Page 2 - The Canadian Jewish News, TThursday, March 1 ly 1982
but
Rabbi Plaut
undisguised
anti-
By RABBI W. GUNTHER PLAUT
Students at, the University of Toronto and official's of the League for Human Rights intend to have books in the__^Robarts Library that deny the Holocaust reclassified as fiction. The three books, which arc the immediate target of th^tiidents' attempt are Debunkin-g-the Genocide M>lh. The Drama o.fihe European -• rr
Jevvsi and The Hoax of the Twentieth Century.
Historical revisionism is an Ugly twisting uf history and if we Jews are. sensitive on any subject V the Holocaust rates high on our agenda. For us it is simply unimaginable how people can swallow this latest mvth which, in plain English, is not only garbage seniitism.
The reclassificarion attempt, however well inientioned. is not likely to succeed. Library boards are hardly in a position to decide whether a book that pretends to relate historical events and interpret them . is. in fact, worthy of the classification "history." Think of the storm that woiild arise if the "revelations" of certain persons who once were close to the seats ofpower \\ ere to be classified as fiction — which to a large degree they probably are.
Though this latest anti-Holocaust schmiitz has gained some attention, it is nothing compared to The Protdcols of the Elders of Zion which, over the last century, has been distributed in numbers that defy the imagination. It pretends to be the secret .record of planners for a . worldwide Jewish conspiracy. If ^ver there was a book of pure and unadulterated fiction, which did not even attempt to buttress its story by any pretense of "scholarship" (as the revisionist books do quite cleverly) it was The Protocols.
The damage it has. dcine^tK't'r the years is immense. To my knowied^'no attempt was ever made to remove it into the category of fiction. For objectivity, it was and remains a political pheneimenon which, although disgusting, has by its intention and readership become a piece of hisiorV — little as we mav like it. The same is true
for the current revisionist outpourings. They are a phenomenon of our times and. as such their very existence becomes a sorry aspect of today's history. ;
~ For thiey intend to be taken as liistory, vicious as we know this intention to be. History, of course, is in itself not a measurable entity. It is alwjays an interpretatioij of events; it has never been nor can it ever be objective in the sense of scientific measurement.
We have ample documentation of the murders of Martin Luther King and John F. Kennedy )— but we have no objective way to measure what /'really took place.
Even when the. TV cameraman records an event, he only puts on film what he sees and attempts to have the camera duplicate his visual impression. In doing this he is selective, for he can be only in. one place. At best he records and interprets a piece of the whole event.
So It Is with all histor}. It is nothing more and nothing less than the writer^s interpretation of what he conceives to have taken place. He wants the reader to see the events in the way he perceives and analyzes them. The intention and the viewpoint of the writer are an essential ingredient of any book that wants to be taken as histor>.
Therefore even the grossest and most wilful distortion — such as The Protocols and the revisionist books on the Holocaust — still fall under that all-inclusive termhistory, little as fair minded people will so consider it.
The books do, in fact, throw a .light on the state of contemporary anti-semitism. The basic question, Ithink, is not whether sach books are to be classified as Hction but how much anti-semitic garbage any library Is willing to stock . . . and for what purpose.
. Ax the same time 1 am impressed by the ingenuity of the students who have fourid a new way of bringing the true nature of thisliterary offal to the attention of the public. Some people will worry about the public relations effects that such a move might entail.. 1 am not worried a bit. The students have once again focused our and the public's attention on the true nature of revisionist writings by Butz, Faurisson and company. The attempt- has been worth.while even if it fails. Failures, too. are an ineluctable part of the political struggle.
son
Apartments to be enlarged
By LARRY STEVENS
Project Renewal, the massive Israeli-Diaspora program to rehabilitate distressed areas of Israel, . is making progress, accor-ing to reportis from Israel. In this new seriesj we examine .Or Yehudar the area which is twinned with-Ottawa, tlie Ontario Region and the Maritimes through the United Israel Appeal of Canada. This Is the first in a 4-part series oh Or Yehuda.
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Or Yehiida is. just the other side of the tracks from Savyon, one of Israel 'swealthiest suburbs, hut Or Yehuda may as well be in another country.
An urban settlement withm the metropolitan. Tel Aviv area. Or Yehuda Js so close to Ben Gurion. Airport that one' can see the wheels fold up inside.a jumbo jet. while standing awash in itsroar as if the^ runway enjjs where the city begms. And.it does.
Or Yehuda,, which.became a municipality in 1955. todav numbers more than 20.000 people.: Six thousand are living in distressed and crowded con-dijions. without, a proper town . centre.. These are people, with a sorry image of themselves.
There are problems of drug use, alcoholism and
mental illiiess in Or Yehuda, caused, by the pressures of modern .Israeli society on a community of people lacking a firm economic base and. minimal educational skills. ■ .
Until recently, this deterioration continued unfettered. Then Project Renewal stepped in to help. Project Renewal, is' the joint Israeli government/ Jewish Agency program to help solve the problems of .Israel's distressed neighborhoods. . Attractive Irit Bashan, . 29. w-as busy helping dis-". advantaged women biay ..household goods at cut-. rate when w-e found.her in. the Or Yehiida cominutiity centre^aiiditoriumIrita social worker in Or.Yehu-. da explained, thait .the ■ probiems of Oi^- Yehuda caii: only "be; solved-by^^T multi-level attack. She is part .of that attack by : .trairiiiig and supervising two .other community-workers, and seven para.-. professi9nals. ; All .of .the .women are residents; of Or Yehuda's needy are:as;
" T h e s e p a r a - p r o f e s sionals .learn the process, of organizing the resjdeiits into groups, to- effect change in.the. context of Project ReinewaK They al-r so learn how to "relay in-■ formation to the residents; Thus they act as conduits
of informarion. as communicators."
Irit explained that many of the 950 apartments in the Schuna Bet neighborhood are too small for the families that occupy them. Under Project Renewal many of these apartments are schefdnled for enlargement. Rooms are being added on, new sidewalks piit in, &ont and backyards landscaped, new sewage systems installed.
She said that the para-professionals help the so-'cial aspects of this-pro-cess. ''We found that the ideas pf the changes were being spread by these women.through the. targeted
■ neighborhood.: And they were all people known in
:: the area .So if we- wanted to. see who needed .their.
■ building Tehabilitated, we woiiId first use the para-
" professionals'-to -explain theplan." ,
She added: ''It was a very effective technique,"
Irit explained some other tasks performed by t he para-profesi ona 1 s, whose salaries are paid by Project Renew^al " "We found that in the process of rehabilitating the buildings that were dilapidated, we had a problem of colors, say. 5ome-. one 'didn't like the new paint in." the hallway. These para-professionals would deal with these
matters very effectively."
Irit added: "A great many of the places under • rehabilitation in Or Yehuda . have these people working in them. They add to the feeling of trust for Project Renewal . in the community. Also, the program teaches and guides the women, helps them to learn a new skill. In the long run, that is what is important for the values of the country. These women learn that it is not only their homes that are being rehabilitated." said Irit, "but that the whole country is at stake here." ..
Irit explained that Pro^ ject Renewal was slow to take In Or Yehuda, bat that has all changed now. "People waited for the success to become evident, and when they saw accomplishments, more, and more people wanted to be part of it. People saw that things were changing . .^hat they, as citizens, were not powerless . . . that they could change things, Uttle by little." . Irit Bashan defines the social problems of Or Yehuda as problems of hope. "Promises didn't solve the problem. Services didn/t exist here. Apathy, disquiet, are the things that existed. And if it wasn't one promise it was another. But with no ' help.- No solution. But now, things are beginning to change. And these para'professionals are the heralds of that message."
BySHELDON KIRSHNER
Less than three weeks after being sworn in as the first Jewish secretary of state in- U.S. history, Henry Kissinger had a war on his hands. For the fifth, time since 1948, Israel and the Arabs were locked in battle.
In his new memoirs, Years of Upheaval [LitUe Brown Canada, $29.95], excerpts of which were' published in the March 1 edition of Time, Kissinger offers interesting Insights . and fascinating vignettes atraut the Yom Kippnr War and the shuttle diplomacy which followed.
Kissinger, from the outset , was determined to use the war to start a peace process, for he was of the opinion that Egypt had launched the war to restore its self-respect and thereby increase its diplomatic flexibility.
Once hostilities began, Kissinger swung into action, recommending . to . President Richard Nixon a joint U.S.-Soviet effort at the United Nations ■ to secure a prompt with-_^drawal of forces to the . lines at which the conflict had begun. In.practice, since the Arabs were technically the aggressors, Kissinger's ploy was aimed agajnst Egypt and Syria, whose armies had crossed the ceasefire lines.
"If the Soviets rose to the bait, the war would end quickly," he writes. "If they refused, Jerusalem would, have time to mount a counter-attack."
His plan was foiled by one hitch: Israel was on "the edge of '{military) catastrophe." Contrary to U.S. forecasts, the Israeli armed forces were in deep trouble. Kissinger says that. on. Oct. 19, Israel's ambassador in Washing-ton-and its military attache told him that their losses. ' had beisn "staggering . . . totally unexpected." •
Forty-nine Phantom Jets and 500 tanks had been destroyed. Israel's envoy, Simcha Dinitz, implored Kissinger to keep the figures from everyone except Nixon. "If they were known, the Arab countries now istanding aloof might join in for a knockout blow."
Golda Meir, the Israeli Prime Minister, wanted to see Nixon immediately on urgent arms aid; ''I rejected the idea out of hand .. . Golda's leaving while a major.battle was going on would be a sign of such. panic that it might bring in all the Arab states still on the sidelines. It would leave Israel leaderless
Kissinger's colleagues were skeptical about Israel's hugelosses In materiel. The director of the CIA; William Colby, reported that Israel was doing well and was simply angling for maximum, military aid. James Schlesinger, the secretary of defence [a Jewish convert to Christianity], ex-'pressed concern that meeting Israel's request would "blight" Washbig-ton's relations with the Arabs.
Kissinger himself felt that Israel had already suffered a "strategic defeat." Nixon, who otherwise-thought that American Jews "put Israel's Inter(|sts above all else," agreed with his secretar>-of state that "the Israelis ; must not be- allowed to lose." —
Henry KIsshiger and Golda Meh* appear at a press conference after the Yom Kippnr War. riPPA photo]
According to Kissinger, Nixon was convinced that Israel's occupation of Arab lands strengthened anti-Western radicals in the region. "He understood that the reverse was not true; pressuring Israel in concert with radical forces was more likely to further Soviet than Western interests."
Thus, Nixon ordered a massive airlift of weaponry to Israel. Kissinger claims that the airlift was not deliberately delayed to pressure Israel to accept, an early ceasefire, "Bureaucratic foot dragging and. logistical problems were the only causes of the delay."
Although Nixon was kept abreast of developments in the war, he was obsessed by the unfolding Watergate affair, Kissinger writes.
On Oct. 24, with the war winding dpwn, the Soviet Union issued a harsh ultimatum. Unless the U-S. restrained Israel, Moscow would consider the adoption of "appropriate; steps" to curb Israel's "arbitrariness." Kissinger describes it as "one of the most serious challenges to an American President by a Soviet leader."
In response, U.S. forces around the world were placed on alert, .and Kissinger warned the Soviet, ambassador in Washington that Russian pressure would, not be tolerated. The Soviets, who had been
considering the dispatch of forces to Egypt, backed down, thereby averting an awesome crisis.
On Oct.31, with the war over, Golda MeIr arrived In Washington. Given Israel's frightful casualties, she was not the cocky person she had once been, Kissinger observes. "Israel's aura of invincibility had disappeared, as well as the seLf-confldence that went with it."
Kissinger ruminates on Israel's problems as he: looks down on the crowds from his hotel balcony In Cairo: "The multitudes ... made vivid as no words could why Israel had premonitions about its security. Ever>' three years Egvpt's population grows by the size of all of Israel's. It was a nearly insoluble dilemma: Israel had the
power but not the faith for, peace. The Arabs had the numbers and the time; they could wait for the Israeli mistake that could prove fatal. And the consciousness of this danget-made Israeli diplomacy tense and rigid."
Having dismissed An--war Sadat as an interim figure when he succeeded Nasser in 1970, Kissinger reevaluated his judgment after meeting him in the wake of the war. "Sadat seemed free of the obsession with detail by which mediocre leaders think they are rnast'ering events, only to be engulfed by them. I sensed that Sadat represented the best chancetptranscend frozen attitudes."
In his bid to negotiate a
disengagement pact between Israel and Syria in the spring of 1974, Kissinger spent months in the area, haggling over kilometres, At Jerusalem's King David Hotel, a Jewish masseiir is giving him a vigorous rubdown, and Kissinger's wry . humor surfaces:
"All of Israel was counting on me, he allowed, pounding me. How many kilometres on the Golan was it safe to give up? I inquired . . . 'Give up? Kilometres? On the Golan? You must be crazy!' shouted my tormentor, returning to his' task with redoubled vigor." .
Kissinger's observations of the Israelis and Syrians is, perhaps, apt. As he puts it: "Strangely enough \ . . they were more similar in attitude and behavior than either was to Egypt. The Egyptian leadership group is suave, jaded, cosmopolitan. Their Syrian counterparts are prickly, proud, quick to take offense . . .
Israel shares many of these qualities."
Hafez Asaad, Syria's leader, emerges in a favorable light. "... I had. grown to like Assad," Kissinger says. "He was proud, tough, shrewd,, cordial." Referring to the agreement he eventually signed, Kissinger remarks: "He had given us many a difficult moment. But I had. witnessed how he had gone through the searing process of coming to grips with the problem of Arab-Israeli coexistence."
Kissinger liked Golda Meir. Daring a reception to mark. Kissinger's success in arranging Syria's first and oiily post-1973 agreement with Israel, Meir waxed eloquently on peace. "I kissed Golda Meir on the cheek," he writes. "But she would not tolerate sentimentality for long. Mindful — and slightly resentful — of my embrace of Arab leaders, she said: ' I have been afraid you only kissed men.' "
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Irit Bashan [right], a social woriter in Ot Yehuda, organizes a bhmket sale in the local commonlty centre for motliersLof huge families. [Carol Gootter photo]
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