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Publisher and Editbr-ih-Ch.ief.. SAMUEL KAPLAN
Our 62nd Year
Since 1930. the only weekly publication serving Jewry of the Pacific Northwest
An Independent Newspaper
Advertising Manager RONFREMDMAN
Assistarit Edi.'pr ARIELA FRIEDMANN
News Desk. EtHAN MINOVITZ
Thursday, Auguist 13,1992
Pubiished 47 times per year by Anglo-Jewish Publishers Ltd. 3268 Heather St:, Vancouv6rjBritish Columbiia VSZ 3K5 Subscription in Canada: $37 00 per year plus $2,60 GST.
Two recent developments on the immigration front merit scrutiny, impinging as they do on Cana-dian Jewry and on Canada's immigration policies in general.
In April of this year the government of Quebec, in a rare display of altruism, signed an agreement to facilitate the immigration into the province of 300-400 Jews from the former Soviet Union.
linger terms of the agreement, the Jewish Immigrant Aid Society and the Montreal Allied Jewish Community Services will propose names to the Quebec immigration minister — who will facilitate immigration procedures through the province's Vienna offices.
The two Jewish agencies in MonivtaX will underwrite the immigrants' basic needs for a year and will help integrate them into the Quebec economy by offering, among other things, courses in French even before the prospective immigrants arrive in Canada.
While advantageous to the small number of Russian Jews who will take part in the Quebec program, this plan will do little to help the thousands of other Russian Jews who will be trying to enter Canada as refugees and who will have to prove that the situation of Jews in that country is precarious.
Meanwhile on the federal level Immigration Minister Bernard Valcourt has offered a number of changes to the Immigration Act which are designed simultaneously to encourage imrnigration on the one hand and to tighten up some of the loopholes through which large numbers of illegal immigrants are making their way into Canada.
Under the proposed changes Ottawa wants to give preference to immigants who are willing to go to undeveloped regions of the country. That is a worthy idea. Less worthy is the proposal that Ottawa be empowered to deport immigrants who violate their written commitments to go to those areas. Once in Canada, immigrants have the same rights under the Charter as Canadians: Summary deportation without the safeguard of the judicial process is unacceptable.
The same inserisitivity seems to inform the proposal that would fingerprint and photograph most refugee claimants and deport those suspected of belonging or having belonged to terrorist organizations. Qn the surface this seems reasonable. Unfortunately, this proposal is based on the dubious pro-position that all refugee claimants are to be considered suspects. This is totally unwarranted.
A spokesperson from Amnesty Internatiorial has also objected, during a session before a House of Commons Committee, to the idea that open hearings be held to investigate refugee claims. Many of the people who would have to appear before these hearings have been tortured, traumatized and abused in their home countries. Requiring them to testify in public may put them and their families at risk of reprisals. The ordeal of public scrutiny of their claims for refugee status is, therefore, too much to ask. ,. ■
The way to curb abuses of Canada's immigration laws is not through the introduction of mean-spirited changes that render all refugee clairiiants suspect but rather the strict application of the current statute.
The visit by Israeli prime minister Yitzhaik Rabin to Cairo signals a new and promising phase in the Arab-Israeli imbroglio.
Since the epoch of Anwar Sadat, Egypt has been the only Arab confrontation state which has exercised a modicum of good sense in its relationship with Israel. \
Despite occasional incidents of violence (the killing of Israeli tourists a few years ago), sporadic articles in the controlled Egypt press which endorse anti-Semitic slanders and a dearth of Egyptian travellers to Israel (caiised in part by a paralyzing Egyptian bureaucracy), the peace treaty signed by Begin and Sadat still holds today as a tribute to the supremacy of pragmatism over ideology.
For its original sin in recognizing Israel, Egypt was ostracized from the Arab League and treated as a pariaih by the other "rejectionist front" Arab gdvernmehts. In the 15 years since the peace treaty with Israel, however, Egypt has regained its priiiiacy in the Arab world.
It has achieved this, in part because of its support
62 y«.. '
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of the U.S.-led coallition against Iraq in 1991 and because of its generally moderate foreign policy. This posture was recognized by the United Nations when it appointed Egyptian diplomat Boutros Bou-trps Ghali as its secretary general.
President Hosni Mubarak understands that with Egypt's dire demdgraphic and economic problems — bverpopulation, unemployment, inflation, stagnation, inefficient production methods, patronage and crushing foreign debt ($29 billion)— his country can ill afford to sustain the kind of political tinder box that has ignited the Middle East on so many occasions in the recent past. That is what is dictating Egypt's praiseworthy response to Rabin's peace overtures.
That response; however, will lead nowhere unless President Mubarak has the skill, in the absence of any real dialogue between Israel arid Syria, to persuade the latter country (and to a lesser extent, Jordan) that peace with honor with Israel is an attainable goal.
In the meantime, Egypt and Ismel have siicceeded in capturing the initiative. It is to be hoped that the momentum begun in Cairo will continue in Jerusalem when Mubarak decides, hopefiilly soon, to pursue his dialogue in that city in person.
re-
jerusalem (JTA) — The 32nd Zionist Congress has re-elected Simeha Dinitz as chairman of the World Zionist Organization. Dinitz, of the Labor Zionist moyement, received 382 votes against the 101 cast for his opponent, Rabbi Richard Hirsch of the Reform. Zionist movement.
The siecret ballot vote followed a 'long day of behind-the-scenes negotiations be-tweeh Labor and the Reform movement. Labor sought for Hirsch to withdraw his candidacy and lead his movement into a walMo-wall coalition with the other parties in the WZO These efforts.
as
however, ended in an impasse.
Nonetheless, well-placed sources predict that a wall-to-wall coalitiori will eventually be set up, embracing the Reform-rmbvemetil — re presented at the_ Congress primarily by the Association of Reform Zionists of America ^ and its allies.
Hirsch only received some 30-odd votes from delegates outside his own camp, which iheluded his own movement and Ratz and Shinui, both components of the leftrwing Meretz bloc in the Knesset. Observers pointed to this as an indifferent showing for Hirsch.
IN U.S. -
XT^ AM AMAZiMi
coitoc\t>et^Ci
■By^AftNOLp. ages:.
In Addition to its military; political arid economic problems, Israel is currently confrontirig a threat that will not fade aAvay even in the event of a peace treaty with Arab neighbors.
The threat, according to Miriam Ben-Porat, Israers state comptroller, is that in practical terms Israel has no water reserves in its reservoirs. The heavy rainstorms in early 1992 helped in the short term but did not fundamentally change the long-range menace of severe water shortages.
This important statement wa§ included in a special section of the Christian Science Monitor (May 27) entitled "The World's Water" — which focused specifically on the prospects for water in the Middle East in the coming years.
I Israel was named along with Jordan, Syria, Egypt and Yemen as countries facing crisis situations in the next decade. '.. ■
The report, however, features two optimistic analyses by Israeli journalists from //a'are/z, Israel's most prestigious newspaper.
Arnold Ages is a professor at University of Waterloo. He is an author, comrnentator, bobic reviewer iarici scholar of Jewish life and literature.
Yona Kahana and Haim Bipr point oiit that Israel has made significant progress in exploiting water resources through efficient use of irrigation niethods and by experimenting dramatically with desialination plants. In fact Israel, one of the smallest countries in the world, has become a pioneer in desalination technology, haying created 35 differ^ ent desalination facilities. >
Through trial and error, Israeli experts have learned that desalinated mineral-rich water achieved through reverse osmosis (rather than sea water desalination) promises to be the best answer to the country's water heeds. Reverse osmosis involves straining water through a pernrieable membrane.
The problem which Israeli specialists are working on now is how to produce the water economically given the high energy costs involved in the desalination processes.
Progress in this regard has been noted at the Mekorot plant at Sabha, near Eilat, which is remote-controlled 24 hours a day and which uses only half the energy suchplants did 10 years ago.
Israel is looking forward to continued drops in energy costs because this will make it possible to desalinate both sea and mineral-rich water. With its technological expertise in water management, Israel has already fructified huge areas of formerly inhospitable land.
Growthin population, however, has now put greater pressure than ever bn water demands arid desalination is the answer. .i].-^:'-':;/ '\
Israel's water controller Dan Zaslavsky says that an investment of $2.5 billion is required to generate the sweet water needed in the next decade.
That is, says Zaslavsky, less than the cost of a small war!
TEL AVIV
director TheoAngelopoulos
(The Beekeeper, Journey of Cythera), Italian director :
Giuseppe Tdrnatore (Cinema Baradiso), and actors Marcello Mastrbiarini and Isabelie Huppexi{The Lace-maker) were among honorary guests at the Fourth international Student Film
Greek Festival, held at Tel, Aviv University. ■
Fifty-eight film schools represeiitirtg 3.2 countries took part in the festival, making it the biggest of its kind. Movies from India, China and Thailand, along with new participants Slovenia, Croatia and Lithua^ fcia, were among competitors.