Thursday. Novembers, 1990 — THE BULLETIN — 5
Israel made into lamppost for dods of world medta
By MELVIN FENSON
JERUSALEM — A tourist eyewitness to last month's events on the Temple Mount took the time to file an affidavit with the "Commission to Clarify the Temple Mount Affair" prior to leaving for home. Norman MoUov of Jamaica/ New York, reported the following in his statement:
*'On Monday, Oct. 8,1 was among worshippers at the Western Wall. At approx-iniately 11 a.mv I heard the sound of tear gas cannisters expl^di^ig on the^T^ Mount. I next heard the soimnd of rif^^ fire, and autoni^tic Weapons fire. Imni^-di^tely after, an dr^r]ywithdra>ya^ th0 Temple's West|Mti^^^^ rain of rocks
mately three pounds each, was thrown down on the area where the worshippers were standing.
"From the weight^ trajectb^^ ity of the falling rocks; I ditimateth^^ they were hurled with great vigor from up to four meters distance from the parapet at the top of the Western \yall.^^T^ only possible inference ivas thit the rock-thi^wers intiended to^i^ the parapet, aiid to injure^worshipi)ers at the Western Wall bdow^ The robkst^ bir the worshi[>pers could not have beeri aimed only at police or border police on the Temple Mount.
Melvin Fenson Is a lawyer In Jerusalem where he is also public relations director for Israel Bonds. He was one-time editor of T/ieJew/sliPosHn Winnipeg.
"It appeared to me that the number of r<^ks hurled W2is in the thousands. The impression I gained was that this assault upon unarmed Jewish worshippers was not a spohtaheous act or a spontaneous reaction to^ tear gas attack but a well-orchestrated operation for which stores of rbcks had[ been prepared in advance, and for which a large number of rock throwers had been recruited iii advance, The rocks continued raining down on the Jewish prayer area at the Western Wall for approximately 35 minutes." 'The day of the Temple Mount occurrences^ A BC-TV chief correspondent Dekii Reynolds telecast the fbllowing report from Jerusalem: "Violence worse th^n anything yet recorded in the 23 years that Israel has held occupied territories erupted today as fundamentalist Jews marched in protest to an Islamic mosque here to press their demand that a temple bebuiitbn the site. The protest was met with a barrage of stones hurled by Palestinians at the protesters and at Jews worshipping at the nearby Wailing Wall Israel police armed with M-ld rifles opened fire on the Palestinians icilling 19 and wounding 100."
The main violence in Reynolds' broadcast was violence to the truth. No Jews nmrched near any mosque. Reynolds knew, as did alifbur Arab newspaper editors in East Jerusalem and the muezzins of the mosques on the Tempk Mouiit, that the "Temple Faithful" — who indeed had asked permission to lay the^ornerr stone of the third temple on the mount =^were refused permission to march by the police. _ ^
-Their appeal to the courts was turned down_and news of this rejection communicated by JerusalemV Chief of Police to the Waqf(Moslem religibus Trust) officials and muezzins on the Temple Mount. The gesture of a march up the mount by the Temple Faithful is an annual charade, not a parade^ because as all Arab lead& know, the poiiceand the eourts annually reject this application. ^;?!^cverthelessi^ jfei/isjhassau^^^
all by their cynical leaders who deliberately sought to provide exactly the killings that ensued. The intention was precisely what was sought.
Jerusalem Post senior columnist Dr. Yosef Goeli put it this way: "Monday's violent incident is as close as one can get in real life to an open-jand-shut case in which all the guilt is on the Palestinian side. It was not a spontaneous outpouring of Palestinian rage and frustration but a well-planned act with clear political aims. The preparation and storing of the thousands of rock and metal missiles, the p enceoi intifada leader Faisal el-Husseini, and provocative exhortations of Wie meuzzins, attest to the element of organization^
*^ no innocents among the
thousands of Palestinians who flocked to the Temple Mount on Monday morning. Maiiy came to the mount from as far away as the Gaza iStrip, not for religious purposes, but in an organized effort by intifada leaders; to revive the waning uprising by means of ah ultrarprovocative attack on thousands of Jews congregated in prayer in front of the Western Wall
■below."^- ^^l-v-More recently, Reuters reported (as carried in the local Hebrew press) on the Syrian defeat of Lebanese Christian leader Michel Aoun, at a cost of200 dead and 600 injured, mostly civilians. The opening words of the stoiy were: "With a loss of almost no lives . . "Anyone hear of a U.N. resolution? Ora Security Coun^ cil mission to investigate?
This morning, noticing a crowd of new faces among the foreign press corps at a Foreign M inistry press conference at Bet
ST. STEPHEN'S (LIONS GATE)
GARDEN OF GETHSEMANE
MOUNT OF OLIVES
ARROWS INDICATE areaa of attacks on Jewish worshippers and police action on Temple IMount.
Agrpn (Journalists House), 1 asked Government Press Office director; Dir. Yossi Olmert, who they were.
**One-hundred-and-seventy newly accredited foreign correspondents, all in the p^ast weefcv* ca^ reply. Taking into account the demands of the media for red blood, black and White reportage, a tilt Of hews to doVetMl with preconceptions^ and the iulderstandable ignorance of hewspapermen fresh to the area, we can brace ourselves jfor more ABC-type Alice in Wonderland coverage.
I can't escape the impression that the attitude of the world press to Israel is the attitude of any dog to any lamppost. . whh apologies to the true canines, but not to the media^bgs epitomized by ABC-TV and its garbage-rpail ethics. ;v
In an effort to recapture the interna^
tional headlines, kidnapped from the intifada by Saddam Hussein's gulf crisis, Palestinian Arab pro>tests have escalated numerically. Oh Oct. 8 an unprecedented 3,000 Arabs crowded theTemple Mount, faced by a force of only 45 Israeli police and border guards.
Unpleasant facts will come to light in the government inquiry. Police commanding officers did lose control of their men. Police fired volleys of fire from automatic weapons, a practise forbidden when quelling civilian riots. Arab doctors report some victims werie shot in the back, and some medical personnel and ambulance drivers were caught in cross-fire.
When 3,000 rioters armed with lethal rocks -gc^ on-the rampage,^^gged^^^^^o their Spiritual leaders, whrneverc^ sibly happen usually does.
Htstorian A^b^^^^
By BEN KAYFETZ
doing particular justice to the beginnings of the Pacific Jewish yishuv where in the very short space of a few years the town of Victoria emerged with a vibrant Jewish A Coat of Many Colours has been presented to the public       community of prospectors, actors, merchants and speculators, only to be sup-
coffee table volume. Its format, the polish of its paper and profuse illustrations — all point to such a category. Yet the author, Irving Abella, is primarily a historian and has succeeded in producing more than a living room ornament, but a solid work of historical writing. He takes the entire panorama of Canada from East to West,
A COAT OF MANY COLOURS Two Centuries of Jewish Life In Canada By Irving Abella . Lester & OrpenDennys, 256 pages, $35 hard cover
planted in two decades by Vancouver where4he progress was less dramatic but more enduring. He reports that this tiny Pacific coast community produced mayors of both cities, legislators in both the Vancouver Island and B.C. assemblies and an M.P. in John A. Macdonald's first Parliament — ah astonishing record! '.
He writes of the terrible heartaches of the early farm immigrants in what was then the Northwest, facing subzero temperatures, droughts, insect blights and all the ills to which farm life is subject.
Abella reports hitherto little known facts about Gold win Smith, the Dean of the Grange. Smith's hostility to Jews and his response to the pogroms in Russia have been noted biit that this " 19th century liberal" intervened to stop Jewish immigration to Manitoba was new to this reviewer.
Prof. Abella's primary field is labor history and this becomes clear in his accounts of the needle-trade conflicts, the bitter "right" versus "left" battles in the Jewish unions. One would have wanted to read more on the great encounter of the i930s, the skirmishes between the pro-Max Federman faction and the pro-Communist partisans. There is a rich store of archival posters and leaflets to illustrate this account. (A not irrelevant aside: a serious lacuna in Canadian Jewish writing is the absence of a history of4he Jewish labor movement. Should this be Prof. Abella's next?)
A COAT OF MANY COLOURS: back Jacket (clockwise from upper left): Silver Torah crowns glvenln 1935 to MeCaul Street synaaoguo, Toronto, by Ladles' Auxiliary, Ten Commandmihts, 1920s, from Con^reflatlon Ohel Moshe In Val-Morth, QimIi^ Silver filigree tea^iass holders given brSoW^ IWlm«wlhi983 to l^mplelarael. Ottawa
^Mth*^kHttfieJeWsv-anrf-iatite^
-v.-vvi
Ben Kayfetz. regular JIVB reviewer, writes for the Lontion Jewish Chronicle and the JewlshTelegraphIc Agency.
Montreal is acknowledged as "standing alone" in the field of Canadian Jewish letters. Some readers, however, would look for an explanation of the city*s cultural hegemony. Also, some would question including Mordecai Richler in the list of writers "who studied A.M. Klein and were influenced by him." Isn't it more likely that Richler sees himself as shaking off the Klein influence? '
Anotherquestion the author leaves untouched: why the decline of_Winnipeg as a Jewish centre? Is if alreflection of the city's static history in recent years or is it peculiar to its Jewish component? =^
Abella doesn't spare us the upsetting story of the 1930s. Less known outside of Quebec than the rise and fall of AdrienArcand^ is the Chilling account of the strike of the hospital interns of Montreal in 1934. That a Jewish doctor should-be permitted to touch the bodies of Christian patients aroused deep and hidden prejudices which were frightening in their implications^ '
The errors are minimal: E.F. Singer and John Glass didlibt sit togetheron the government benches in the Ontario legislature. Glass, a Liberal, defeated Singer,it Tory, in 1934. While there were five years betweentheDrummond Wren case and the 1950 judgment outlawing racial restrictive covenants, the 1950judgment rose from the Beach o' Pines case. , ;
Of all forms of writing, histories are most vulnerable to crittcisni since they are tied spcjosely to the writer's predilection in emphasis, Ih^t^iph^^ and in choice, of illustrative anecdote. Considering this, Abella and publislw liesterOrpeni>ennys, merit full marks for this effort on the as yetnbt fully plowed field of Canaldian Jewish history.>■ • ■ ■       .•^■^;^---c^^-•.::-^•v>:xq•.■,e%;>::v^'l<..k?;:..^-^.^:^