I'efugee camps there during the U.S.-Israeli secret airlifts in 1984 and 1985. Operations Moses and Joshua, he said;
Solomon M. called on Ethiopian Jewry activists to be "more vcx^al''.in calling attention tp their cause, .while, acknowledging .that he could not disclo.se anything dramatic for fear that it would V'rock the boat." He did say that the movement of Jews out of Ethiopia recently has been a "bare trickle." ;
YITZHAK RABI
NEW YORK (JTA)-
An Israeli consular delegation will go to Moscow in the middle of next month and may be allowed to deal with . matters relating to Soviet Jewish emigration. Premier "Yitzhak Shamir announced last, week.
Shamir informed Israeli correspondents: of the development after emerging ' from aineeting with Soviet Foreign. Minister '.Eduard Shevat-dnadze that. lasted-one hour and 40 minutes.
At his own. meeting with reporters later.' Shevardnadze confirmed that: the Israeli delegation would be comi ng to M oscow in jiiid -July. But asked whether the Israeli officials wi)uld be allowed to issue visas in Moscow, he j-eplied "no.'" . He .said the Israel visit would be in reciprocation for the Soviet con.sular delegation that has been in ; Israel since July of 1987, olTicially to '.. look .af'ter property of the Russian Orthodox Church. Hepraised the way the Israelis treated the Soviet .delegation. . whoseA'i.sa,s were recently extended.
Shamir described his session with Shevardnadze as a "very interesting meeting and very thorough, in which each side had an opportunity to present its positions and explain them." It wa.s Shamir's first meeting with a Soviet foreign minister since his talks with Andrei Grbmyko in New Ybrk in 1984.
The Israeli Premier told reporters that their conversation was "friendly, productive'and useful." He V .said the main topics they covered were Soviet Jews ; and their emigration, the Middle East confiiet, and relationsbetween Israel and , the Soviet Union. ■
But Shevardnadze, while describing their meeting as "very useful," told reporters in reply to a question that he does not see it as leading to a "new stage" in relations between the two countries. The Soviet Union ^ severed diplomatic tics with Israel21 yearis ago, after the Six Day .War.
Shamir .said he told Shevardnadze that Israel wants all Jews who wish to
emigrate to their homeland to be allowed to.do so. He •al.so said Jews who live in the Soviet Union should be allowed to practice their religion and culture freely.
According to Shamir, the Soviet foreign minister said that ill his view, there are no difficulties for Jews wishing to leave the USSR and that the Soviet authorities do not
[Cont'd, on page 14]
Bv
DAVID LANDAU
JERUSALEM (JIA)^
The change in.American-Soviet' relations, . underscored; at the-' recent . Mosco\v s 11 mm it, is ha\' i ng a dramatic impact in the Middle East.
Perhaps the most .significant remark attributed to U.S. Secretary of Slate George Shultz, in his latest swing through the region. Was reported by journalists after Shultz's long meeting last week with Syrian President Hafez Assad in Damascus;. .
The secretary w'as quoted as saying ;it was astonishing that the parties involved in the Middle East conflict seem to have dug into their hardline po.sitions while the two .superpowers were moving toward agreement.
By adversely contrasting the rigidity of the regional leaders with - the nevvly found fiexibilily between the - superpowers, Shultz was plainly referring to Israeli Premier Yitzhak. Shamir, a.s well as to As.sad.
His pointed characterization of his working ses-si(in with Shamir as "fr*ank," aswelj as leaked reports of his cables to Washington, indicated the secretary was as angry and fru.strated as ever with what he regard.s as stonewalling by Shamir.
Shultz's exasperation seemed to be reflected in the wry remarks' from'. 'White House spokesman Marlin Fitzwater. He poured eqld water on any upbeat specu-lation thar Middle^: East p<^.ace prospects are any better than they have been for 2,000 years. : ; ■
Significantly, ^hultz: allowed much of his displeasure with Shaniir's Likud, half of the Israeli government to spill out in his public pronouncements.
He made a point of stress^ ing the land-for-peace equation as the basis of UN .'Security Council .Resolu-. tion 242. on both his arrivals in Isf-ael and in.: Amman. Jordan.
At Ben-Gurion Airport. Shultz warned vigorously that "the .continued tKcupa-
[Gont'd. on page 15]
. -Bv,'- ■.■ PAUL LUNGEN
TORONTO^
In a decision that has stunned leaders; of : the Canadian Jewish community, the Alberta Court of Appeal has struck down the law; introduced to protect minorities froiTi racial arid, religous vilification.^
The decisipri, announced last week in Calgary, renders Canada's antiihate law "of no force and effect" in Albertia. It also overturns the conviction. and $5,000 fine meted oiit by the Alberta Court of
Oueen's Bench to former Eckville school teacher Jim Keegstra for promoting hatred against Jews - Keegstra was convicted under the now defunct law in July 1985 for teaching his social studies classes that Jews fomented revolu-__ tions and wars, were evil and had lied about the ■ rHolocaust.
In a 50-page judgment-. Justice R;P. Kerans, writing for the Appeal Court, ruled section 28L2(2) of the Criminal Code invalid for violating two major constitutional grounds:
• for breaching guaran-
tees under the Charter of Rights and Freedoms of the right id be presumed innocent untif proven guilty. : • for abridging the Charter right to free expression.
The 3-judge paneladded that the hate law was not a "demonstrably justified" Jimit on free expression, since it does not require that someone'come to hate another persun as a result of the offensive speech.
Spbkesiiien for JewLsh groups reacted with shock and disbelief at the decision, and called for an appeal to the Supreme.
Court of Canada definitive ruling.
for a
Though rumorsi had been c 1 rculating that the Appeal Court would overturn the conviction, no one expected It, to overturn the law itself, said Alan Shefman, a spokesman for the League of Human Rights; of B'nai B'nth Canada.-
Jim Keegstra
In making its decisio^n, the court, had- not com-; mented on Keegstra's beliefs or iji any way vindicated them, he added.
"I'm surprised it was overturned on those grounds,' said Manuel Prutschi, executive director of the qationai jQint
community relations committee of Canadian Jewish Congre$;s.
"The constitutionality of that particular law had been upheld in a separate ehaUenge,'' he said, pointing to the decision of a lower Alberta court prior to the 198^ Keegstra trial in which a Queen's Bench judge had ruled the section did not offend the Charter.
. Prutschi also noted.that a 5-justice panel of the On-: tario Court of Appeal had , ruled in the Ernst; Zundet case that another section of the Code used against
. hati^mongers,--- th^ section ^
177 "false ricws" provi- . sion — did riot offend the Charter's gu<irari'.eeur free speech. ;■
: LenDolgoy, spokesman for the Jewish Federation of Edmonton, said "some . people jn the community were just shocked" at the decision; in the Keegstra •ease "beeause the law itself . was overturned. We expected after the long delay (the appeal was heard in April 1987) that a new trir , al (would be ordered), but we didn't expect the .statute would be thrown out."
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