Page 4. - The Canadian Jewish News, Thursday, January 7, 1982
Editoriar
M-T
The Canadian jewiainews
All iiidependcnt Cdinmunitv Newspaper servini! as a fdrurn for diverse vie'wp<)jiits.
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CnarlesBronlman, Donald Carr, Q.C • Gebfge A. Conon. Jjck Cummings, . Murray B/Kof<ler, Albert J, batner, . Ray D. Wolfe, Rubjn Zimmerman ■
■ Editor.JV1auriceJ_ucbw Assistant Editor, David Birkan . BusiriessManaqer, Gary l-aloret ' '
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VOL. XXII, NO. 37 (2,085)
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Challenge to our own government
anti-semitism
It was probably inevitable that the ruthless mllitarv government of Poland, encouraged by the Russians, would blame Jews for the country's problems regardless of the fact that there are'oid^ about 5,000 Jews left bi Poland, most of them elderly. When the people are hungry ajid despondent, what better way to divert their attention from the horrible conditions than by spreading the lie that the Jews have caused all the trouble!
This approach is an old standard in Poland. During the Polish food riots some years ago, the Corbmunist government was quick to blame "the Zionists and the CIA'' for the food shortages and the subsequent riots. ,
And given Poland's long-standing reputation for anti-semitism, it is not surprishig that this trick is again behig used.
As far as we can determine, protests to
the Polish government about this new ahti-semitic outbreak have come only £rom Jewish groups. While the Canadian and U.S. governments have condemned the crackdown on the Solidarit>' movement, ey don't seem to have spelled out their >ulsion at the emphasis on anti-semitism. Why not? Has the lesson of the Nazism been forgotten so soon? Have our government leaders forgotten that anti-semitism is a major step in challenging democracy in general?
With anti-semitism on the rise ail over Europe, it's time for the governments of the democracies to take a major stand against it and Canada should be in the forefront. Jewish organizations in our country must mount the stroiigest pressure campaign ever to get the Canadian govenunent to act. Protesting the new anti-semitism hi Poland is a good place for Canada to start.
Courage is not a common quality, particularly when your own life is on the Ibie. Martin Goodman, the president of Toronto Star Newspapets Ltd., was a courageous man. Told by doctors in 1980 that he was terminally 111, Goodman valiantly labored on. Late last year, he lost hisbattle with cancer^ dying hi a Toronto hospital at the age of 46.
Goodmari's death was a blow to The Toronto Star/ Canada's largest daily. It': .followed by days the passing away of another great Canadian journalist. Marie ■Gayn, who was the Star's foreign affairs expert., '
The Irmnediate paist president of Canadian Press, Goodman had .an illustrious career in journalism. He worked for Montreal's community weekly, The Monitor of NDG. and he wrote for The McGill Daily. .'Kfter graduating from the Columbia School of Journalism, he joined The Calagary Herald, then Canadian Press.
Goodman, who was born in Calgary but •raised in .Montreal, came to The Toronto Star when he was 23. At 33, he was managing editor. By 36, he was editor-in-, chief. He was named president seven years later.
He was an energetic, intelligent and aggressive reporter who could be abrasive in the pursuitof a story. "Marty," as hewas known at the Star, covered stones ranging from racial segregation in the ; U.S. to
economic conferences. He was the Star's bureau chief in both Washington and Ottawa.
As an editor, he was tough, demanding and brusque if need be. Onice, In faU view of the dt>- room, he dragged a drunken reporter to the elevator and pushed him In. He returned hi a calm frame of mind, his white shirt missing a sleeve and its buttons, his tie faanginjg aiskew, his face scratched and his hair tronsled. The story Is that Goodman, having made an example of the man, never mentioned the iiicident to him iigaln.
As president, he e.xpanded the paper's . coverage and presided over its transformation to a Sunday newspaper. We imagine he woiild have been the next publisher had he lived long enough.
. Friends and colleagues at the Star were ■amazed and awed at his ability to work hard and productively even after learning that his days were numbered. As a CJN reporter discovered in an interview with: him si;c months ago., Goodman hardly, sounded like a doomed man. He had lost hair and weight and his face was ashen, but cancethad not vanquished his combative spirij. "When I had to assume I'd die soon. my first thought was that I've had a.good life." he said. '-'I've gone where I wanted, done what I've wanted, I dont regret a minute. The first 46 . vears werefuli." . .
A better obituan' could not have been written. •
Bmy of a Peofile
By DAVID BIRKAN
"J'Accnse"byEmileZola was published in the journal L'Aurore on Jan. 10, 1898, employing the sensational element m. France's press to help undo the unjustice to which It had so largely contributed.
The France that in 1791 had been the first country in Europe to grant Jews citizenship was, toward the end of the 19th century, polarizing into two camps: one, institutionalizing the liberal and democratic sentiments of the French Revolution, was m -powerras—the-T^ird-Republicr^he~oTlTerr
composed largely of clerical, military and aristocratic elements, clamored for the reinstltutionofthe monarchy. In the middle _w.ere theJews.
Playmgthemost obvious role m the battle for the populace's support was France's -press. -By-'the mfd-90s, it was the most extravagant m-tfe world before or since, due to liberal-press laws, cheap newsprint and production costs, and the proliferation of political parties with views to express. In 1889, Paris had TO'weeklies and dailies, and • 13 evening papers. i Scandal and sensation were the journals' stock and trade. Leading columnists, for example,:in their rise to personal power,-sparked or took part directly in •m&te than 150 duels—; affairs of-honor — between 1885 and 1895. Most of the leading papers were conservative and pro-monarchist;. anti-semitism was both a goal in itselt and a means towards the overthrow of the ovemment.
Jn 188^joumalist Edouard Drumont wrote in his'^J)ook -'La France Juive'' that Jews had been the cause of all national ; misfortunes since the country's defeat in the" Franco-Prussian War of 1870, and, furthermore, that they were menacing the livelihood aiid forttines of hoiiest.Freiich-men. hi May, 1892, Druinont's paper, La
"'Libre Parole, published a series of articles called "The Jews in the Army," in which the growing number of Jewish officers was denounced as a threat to national secunty.
In 1893, revelations of what was called the Panama Affair rocked France. Government officials had been bnbed to vouch for a phony nationwide investment scheme supposedly, to finance the Panama Canal. Several Jews were involved, leading to the "corrupt influence of Jews" being widely denounced in the press.
One year later, Alfred Dreyfus, a career "Sntiy—officerT—was—accused of passli military secrets to Germany. Writhig of the arrest of "a Jewish ofDcer" hi La Libre Parole earned Drumont banner headlines. ~ Dreyfns, whose gnllt was taken for granted, was depicted as a tool of Jewish financiers plotting to deliver France unarmed and r nakedipto the hands of Germany. Ensolng stories described-alleged conspiracies in -Paris'-Jewish high soicIetyTrx
: Drev'fus was hastily convicted on the - evidence of an incriminating note forged in his handwriting. He was stnpped of his rank in a humiliating public ceremony; one witness, a reporter for Le Figaro, comr mented: "The wretch was not a Frenchman. We all understood it from his deeds, his demeanor and from his face."
According to future French prime minister, Leon Blum, who was a journalist at the time, Jewish society largely ignored Dreyfus, h was only the efforts of Henri Picquart, an officer in military intelligenci that cast doubts on Dreyfus^^uilt. Theif> articulation by novelist-Zola, selling 300,000 copies of L'Aurore in a matter of hours, reawkened the press Y" arid therefore the pubiic*s-^ attention on Dreyfus; until his-/ eventual exoneration in i906._^^^^^^^^^ S Ambng foreign observers of Dreyfus'' brdekl wais another joiunallst, one Theodore Herzl of Vienna.
By SHEiDON FORSHNER
Yasser Arafat, chairman of the Palestine Liberation Organization, was fighting for his political life as 1982 dawned.
The PLO leader, who has weathered several crises since the Six Day War, may emerge unscathed from the latest one. But it will be a close call, in any case.
His leadership Is under severe attack from Palestinians who regard Arafat as a moderaite in his approach to Israel. This may sound strange to those who believe that Arafat is firmly committed to Israel's destruction.^ Bat hi certain chtles hi the Palesthiian camp, Arafat is viewed with dripping,scorn as a potential traitor to the cause.
Arafat's primary enemy is SabrI al-Banna, or Abu Nidal, who is thought to be responsible for a series of recent terrorist operations in Europe. He was expelled from the PLO hi 1974 aJnd later sentenced to death in absentia for his violent opposition to any consideration of a negotiated settiement of the Arab-Israeli dispute. Arafat, by contrast, has been amenable ti9 diplomatic means to force the creation of a Palestinian state>
Abu Nidal's support comes from Syria, a rejectionist state whose policies are bound to harden even more following Israel'is annexation of the. Golan Heights.
Yet Abu Nidal is not the only Palestinian leader who disagrees with Arafat (whose own views may change as a result of that policy moveK
Among Arafat's opponents in the PLO' are Dr. George Habash (Popular Front for the Liberation of Pale;stine),NaefHawatma (Democratic Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine) and Ahmed Jebril (Popular Front fdr the Liberation of Palestine,"General Command).
Factionalism within the ranks of the PLO -is not surprising to anyone who follows Palestinian affairs. Created by the Egyptians in 1964, the PLO is basically an umbrella organization whose diversity is both a strength and a weakness.
The wealth of conflicting viewpoints is usually kept, in check by Arafat, who 'controls about two-thirds of the 301 Seats in : the Palestine National Cotinc.il — the Palestinians' parliament — and 10 of the 15 . . mernbers of the policy-iiiaking .executive committee.
. But Arafat is virtually powerless to form a coherent political policy which has everyone's stamp of approval, and challenges to his legitimacy are therefore riot uncbmtrion.
This fact was starkly illustrated late in, 1981 at the Arab summit meeting in Fez, Morocco, the main purpose of which was to discuss Saudi Arabia's 8-f)oint peace plan.
The plan, an amalgam of United Nations and Arab resolutions^ proposed a complete Israeli withdrawal from the occupied areas, theestablishrrient of a Palestinian state and implicit recognition of Israel.
Arafat, backed financially by the Saudis, supported Crown Prince Fahd's formula- . tion as a "good basis for negotiations for a lasting peace." Israel rejected it out of hand. -
In Fez, : Arafat suffered a humiliating setback [as did the Saudis]; The plan was vigorously denounced by his. Pdestinlan . associates as a U.S. plot designed to foil the Palestinian revolution. Farouk Kaddonmi, his chief foreign policy aide, openly lambasted the clause offering implicit recognition of Israel. [On the eve of the summit,. Kaiddoimii had told Stem, the West German magazine, that he was in ^ favor of destroying Israel].
Syria, whose support Arafat has often sought, farther isolated him. Its president. Gen. Hafez Assad, chose to remain in Damascus as a sharp sign of his displeasure with the SaadI plan.
For Arafat, the abrupt brealaip of the Fez simimit-wBtrarpersonaldebBcIerA^part from~ Assad, Saddam Hassehi of Lraq and Moiunmar Qaddafi of Libya stayed away. Arafat, whose survival depends upon his . ability to play off one Arab country against the other, failed to do that hi Morocco.
Instead,. he exposedTiis flanks and therebvyveakened himself — a mistake he . IS not likely to commit in the foreseeable future, j;partic'ulariy in the wake oJ the extension of Israeli law to the Golan Heights, .
No doubt the disaster in Fez was greeted with glee by Abii-Nidal, who has had a running battle with Arafat for almost a decade now.
He has been at odds with Arafat ever sbicie the mid 1970s, when Arafat's al Fatah group began to advocate a solution based on a Palestinian mhii-state on the West Bank and in the Gaza Strip. In an attempt to accomplish this goal, Arafat sought West European support, which lie got to some degree. The;radicals.were not Impressed. Aba NIdal and Arafat had a faUing oat / over the Issae, with Nidal insisting that the gan -I- and not the olive branch — was.tbe only possible solation to the nagging Palestinian qaestion.
With a band of followers estimated to be in the hundreds, Abu Nidal went to Iraq and opened an office in Baghdad, calling his
group the .Fatah Revolutionary Command. Not only was he prepared to fight Arafat. Abu Nidal said his eriemies also included the"reacti6nary regimes" of Syria, Jordan and Lebanon.
Operating under the protection ofjraq—^ then, as now, fending with Syria — Abu Nidal carried oat a series of actions meant to embarrass Arafat and to hart the' Syrians.
Abu Nidal's men seized the Semiramis Hotel in Damascus in September of 1976, and occupied Amman's Intercontinental Hotel two months later. Casualties occurred in each incident. The Syrians and the Jordanians struck back by hanging the perpetrators. .
In December, Abu-Nidal's hit meri tried to assassinate Syria's foreign minister, .Abdul Halim Khiaddam, ostensibly because Syria had intervened in the Lebanese civil war on the side of the Christian militia. In October of 1977, they made a second attempt on his life.
During this period, Abu Nidal. who had meantime changed the name of his group to Al Asifa, was linked to assassinations of FLO diplomatic representatives in Paris, London, Islamabad and Kuwait. Each representative was intimately associated with Arafat's diplomatic demarche toward the West,
hi 1978, Abu Nidal and his Iraqisponsors found themselves on different sides of the fence. After Anwar Sadat's trip to Jerusalem, the Arabs who were against his brand of diplomacy temporarily agreed to pat aside their internal disputes. Iraq responded by cortailhig the activities of Aba Nidal. Finally, the Iraqis expelled him from Baghdad.
For some years. Abu Nidal vanished from the scene, but in 1980 or so, he turned up in Syria.
Why, after all his banles with Syria, did the Syrians take him in as one of their own?
The Syrians, who have always soagbt to control Uie destiny of the FLO, felt that Arafat was becoming too hidependent for his own good. They decided to cat him down to size by aligning themselves with Abu Nidal, whose philosophy is close to Syrian Baathist ideolog>'.
Last summer. Arafat gave Syria another excuse for backing Abu Nidal. Against Syria's advice. Arafat negotiated a ceasefire with Israel in isouthem Lebanon. The truce, which is still in effect, ended two weeks of warfare.
Syria's deep involvement in Palestinian politics is no aberration. From the start, various Arab leaders have supported their "men" in ^ the Palestinian nationalist
Hafez Asisad
[Rellgioas News Service] Yasser Arafat
movement. Iraq backs the Arab Liberation Front and Libya underwrites the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, General Command. The Democratic Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine is funded by the Soviet Union. Arafat's Al Fatah is beholden to Saudi Arabia and, to a' lesser extent, Syria.
With the agreement or co-operation of Syria, Abii Nidal stepped up his campaign against Arafat last year. In June, lie was blamed for the killing of Nairn Khader, the head of the PLO's bureau in Brussels. When Abu Daoud was shot in a Warsaw cafe in August, the PLO suspected Abu Nidal rather than the Israelis, who held him responsible for the 1972 Munich massacre.
Abii Nidal also hit the Austrians, who were the first Europeans to officially recognize tlie PLO. To undermine Arafat's good rehitionship with ; Premier Brand Kreisky, Nidal's men assassinated Heinz Nlttel, a city coancIUor, In Vienna. Nittel had lieen; chairman of the Austro-Israel Society. This happened hi May. In August, two Palestinians believed to belong to AJ As If a were arrested at Vienna's airport with-a snitcase packed with arms and explosives, llie Aastrians, under the Impression It was a PLO plot, asked its representatives In Vienna to leave-.
On Aug. 29, the PLO accused Abu Nidal of masterminding the synagogue assault in Vienna, which left two dead arid 20 irijured. The attackers had miade a special point of identifying themselves as members of the PLO. Arafat disavowed the raid. - It isn't entirely clear whether Abu Nidal has managed to poison Arafat's relations with Kreisky. But it is obyioiis that Kresiky is no longer under any illusions about the fragmented nature of the Palestinian guerrilla 'movement. ;.
And Arafat himself has fewer illusions about his eneriiies, especially since the Oct. 9 murder of one of his closest colleagues, Majed Abu Shrar, and the recently reported assassination attempt on his life.
A member of Al^atah's executive committee, Shrar was slain when a powerful bomb exploded in his Rome hotel room. Al Asifa, Abu Nidal's organization, is believed responsible. A caller who phoned Renter's office in the; Italian .capital attributed his assassination to "the line of surrender" he espoused.
According to The Observer of London, Arafat narrowly escaiped deaths in Athens
when marksmen opened fire on him. The PLO denies the incident ever took place.
Despite Abn Nidal's nitfaless "boDet diplomacy,*' Arafat,' appuentiy, has not been cowed. Hie indicatioins are that he is stifl wining to explore the possflbilliy of solving the Palestinian qaestion throogh. diplomatic channels. ; • -; .
:AridiRt, however, has not aba^ the military option, which Is at his disposal, or disavowed, the danse tn the National Covenant cidllng.for Israel's extinction.
A practitorier of' realpolitik, Arafat is keeping his options open, braving the wrath of Abu Nidal and those who ap^e or sympathize with his extremist opinions.
In practical teims:, Arafat Is going about ' this by strengthening Us forces In Lebanon [the PLC b stronger than evier, in Israel's estimate] and by intimating that he Is ready for an accommodation with Israel If the tenns are right.
In a recent interview with Der Splegelof West Germany, Arafiat andoabtedly enraged Aba Nidal by declaring that a settiement coald be negotiated on the biasis of United Nations resolatlons [whkh caD on Israel to withdraw from the territories and to acquiesce to the creation of a Palestinian state]. ■
Arafat may, of course, modify his approach now that Israeli law holds sway on the Golan Heights. But, for the moment, the PLO leader seemsopen to a deal that would afford the Palestiniiansf sovereignty in any part of the historic boundaries of Palestine.
get out.
NEW YORK —
A Peruvian newspaper has rejected economic blackmail efforts by the Palestine Liberation Organization and has called for theexpulsion of the PLO representative in Lima.
According to the Latin American Affairs department of the Anti-Defamation League of B'nai B'rith. the Lima daily, Expresso, reacted shai-ply to a statement by the I'LO representative making Arab economic aid to Peru conditional on diplomatic support for the PLO.
Rabbi Morton" M. Rosenthal, head of the Latin American Affairs department who has just returiied from a visit to Peru arid other . Latin American nations, siaid the newspaper's stand reflected "not only nationalistic sentiments, but profound concern with the more than 1,000 terrorist acts counted in Peru this year."
Among the targets of terrorist bombers have been the American embassy and a Jewish day school in; Lima.
In an editorial (dated Dec. 5) Expresso linked'the PLO With"terrorism, violence and death" and commented on PLO representative Issam Beseisso's offer of Arab loans and petrodollar grarits to Peru if the country would "assume a favorable positionvisavisthe Palestinian cause... .as in the case of Brazil."
The Expresso editorial asserted that "the recent declaration of Mr, Beseisso . . . con- • stitiites an offense to the Peruvian people. This type of blackmail is unacceptable."
Troubled year in Israel is over^ asks blessings of peace for 1982
ByJ,B.SALSBERG
Traditionally, Jews pray on the Jewish New Year for what they want to come true in the unfolding year. But while Jan. 1 is the beginning of the year in the Western World,. Jews can't^think of 'praying on this one — one "of many non-Jewish new years.
At best one" can wish on such an -occasion, like, I wish I could, I wish I would ... —
So, because Israel is profoundly important for the continuity of our Jewish peoplehood and, because Israel is presently beset with enormously ' troubling problems and challenges, I thought that I should offer some of my personal wishes for the Jewish state in the new year 1982.
- wish that the mtemal wars of the ISws.lhQse who dwell ui the land of ^Israel, wiir^ubside in the year 1982. I refer to the wars^that rage among the extremist groups ui ^(lea Shearim; and 1 refer to the pitched battles that the fanatical zealots of that sector of Jerusalem stage against the archeolor gists, against the police, against motorists, against mixed bathers, etc., etc. ;
• I wish that Premier Menachem Begin would stop his vituperative; public
. tongue-lashing of foreign heads of state or he will soon run out of targets for such attacks. ,■■ ■:■ ■ - ■ ' :
In this connection, I also wish that if Begin should be overcome by an uncontrolled desire to lash out at some foreign rulers that he get one of his ministers to do the dirty work. When: a minister-
, performs the unpleasant (and often unnecessary) hatchet job, there will still be the'Prime Minister to pour oil on the troubled waters. But if the Prime Minister performs the lashing, then there is no one left to calm the
. international political atmosphere. After
-all-rwe"Ttlay~be the Chosen People; but we can hardly live in splendid isolation of the rest of the world.
• I wish that the Labor Party of Israel, the dominant member of the official opposition in the Knesset, would come to grips with itself and resolve the inner conflicts thaLseem tahave'roots in the -conflicts of personalities rather than in < fundamental political differences.-- -■ And, is it too much to wish that a middle faction arise in that historic party " that'will say Joud and clear that if the Peres-Rabin feud can not be resolved, then a third person should be placed on -the throne? Such a resolution would, in
. my opinion, not only be good for the Labor Party but also.for Israel as a whole.
• I wisli that the Begin government would display a bit more modesty and humility and less, much less boastful-ness when speaking of its domestic accomplishments: (Its accomplishments in international affairs are sufficiently-^ apparent to require no further com-
■ ment.) . ■ - v ■ ■» ■ ■
After all five years after the present govemment came to power, aliya has^ dropped to the lowest level ever; thfe yerida (emigration) has also reached tl|e.
highest figure ever; internal strife, as between the Ashkenazic and Sephardic communities, has become extremely disquieting and the country's isolation in the intemationaT arena has reached an alarming degree. Nor has the double-digit inflation rate slowed down to any great extent.
With such a record it should behoove the government and its spokesmen to be more apologetic and less bombastic about its record. Objective conditions have certainly influenced some of the developments in Israel's internal and external condition, but no government that was at the helm of state for that long can evade responsibility for the conse-quences . . . for the bottom line of the balance sheet.
• I wish that some Israeli parties * especially those in the Orthodox camp, wouldstop looking over theb: shoulders to make sure that those behind them are not gaining on them, r "The Agudath Israel, that is sharing the • government bed with the full-blooded Zionists* can not; escape the habit of keeping one eye on the extremist, violently anti-Zionist fanatics behind them. The Mizrachi (religious party),-on the other hand, that has always been ^ linked with political Zionism and was the ■■ dominant political force in the Orthodox sector, is always aware that the Agudah is breathing down its neck and, therefore, often slackens its pace. .
ff it is too much to wish that the two Orthodox political parties amalgamate into one (and I imagine that is too extreme a wish) then I wish that each be what it is and stop worrying about those that are behind each one of tliem.
___^* In conclusion, I wish that Israel
overcomes its awesome problems in the coming Var and that it attain a taste of the blessmgs of peace in the calendar year that is now beginning.: