Page 10-The Canadian Jewish News, Thursday, October 12, 1989
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CYNTHIA GASNER [Continued from last week]
In the United States. George BusH and Dan ,QuayIe,were..swept into office by more than a 2-1 margin. Bucking the national trend, as in past ' elections. Jews voted overwhelmingly Democrat-: ic: Three Jewish newcomers and 28 incumbents were elected to the House of Representatives, an all-time high of 31 Jewish members when the 101st Congress was sworn in on Jan. 3.
President'Bush appointed Morris Abram. 70. of New York, the former chairman of theCQit-... ference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Dranizations. as the U:S. ambassador to the European headquarters of the United Nations in Geneva.
Within weeks of Bush's move to the White House, the State Department charged Israel with *'a substantial increase in human rights violations" in Israel's handling of the Palestinian uprising during 1988. In a reply to U.S. criticism of Israel, the Israeli foreign ministry stressed that Israel's actions have been fully in keeping with--international law. The response to the accusations noted that Arabs, too, have been the victims of Arab extremist violence^
■ American Zionists and congregational organizations represented by the World Jewish Congress endorsed a resolution reaffirming the WJC's solidarity with the State of Israel and expressing its "unyielding commitment to the welfare, security and prosperity" of the Jewish state, and called on the U.S. government to mairitain its political and economic support of Israel.
Immediately after the United States rejected Yasser Arafat's request for a visa diat would permit him to address the UN Generai Assembly in New York on Dec. 1, the United States announced it would open an official dialogue with the PLO. Prime Minister Sharnir said that the "grave, painful and difficult" move puts relations between Israel and the United States "to a^very serious test. "Following the mornentous change in U.S. foreign policy, Foreign Minister Shimon Peres said in,a radio interview that after 40 years of Palestinian terrorism against Israel. : One would have to be foolish to believe that a few words •uttered in Geneva had changed the situation. •
Spokesmen for the United States, defending the dramatic shift in American; policy, said they agreed to enter into substantive talks with the PLC after they determined thatjhe PLC leader had met three U.S.'conditions for such talks: renouncing terrorism, recognizing Israel and accepting UN Security Council Resolutions 242 and 338. Following the U.S. decision, 2^ President Reagan, in one of his last official communications as president, sent a letter to Prime Minister Shamir expressing his "personal assurances" that the U.S.-PLO dialogue wiil not damage U.S.-Israel ties, biif may encourage "realism and pragmatism" among Palestinians.
A spate of hardline political staterhents were
made by Prime Minister Shamir as he and his aides prepared for their encounter with the new U.S. administration in Washington in April. After a 65-minute White House meeting with Shamir. 45 minutes of which were a private session between the twojeaders. Bush endorsed Shamir's election plan to allow the Palestinians to choose representatives for negotatiOns with Israel; Both Bush and Shamir made clear that the election would lead to an interim period of Palestinian self-rule, afterwhich negotiations would be held for a final settlement. _
' "Anti-Semite. anti-Zionist and denier of the _^HoIoeaust Lyndon LaRouche Jr. was sentenced to 15 years in prison for tax evasion and fraud. The 66-year-old politician, who ran three times for president, is known for his outrageous allegations, among them that the Queen headed a world-wide ring of drug traffickers.
Of concern to American Jewish leaders was the victory of-neo=Na^i David Duke, former grand wizard of the Knights of the Ku Klux Klan^ in a special primary election for a seat, in the Louisiana House of Representatives. Duke, 38, who was president of the National Association for the Advancement of White People, was a candidate for U.S. president in November. '
In Los Angeles, Irv Rubin, the national chairman of the Jewish Defence League, won a $100,000 judgement ($10;00b in damages for slander and an additional $90,000 in punitive damages) against an American Nazi, Stanley Wi-. tek, a leader of The National Socialist American Workers Party, who publicly asserted that Rubin had AIDS.
Rabbi SholomBer Levitin, 42, director of Seattle's Ghabad House, was sentenced to 30 days in a halfway house, received fines of $10,000 and was placed on three year's probation by a U.S; districtcourtjudge in Newark, N.J. for his role in a $25 million worldwide, money-laundering ring. The judge suspended a two-year prison term on the condition that Levitin not commit a crime during probaitipn. Levitin told the court he bcr lieved he was helping oppressed Jews in Argen- . tina. South Africa and Iran emigrate to Israel with !their assets.
PLC Chairman Yasser Arafat confers with French President Francois Mitterand at the Elysee Palace in Paris on May 2. [RNS photo]
In December 1988, Amnesty International called on people everywhere to put pressure on the goviernment of Syria in order to assist six Jews who had been imprisoned-in that Middle East country without charges for over one _year. Pleas by the Canadian Jewish community to the Canadian government to use its good offices to press for the emigration of Syrian Jews fell on deaf ears,.said Judy Feld Carr, chairman of the National Task Force for Syrian Jews of Canadjiah Jewish Congress.
"What we're pleading fOri5jODrJhe.^anadian government to intercede witb. the Syrian authorities to allow a small group of single Jewish women to lealve Syria to emigrate to Canada, because thereare very few single Jewish men for them to riiar-ry in Syria," added Carr. ^
* .
Prime Minister Yitzhak Shamir shakes hands with U.S. President George Bush April 6 after completing talks in Washington on the Israeli peace plan. [RNS photo]
A judge in Argentina approved the extradition to West Germany of accused Nazi war criminal Joseph Schwanimberger-r76T-who is accused of brutally shooting and torturing hundreds of Jews in Poland as cornmandant of a ghetto and several labor camps during the Second World War. . Legislation to prosecute Nazi war criminals in Australia was passed in Deceniber by the Aiis-traliaiipariiament, after being stalled in the Senate for more than a year, following a marathon and often-heated debate.
Austria threatened'to reduce the level of its diplomatic representation in Israel as a reisult of Jerusalem's refusal to send an ambassador to Vienna. Foreign Minister Moshe Arens said the threat will not change Israel's mind. Arehs recalled that relations with Vienna were impaired when Kurt Waldheim became U)e Austrian presi-: dent despite his service with an SS unit in Yugoslavia during the Second World War. At that time, Israeldeliberately downgraded its representation, which is now headed by a charge d'affaires. ^
The first Judaic Studies Centre in China was established in Shanghai under the presidency of Prof. Zhu Weile. But the "open door" policy inaugurated by China in 1980 was slammed closed when Chinese students in Beijing staged, non-violent demonstrations and the hard-line regime retailiated. on June 3 by violently attacking the students. In less than a week,, the open rebelT lionwas over and Tienanmen Square was cleared of tanks and armored personnel carriers, but some 3.000 people had been killed and 10.000 more were wounded.
Later that month, the American Jewish Gom-. mittee cancelled plans to send a delegation to China in September in'protest against the Chinese government's use of force against the student activists and the subsequent repression of the move- . ment for democratic reform,.'
Abba Eban, chairmah of the Knesset foreign affairs and defence committee, broke the ice on a. two-day private visit to Prague, the first to Czechoslovakia by a senior Israeli official in 20 ■. years.. ■ , ■ ■•
After the arrest of Illa.Lyngsby, a 25-year-old ^ Danish school teacher in Israel, who allegedly haraissed security agents, it was reported Uiat anti-Israef sentiments were generated in the Danish ' news media. It is believed that Lyngsby may have been involved in aterrori^rpiorto assassinate the Chief Rabbi of Denmark, The Danes charged Israel with violations of human rights/
Israel lodged a formal protest in June with the government of Egypt oVer an incident in which the Egyptian naVy fatally shot Eilat resident Shir mon Yisraeli. 42. in the Gulf of Eilat off Taba. Yisraeli was fishing with his son and a friend.
Maurice Sabatier, 91, who was governor of the Bordeaux region during the Nazi occupation of France, was indicted in Paris in October for his role mjhe mass deportation of French JeWs between 1942'and 1944. He faces charges of "crimes -against humanity." His subordinate. Maurice Papon, was charged with the same crimes in June 1988,. biit his indictment was an-, nounced only two.weeks before Sabatier's.
in Damascus on Dec. 27, France asked iSyria for the extradition of Alois Brunner, one of the . last major Nazi war criminals known to be alive. Syria has denied for years any knowledge of Brunher's whereabouts, contrary to all evidence including an interview^runner gave to a Chicago Tribune reporter in Damascus last year.
And Paul'Touvier. 74. France's most wanted " wartiniexollaboratorand aclose aide to convicted waricriminal KJaus Barbie, was arrested in May inJNice. He faces trial for crimes against humanity. Tpuvier was twice sentenced to death in absentia for war crinies. but he was granted official. pardon by the late president Georges Pompidou in 1972; he was able to recover his personal pos/ sessions. .. _
President Francois Mitterrand reaffirmed his
friendship with Israel and assured the Jewish community in France that his rtieeting with Yasser Arafat does not mean he now supports the PLO's aims. "Talking does not mean accepting" the PLO's objectives. Mitterrand said in a letter addressed to the Representative Council of French Jewish Institutions.
In August, the justice ministry in Paris decid-. ed to press charges of "racist defamation" against Jean^Marie Le Pen, the leader of die extreme right-wing National Front, for claiming that Jews subvert French patriotism. Le Pen said international Judaism is undermining national spirit and patriotic sentiments in France. •
Paul Touvier in 1943. [RNS photo]
Steps were;taken to establish ties widi East Germany When Kurt Lbeffler, secretary of state and chiirch affairs, visited Israel. Jerusalem's Mayor Teddy KoUek refused to receive him because die German"Democratic Republic does not recognize Israel.
The German Democatic Republic announced that it is prepared to pay a "symbolic sum" of reparations to the Jewish survivors of the Holocaust. Edgar Bronfman, president of the Worid Jewish Congress, made the announcement, at an-East Berlin news conference in October. It is the.first time East Germany, a Communist bloc county, has acknowledged an obligation to Jewish survivors. West Germany did so in 1952.
The president of the parliament of West Germany, Phillip Jenninger. was forced to resign in November after making a speech marking the 50th anniversary of Kristallnacht. in which he called the early year-s-of the Third Reich a "glorious" timo for many Germans.
In January, it was reported that anti-Semitic vandalism in West Gerrnany had become rampant, leavingthe Jewish community outraged. Pig carcasses \ were hung on the Putlitzbruecke memorial to Jews who were transported in trains from Berlin to Auschwitz and other death camps. The Ploetzensee memorial where hundreds of anti-Nazis were killed, as well as other landmarks, were daubed with anti-Semitic slogans such as "Juden Raus."
Mainstream politicians and other West Ber-linersexpressed shock and concern-While thou- . sands of people sjiouted "Nazis out"'after the unexpectedly strong-showing by -the neo-Nazi Repiiblican'Party in the West.Beriin election jn January. The party is led by Franz Schonhuber,„ 66. a former SS officer; —
And working in concert with a West German fimi. Libya completed work on a facility capable of producing mustard and nerve gas. Libyan leader Moamiiiar Khadafy"s spokesman denied
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