Page 4 - The Canadian Jewish News, Thiirsday, January 13, 1983
M-T
By
J)AVroBIRKAN
On Jan. 13, 1953 — exactly 30 years ago — the USSR announced the ''unmasking" of an extensive murder plot involving" prominent Jewish physicians in Mpscbw. The finat in a series of ishow trials and anti-semitic actions under Cpmmunist leader Joseph Stalin was under way.
In the 20s and 30s, Jewish cbmmanity life in Russia was crashed. Leading inteUectuals were forced to disavow their Judaism. Executions or lethal terms in prison camps were meted out to those who didn't cdmply, and often caught up with those who did. Artistic and theatrical expression was suppressed. A purge of veteran military leader^ removed the remaining Jews of inflaence.
During World War II,' Stalin allowed some Jewish expression inabidtb win sympathy and funds in the U.S. The thaw ended abruptly within Russia shortly afterwards, although its momentum in foreign policy, combined with political considerations, culminated in the recognition of Israel in 1948,
Early in 1953 wartime community leader Solomon Mikhoels was murdered by the secret police. Arrests, trials and purges were common across the Soviet bloc/Among those executed in the last half of 1952 were:
• 24 out of 25 Jewish writers, artists and leaders tried in a Moscow court.
• The secretary-general of the Czechoslo-vakian Communist Party, Joseph Slansky, and seven other leading Jews in that country, for ' ■ Zionist espionage activities in the service of American imperialism."
• Three Jews in Kiev, for "embezzling state property."
The doctors' arrest for supposedly plotting to murder Soviet military leaders was reported in the newspaper Pravda. Under interrogation, they had confessed complicity in Uie death earlier of two war heroes. An accompanying editorial accused the American Joint Distribution Committee, an international relief organ-izatioh, of being ^'the Zionist eispionage
agency" behind it all, in co-operation With Britain and the y.S^ .
In the doctprs' arrest, iaid another journal, Krokodil,' ■ the gang of Judas Iscariot has been dealt a crushing blow.'' It featured a full-page cartoon involving a bloodthirsty dollar-lusting physician with heavily emphasized Jewish features.
Accusations included improjper testing procedures, faked medical diplomas, nepotism, bribery, embezzlement and racism.
Expressions of outrage in the U.S., Britain and Western Europe were twisted to suggest Western guilt and surprise at being caught in the act. A bomb blast in the Soviet embassy in Israel prompted the US5R to break off diplomatic relations. Commented Pravda: ' 'The pack of mad dogs in Tel Ayiv is loathsome and vile in its thirst for blood;'■
And-Jewish hysteria mounted across Russia in the wake of the massive publicity. Meanwhile, rkilway lines around Moscow and other cities were bciing cleared for large-scale deportations of Jews.
On March 5, Stalin died. In less than a month, Pravda" announced that the physicians were not guilty. On July 20, diplpmatic ties with Israel were restored. ^
Whether to discredit political opponents, find a scapegoat for Russia's poverty, generate anti-West hostility, clear Russian medicine of its prominent Jews, or to set up a Nazi-type final solution, Stalin's aims were thwarted.
Two CBC correspondents deny coverage of war was anti-semitic
By
BEN ROSE
TORONTO —
Denials that CBC coverage of the war in Lebanon was anti-semitic or biased were made by foreign correspondents David Bazay and Patrick Brown at a meeting here recently.
At the same time, Brown said Israel is "remarkably democratic" in its censorship policy and that he found it more difficult to get information in Syria, or in covering the Iran-Iraq war, than he did from Israeli sources.
They were speaking at Ryerson Polytechnical Institute where seven CBC foreign correspondents gave brief reports and answered questions from the large audience.
Bazay and Brown were responding to four questioners who were critical of the CBC's coverage of Lebanon. The moderator was Knowlton Nash who also rejected the charge of unfairness against the network.
"In Beirut a surprising number of correspondents were Jewish," said Brown. "I donU believe what we were doing was anti-semitic. Just about every news organization was criticized. We were criticized by both sides which leads me to believe we were right on. I was not judging who was right or wrong, I was just trying to explain what was happening."
Replying to a ques^ tioner who asked why CBC reporters did not stay on the scene long enough to find out who was responsible for the hiassacres in the Palestinian refugee camps, Brown said: ''We're not detectives. It's not up to me to say what happened. It's been going on for years in Lebanon, Christians massacring Moslems and Moslems massacring Chris-tians.
"The fact is that the
Patrick Brown
Israelis said they moved to Beirut to restore order and if they had asked any reporter we could have toldthem that massacres would happen."
Bazay said he was unaware that anybody had ever suggested that Israelis were responsible for the camp deaths.
Discussing censorship, Bazay said he was able to send his report about the massacres yia the only telephone available — one that was controlled by Israel. "I could say exactiy what I wanted to say. The IsraeUs did hot censor anything from there," he said.
At other times, he said, . he found Israeli censorship of his reports "uneven." "At times
would object to pictures of bodies, or of tanks moving."
Reporters with the Israeli forces covering the war were asked to sign documents that they agreed to submit their material to censorship. "We were practically, asked to sign our lives away," he said.
In his introductory 1-minute report, Brown said Lebanon is a country under occupation not only by Israeli and Syrian forces, but by 10,000 or so PLO guerrillas. ''Peace will not come back to Lebanon until the Lebanese authorities can assert some control over their own territories," he said.
In his 1-minute sum-up, Bazay, who went in with the Israeli troops, said: "The world is
David Bazay
watching the inquiry into the camp massacres and what the consequences of the inquiry will be on the Begin government and the peace negotiations."
Later, Brown said the first casualty in a war is truth. "Beirut is the Arab capital with the freest press. Information is not so much controlled as it is in Syria and Saudi Arabia." he said. "But during the war each side had its propaganda machine and once again this was true of the Palestinians, Israelis and. Syrians."
Bazay, who reacted with some heat to the charge made from the floor that tiie CBC coverage was biased against Israel, said such a charge is unfair without specific details of where and when. Frankly, he said, he did not understand how a charge of bias could be made.
On his reports of the camp massacres, he said: "I shudder to this day at what I saw ... the attitudes, so grotesque, in death, of the -bodies . . . that's what I talked about. Questions of why it happened, who did it — they have to be '■ dealt with later. We don't know the full story and we may never know it."
Defending iBazay's coverage, moderator Nash said reporters must show a human bias, * *a bias towards the dead, the homeless and the orphans."
Bazay said he was not in the camps wheir the killings took place. "Reporters do nqthave free-
—dom of mo^rhent in war. The massacres took place during the night.
"The Israelis were dropping flares. It was a coordinated operation to clear out the' terrorists, to use the Israeli expression. People wer6 permitted to enter the camps and things got out of control."
One questioner asked if there is a commission of inquiry into the massacres in Afglianistan, contrasting this with the inquiry set up by Isniel. Jan Lazowski, the CBC correspondent in Moscow, said there is no such inquiry and there is no news coming out of Afghanistan directly about the happenings. He skid it is difficult to get into the country, or move around in it ^ Hie only information available is from rebel sources, second or third hand.
Bazay said it should not be forgotten that it was the Israeli press which exposed the killings in the camps and it .was the Israeli population which forced the
government to hold an inquiry:
Brian Stewart, one of the CBC's London cor-respoiiderits, said it should not be forgotten that TV showed protests by the public in Israel and covered debates in the Knesset.
The reports and dis-cussions were filmed and taped by CBC.
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