Thursday, November 16, 1978 — THE BULLETIN ^3
WEST BANK MAYORS at a meeting in Betiilehem, at which they denounced the plan proposing to give the area, together with the Gaza Strip^^Hocal autonomy. Left to right: Karim Halef^ Mayor of Ramallah; FaudKawashte, Mayor of Hebron; Bassam Shakhar, Mayor of Nablus. ' ,       ^    ■> ^    "       v JCNS.
JERUSALEM-»the discrimination suffered by an bfficial Israeli delegation -to a recent ecology conference in the Soviet Union at the hands of the Soviet organizers has heightened anxieties here over what might lie in store for the Israeli team at the Mbkow Olympics in 1980.
The conference was the 14th general assembly of the International Union for the Conservation of Nature and National Resburces, held at Ashkhabad, capital of Soviet Turkmenistan.' The Israeli delegation compHsed Colonel Avraham Yoffe, head of the Nature Reserves
0h"48
JERUSALEM --Secretinformation Tbgarding the fQunding of Israel is Ifeing released for the first time with the expiration of ai statutory 36-year ban oh publication. Docunients now available for public inspection at -the couritry*s national archives contain views of the country's statesmen in the first year ; of independence, 19487
Israeli Vice-Premier Yigal Yadin, who was then operations chief in the newly^estabiished army, was "rather pessimistic about /the chances of victory,''.the papers say.
The newly-released texts alsa show that the Jewish state was only named Israel after a heated debate. The leftist Mapam party said the name would be "unacceptable to Arabs*' and suggested instead "Western Palestine."
RIGHTS'DEMANDED
ELKANA^ Samaria — Representatives of 33 Jewish settlements in ^ Judaea, Samaria and Gaza Strip-vowed to use "all meansT— short of violence-^ ta torpedo proposed autonomy for local Arabs and to "ensure legitimate ^rights of the Jewish people in the land of Israel.*'
TEL AVIV — A majority of Israelis expressed a preference for Ezer Weizmann to succeed the Prime Minister if, for aiiy reason, Menachem Begin cannot continue in office. This was the finding of a survey carried but recently by the PORI Institute. Weizmann received the choice of 23.3% of those iquestioned, while Shimon Peres was second with 18.6 percent of the straw vote. In third place was Mbshe Dayan with 7.22 percent and in fourth position, Yitzhak Rabin with 3.68 percent. Following these were Yigael Yadin, 3.2 percent; Arik Sharon, 2.4 percent; Abba Eban, 1.2 percent. Some 36 percent of those questioned declined to express any preiFerence. There were l,26o interviews conducted amongst men and women aged 18 and over, representing various wall9s of life in all parts of the country.
,.v.
or missing in Argentina
LONDON - "The Jewish community in Argentina is not being officially persecuted but it has many enemies^ inr the Nazi groups which have infiltrated into the: security forces," Dr. JoSe A. Itzigsohn'stated recently.
He is a former-head of the department of psychology of Buenos Aires university.
Syrian Jews limn 'squalid €onilitions'
LONDON
When Kevin
Murphy of the London Evening News tried to interview Rabbi Ibrahim Hamra in his Damascus home, he was arrested by armed Syrian police and taken to a police station for interrogation.
Murphy was later allowed to interview the rabbi through a police interpreter, with the chief of police and his deputy sitting between them.
Before visiting the rabbi. Murphy, interviewed other Damascus Jews, who told him that "life for Jews living in Syria is harsh."
There are about 3,000 Jews in Damascus, some 1,500 in Aleppo, in the north, and a further 300 in Kamishli. near the Syrian border with Turkey.
Murphy reported that the 3,000 Jews "marooned in Damascus" live
•in "a squalid rabbit warren of back alleys in the old part of the city," where: they share the "distressing area with the arch-enemies of the Israelis, the Palestinians. A policeman with a sub^machine gun'stands guard at the entrance to the area."
Syrian Jews "are closely watched by a network of informers aiid are not allowed to receive foreign visitors freely," Murphy reported. They would like to leave Syria but are not allowed to emigrate.
Any Jew wishing to go abroad for medical treatment or for some other reason must post a bond of more than $6,000 with the Syrian government to ensure his or her return.
According to M urphy, most of the; Jews in Syria own small shops of ; businesses in the clothing, jewellery and hardware trades.   . JCNS-
Speaking on "Anti-Semitism and Human Rights in Argentina," he estimated- that between 200 and 300 Jews had disappeared or had been ki'llejd in ArgeiftinaslnceLthe milhatry coupJn March, 1976. They had not been arrested specifically as Jews but as members of Left-wing and Liberal organizations, or as middle class or professional persons. ^
He added: "Solidarity with Israel has been very important for all Argentine .Je>ys   irrespective of political opinions. Some 3,000 of^ them are leaving yearly for Israel."
Dr.'iltzigsohn left for Israel in October, 1976, following ^ the military take-over in Buenos Aires. He -was an Argentine volunteer in Israel's 1948 War of Independence. Hs is now consultant psychiatrist for 200 northern Israeli kibbutzim, and for the EzratNashim hospital, Jerusalem.
- Authority, and Eliezer Palmor, a senior official at the Foreign Ministry's international organizations department.
Some   250   foreign delegates attended the assembly but only those from Israel, South Africai and South Korea were barred from participating in the cohducted tours around the Soviet Union wliwh followed t^ twcy  weeks  of deliberations at Ashkhabad.|Insrh](nio sent directly froiivthe Ki^lm^^ the protects ahd^^p^als^^ by jthe Israelis; presidium.
Palmor strongly criticized the president of lUCN, Prof Donald Kuenen of Holland, and the organization's director-general. Dr. David Munro, for failing to fight the . Soviet discrimination at Ashkhabad miore energetically^'Prof kuenen is rector of University of Leyden.
In an interview, Palmor described how the Soviets procrastinated until almost the last moment over granting visas to the two Israelis. He and Yoffe flew to Geneva not knowing whether they would eventually receive their visas from the Soviet consulate there, even though they had applied for them weeks earlier.
Kuenen told the Soviets categorically that! the specially chartered Aeroflot plane taking the assembly delegates to Ashkhabad would not take off from Gieheva unless the Israelis were on it. The visas were , thereupon issued.
But the visas were specifically for the duration of the assembly sessions only^ not for the tours. The lUCN officials promised to aippeal this and at Ashkhabad they did submit a protest to Soviet Deputy Minister of Agriculture Borodin, "who under-: took to convey it to Moscow;
-For more than a week there was no word, until three days beforethe assembly ended; Borodin told kuenen thiat the answer from Moscow was negative. To the > Israelis' dismay, Kuenen accepted this answer and took no further action.
As a result, Palmor demanded — and obtained deletion of the word "all" in a closing resolurion expressing the thanks of "all delegations". ■ for the Soviets' hospitality. And, when the resolution was put to the vote, in the presence ; of the Soviet Minister of Agricul- , ture, the Israeli diplomat took the floor to say he would abstain;
. "I am only not voting against," Palmor explained, "because of the
genuine hospitality shown by the local people of Ashkhabad." • A large number of delegates, Palmor recalls, came up afterwards to shake his hands. But the next day many of them left on the tours while he and Yoffe had to leave for home.
For Palmor it was not the first such experience and he was able to contast the 1U CN leadership's behavior unfavorably with that of UNESCO officials at a conference in Tbilisi, Soviet Georgia, last year, when the same situation arose. On that occasion the UNESCO leaders told the Soviets that if the Israeli delegates were i not allowed on the postrconferehce tours no delegates . would go on them. The .reply was that there had been a "teclinical mistake" and of course the Israelis could join.
Palmor told reporters that the standing policy of tlie Fbreigri Ministry is to advise Israeli delegations not to accept any such form of discrimination at international conferences and to demand that the leaderships of intei-national organizations fight it.
In keeping with Soviet practice, there may well be tours offeried to athletes and officials after the Oiympic Games in Moscow. If so, Israel will want a clear-cut commitment from the International Olympic Committee in advance that its team will receive equal treatment with all other participants.
(Jerusalem Post)
NEW HOMES FOR SINAI SETTLERS
YAMIT - Minister of Agriculture Ariel Sharon is planning to estaiblish 20 new settleihehfs between Rafiah and Nitzana where evacuated settlers from the Rafiah salient could be relocated..Sharon revealed the;plans during a meeting^ at his Tel Aviv office with representatives of the regional council of ^ Sinai moshavim.
The meeting with Sharon took place in a friendly atmosphere, said ■ one member of the Rafiah delegation, as the settlers shifted their attention from; protesting the government's decision to evacuate' them as jrart of a' peace agreement with Egypt and began considering concrete arrangements for their future.-Sharon told the group that this will be the' first of several ^ses--sions between the government and the Rafiah settlers.
'APE TOWN Jewish students packed the inaugural,meeting of Al Asad (The Lion), an association formed at Cape Town university to support the Palestinians, and obtained control by electing three Jewish members to the five-member executive committee.
The three Who immediately tabled a resolution condemning all forms Of terrorism. Of the two-pro-Palestinians elected to the executive committee, one voted against the resolution and the other walked out, saying that "the motion was in conflict with Al Asad's aim of bridging the Afro-Arab gap;"
The two said that they would resign but they and their supporters have not yet decided whether to form a new pro-Palestinian association. The three Jewish committee members have rejected the call of theStudent Jewish Association to resign from Al Asad.
PEACE NEGOTIATORS in Washington take a break. EzerWeizman, the Israeli Defence Minister (left), exchanges pleasantries P'- Batros Ghali, the Egyptian Acting Foreign Minister, to the obvious appreciation of Cyrus Vance, the U.S. Secretary of State (behind Dr. Ghali) anid Lieutenant-General Kantal Hassan AU, the Egypti^ (Jerusalem Post).