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The Canadian Jewish News, Thursday, November 2, 1989-Page 3
*s ambassador addresses Victoria community
By
MAURICE LUGOW
J^ICTORIA-
As long as the Jews of the world are united, "no one can do us any harm any more," said Israel Gur-Arieh, Israeli ambassador to Canada^ in an address last week to the Victoria Jewish conimuhity at Congregation Enianu-El.
"We need patience," he said. "The day will come when we'll sit down and
negotiate with our enemies. But it will take time. Sooner later we'll have peace." peace;"
Responding to a member of the audience who criticized Israel's approach in dealing with the Palestinians, Gur-Arieh shot back; •amidst loud applause: "You don't have the right to preach to us. Why don't you come.to Israel and find out what's really going on." .
It was the ambassador's first visit here since being posted to Canada more than two years ago and he wais given a warm welcome by a smaU Jewish community which is hungry for information about Israel.
(The media in the Vancouver-Victoriia area do not cover the.Middle East as thoroughly as in Toronto, and The Canadian Jewish News has only limited circulation here.)
Gur-Arieh; his vrifer embassy official Gershon Zohar and Itay Yeheske-ly, of the Toronto consulate, made up the ofTicial party.
They were guests at lunch at Government House, where they met British Columbia's lieutenant-governor David Lam who immigrated to Canada 32 years ago from , Hong Kong. Later they visited Premier William
TORONTO -
A representative of. the Simon Wiesenthal Centre last week presented the head of Canada's war crimes prosecution unit with a list of 21 names of members of a notorious murder squad who are believed to have emigrated to Canada after the Second World War;
Ephraim Zuroff. the-Centre's director of research in Jerusalem, met"' with Bill Hobspn in London while both were attending a war crimes conference. Zuroff presented Hobson with the names of 21 former members of the 12th Lithuanian Police Battalion who emigrated to Canada by sh.ip after the war. '
"We have a document-. ary record of their ship's' passage and the date they arrived in Canada," Zuroff • said.
The 12th Lithuanian
Police Battalion was recruited by the German occupation forces and assisted in murdering thousand of Jews, White Russians and Poles in the cities of Kaunas, Minsk, Slutzk, Koldonov, Ru-densk, Dukara and small towns in betweenv a Wiesenthal Centre news release states.
A report by the local German official. District Governor Carl of Sliizk, states, the police drove the Jews to'the edge of town with blows from rifle butts and rubber truncheons and then carried oiit mass shootings.
Thie bodies were thrown into a large trench. Some of those wounded worked themselves out of the mass graves.
"Twenty of the 21 names we submitted to Hdbsbn are thie result of new research and were not seen by the! Descheneis
Commissibri" of Inquiry' into War Crimes," said Sol Littman, the Centre's Canadian representative.
The London list was the thffd list-of Nazi war criminals presented to federal authorities by the Wiesenthal Centre since the Deschenes Commission ■ concluded its investigation into Nazi war criminals in Canada. ;
The Commission concluded in December 1986 that there were 20 cases , which required immediate legal action and a further 219 that should .be investigated; ftirther.
So far, only Imre Finta of: Toronto has. been_ prosecuted for warerimes and crimes against: humanity.under Canada's revised . T criminal law;, His, case is now being heard in a Toronto court.
In Vancouver, former University of British .. Columbia lecturer 'Jacob
By^ : GARY POGROW
VANCOUVER -
The only Jew to run as a candidate for the B.C. Sor cial Credit Party stormed 'out of the party's annual convention here recently amidst a chorus, of boos and jeers after he failed in . an attempt to debate the party constitution's reference to "Christian principles." "i^
Phrases like "The party ft better off without.you," and "You're a jerk" soared above-tbe hail of boos as Vancouver stockbroker Michael Levy left the meeting room.
Outside, Levy threatened to quit the'party which, he .said, maintains "its exclu-siveness." ■
Levy, who ran unsuccessfully as a Socred'last March in a by-election in -the Vahebuver riding of _Point Grey, was angry diat the convention voted to -postpone a debate on his proposal.
At a news conferencer about two hours after the incident, j_Premier Bill Vander Zahn, who was not at that session, said "if there was" booing, I regret that." He said he hoped Levy will partici-
pate in discussion on the issue prior to the 1990 convention, when it is scheduled to be debated.
Earlier. . Vand'er"Zalm' and member of the legislature Nick Loenen said that although they would prefer otherwise, they, wouid agree if the word ■ "Christianity" be removed from the constitution hut that the sense of the party striving for "higher principles "be maintained..
Vander Zalm told The CJN that '.T think the. problem after talking to various delegates is the fact . that it appears to single out a piarticular religion. The principles don't bother people because Jewish principles and Christian principles have very little differences.
: '*So. it's not so much the principles as it is the reference to a particular set of principles," he continued;
Meanwhile,\ following Levy's fajled proposal to amend the constitutionr-ra-cist and anti-Semitic jokes made dre rounds at the convention. The Toronto Star reports.
Former-cabinet minister Grace McCarthy, One of Vander Zalm's main oppo-
nents in the party, left a caucus breakfast meeting on Sunday after Highways . Minister Neil Vant and ; Vander Zalm ;told some. questionable jokes.'
Vander Zalm told the story of a Jew who complained he had bad luck and never won a lottery. "First .you have to buy a ticket," catne a voice from above.
Vander Zalm "said he thought the. joke was all right because a Jew. had told it to him.
Irwin Nest, executive director of the Pacific" Region of Canadian Jewish Congress, said CJC feels there is no place for a party that is . supposed to represent all the people, but which is based on a constitution that gives a preferential treatment for people of a particular faith.
He said what was most worrisome ,was the "intolerable" grass roots reaction in the party to Levy's proposal, which reportedly had "racist overtones."
Nest told The CJN that CoTTgress will demand an apology from Vander" Zalm and Vant for their jokes, which "perpetuate racial stereotypes."
. Luitjens has been the subject of .a denaturalization hearing that seeks to remove his Canadian citizenship. No decision has yet been delivered in that case.
Littman called on the justice department to increase its efforts to bring alleged war criminals to trial in Canada. "The justice department has . been dawdling, hoping that most of these men would be dead befpre they got around to trying them," Littman said. "Given the size of the task ahead, the present puny pace of prosecutions is scandalous."
Meanwhile, at the war crimes conference in London last week, international investigators urged Britain to change its law to allow for the prosecution of Nazi war criminals who fled to Britain after the war.
A British parliamentary inquiry found in July that more than 70 people living in Britain could have been involved with death squads that roamed Nazi-occupied Europe killing tens of thousand of civilians. mo.stly Jews.
Under current British law, they aire immune from prosecution for acts committed while not British citizens, and Britain is reluctant to extradite them to the Soviet Union, the site of most of the crimes.
Parliament is expected to discuss next month whether to change the law, though opponents of the move say it would set a dangerous precedent.
Australia, along with Canada, has passed laws giving domestic courts the jurisdiction tO prosecute Nazi war criminals. The United States has chosen the denaturalization and extradition routes.
"Time is ticking away. At most we have six or .seven years," Reuters news agency quoted Hob-son saying in reference to the ages of the suspects.
British investigations-were prompted by a list of 17 alleged war criminals living in Britain sent to Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher in October. 1986 by the Wiesenthal Centre in Los Angeles.
Neal Sher,-director of__ the U.S. ju.stice department's Office of Special Investigations.- estimated that as many as' lO.(XX) war criminals may be living in the United States. ■
Vander Zalm in his office in the Parliament Buildings.
Gur-Arieh told The CJN he invited both Lam and Vander Zalm to Israel. Lam told him he had been there several times, before becoming lieutenant-governor, but Mrs. Lam, who has never been to Js-rael. expressed interest in a visit. The premier did not indicate whether or not he would consider a vi,sit.
The ambassador congratulated his audience at the .shul for maintaining Jewish life "so far away from the large centres' of Jewish life," . .:
He declared that Israel's struggle for existence "is a fight for all Jewish people. We
have .sacrificed our best sons... our armed forces are defending their brothers. and sisters all over the world."
He said the Palestinian uprising-has-not^achieved anything for the Palestinians but it did create.a bad image for Israel in the media. And, he added, when .someone attacks Zionism and Israel, it's anti-Semitism which affect.s all Jews.
He said the international media have given the impression that the main p7oblem for Israel is the Palestinians. But Gur-Arieh denied this. He pointed put that Syria, Iraq and Libya have between them an arsenalof 20,000
tanks, 30,000 planes, huge numbers of missiles and chemical warfare weapons — all of which represents a dangerous threat to Israel.
He acknowledged that the Palestinians are a serious problem, which, he said, Israel -has tried to solve right from the beginning of the state. "We wanted them to co-exist with us, but they listened to their leaders and became refugees, instead."
He said Israel has tried to take .them out of the camps by providing proper housing, schools and hospitals, but noted that every year the United Nations General Assembly objects to such Israeli activities by an almost unanimous vote.
Israeli Ambassador to Canada. Israel Gur-Arieh meets with B.C. Premier Bill Vander Zalm (right). !
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