12—THE BULLETIN—-Fridoy^ November 16, 1973
"TALK OF RIDDING PALESTINE OF ZIONISTS DOESN'T FOOL ANYBODY"
EDITOR'S NOTE — The following speech was made in House of Commons debate on the Middle East on Tuesday, Oct. 16. It was delivered by David Lewis, member for York South and leader of the New Democratic Party of Canada.
MR. SPEAKER, it is no doubt evident to honorable members that, because of my background, I am perhaps more emotionally involved in the tragic events in the Middle-East that some others in this House. But I hope that I can, nonetheless, try to view the situation objectively and fairly.
International debate has developed a language of its own, a language replete with insincerity, hypocrisy and double-talk. The result is deliberate confusion and obscurantist statements that do not say what they mean, nor mean what they say. This is the kind of thing we hear at the United Nations now from many quarters, but more particularly from the Soviet Union. I often get the impression that
1 am witnessing a lynch mob ready to tear Israel apart. This is the central issue. What is at stake is the survival of Israel and perhaps the survival of the
2 1/2 million to three million men, women and children of Jewish origin in that country. The Hitler holocaust is too clear in the memories of all decent human beings and is particularly too clear in the minds and hearts of Israelis for them not to defend themselves and their country with the passion and determination they have shown in four wars in one generation.
It is important, sir, to recall that the State of Israel was established by the world community by a solemn resolution of the United Nations adopted unanimously. That resolution followed a report by a special commission on Palestine on which you may remember the distinguished Canadian, the late Mr. Justice Rand, served. It is also relevant to recall and this is where the tragedy begins — that from the first day the Arab states refused to accept the decision of the United Nations and the first war, the war of 1948, ensued.
MODERN ISRAEL was born in conflict and in blood through no intention of *the Israelis or the Jews who went there for safety and security. Ever since that day the issue has remained the same. Israel's Arab neighbors have never been willing to recognize or accept the existence of Israel as an independent sovereign state in the Middle-East.
There is no evidence, 1 am unhappy to say, that they are willing to do so even today. Here lies the essential tragedy of the situation.
The other tragedy, of course, is represented by the life of the Palestinian refugees, a condition that exercises the conscience of every civilized person. The war of 1948 produced refugees, whatever may have been the cause, and the 1967 war aggravated that situation. Throughout the period, I suggest to honorable members
and I suggest to the people of the world, there have been only two possible solutions to this festering problem of the Palestinian refugees. The one solution was to settle the refugees in the areas available in Egypt and Jordan. This c'ould have been done before now and can still be done.
To such a solution of that problem Israel would have had, and has, a moral duty to contribute immensely in funds and in technical help which its people are eminently qualified to provide. From personal conversations with the Prime Minister of Israel and members of her cabinet, I am convinced that the country was, and is, prepared to undertake its full share of this responsibility as part, and only as part, of a peace settlement in the area.
U.S. ANGERED AT BRITAIN
WASHINGTON—There are reports here that the United States is annoyed with Britain not only over her lack of support  for the American arms airlift to Israel but also over her refusal to back a U.S. attempt after one week's fighting to get a ceasefire resolution put forward at the United Nations Security Council.  The  U.S. request had Russian backing, but the British government took the viejw that there was no possibility of the Arabs agreeing to a ceasefire, presumably because they believed they were winning the war. JCNS
DAVID LEWIS
But this solution has been rejected not only by the Palestinians - but by the Arab states and by all Palestinian organizations. Instead they insist on regaining the lands which they left. I cannot fail to appreciate their desire, the cause of it and their frustrations at being away from what used to be their home. I do appreciate that.
But what does their demand mean in simple, true, honest terms? Again, it means a determination to eliminate Israel. That is the only thing. The demand of the Palestinian organizations, no matter how sincere they may be, means the elimination of Israel and a plan to eliminate Israel as a Jewish society.
I know they do not use that language. They have learned the language of international debate ; they talk instead of ridding Palestine of Zionists. Surely this cannot and does not fool anybody.
STRICKLY SPEAKING, there are Zionist outside Israel. Inside Israel there are only Israelis. Or, if anyone insists on using the term Zionist, then every one of the 2 1/2 million to three million Jews within Israel is a Zionist, and when you talk about ridding Israel of Zionists you talk about ridding it ofits entire Jewish population.
This is the clear meaning of these terms used by some people who attempt to confuse and by others who innocently accept those terms. This, of course, is not acceptable to anybody who believes Israel has a right to exist.
So we come back full circle to the central issue, the right of Israel to exist as a Jewish state, as a Jewish society. It is in this context that the war must be seen and that the attitude of nations to that war must be judged. It is said by some that what the
Arab states want now is to regain the territory captured by Israel in the 1967 war, that this justified their breach of the ceasefire agreement of June, 1967, and of the Security Council resolution 242 of November that year.
I hope that the Arab spokesmen are honest in their statements about limited objectives, but I cannot blame the Israelis for doubting them. I, myself doubt the reliability of these statements, first because limited war objectives are invariably abandoned by those who are victorious in them, and second because war was not necessary for these limited objectives.
Peace negotiations could have achieved them without the agony and destruction of war. Security Council resolution 242 called for such negotiations. It did not call for unilateral withdrawal by Israel from the occupied territories. It called for withdrawal as part of peace negotiations and a peace treaty which gave Israel secure and recognized boundaries, as it gave to the states around Israel equal security and recognized boundaries.
Thus, we have the tragedy of 1973 because such negotiations have not taken place. It will continue to be a tragedy there unless both Israel and the Arab states are ready to negotiate a lasting peace.
Some honorable members and some of my colleagues have asked, why is Israel not ready to negotiate without direct negotiation with the Arab states? I say, without using the double-talk of international debate, that you cannot have one of the party's right to have negotiations unless one of the parties is recognized, unless one of the party's right to exist is recognized.
Therefore, a precondition for any negotiations whether direct or indirect, through Mr. Jarring or anyone else, through the United Nations or in any other way, is the acceptance by the Arab states of the existence of Israel and its right to exist in peace and security. Without that recognition, sir, negotiations are not possible.
I BELIEVE that the present tragedy would not be with us, that we would by now have peace in the Middle-East if the big powers were not playing a despicable power game with the hopes and lives of the peoples in that area. Ar least the United States, Britain and France have made, and are making, efforts to bring peace, to effect peace, to "cool it" in the present situation. But the Soviet Union is doing pre- . cisely the opposite,  it is not only recklessly rearming the Arab belligerents,    forcing. Israel to seek armaments from the United States, but it has been directly engaged in encouraging, indeed in bullying, additional Arab states to enter the war, so that Israel is now fighting not merely Egypt and Syria but the armies of six or eight states.
I would not suggest that Israel has been entirely without fault or that the Israeli government may not have made mistakes. The Israelis are human; they are as capable of error and misdeed as are all other human beings. But of one thing I am convinced: the Israelis desperately need peace, and because they desperately need it, they desperately want it. They are a small population of some three million with little expectation of a substantial increase in their population because the sources of migration of Jews to Israel are now almost completely exhausted. They face enemy neighbors and armed forces many times larger than their entire population.   Therefore,   Israel wants peace because it needs it desperately.
Like others, I have visited Israel. I have admired the progress which the Israelis have made, the way they have made deserts fertile and have built
settlements and communities based on principles of co-operation and social justice. I do not enter into old arguments.
The fact is that Israel was established by international action, that it has fought wars to defend its existence and has fully earned, I say to you, Mr. Speaker, universal support for its right to live in peace behind secure recognized boundaries. On this basic issue there surely cannot be any such thing as a neutral attitude.
NATIONAL PRIDE and national conflict are always destructive of human values. It is doubly so in the Middle-East. When I saw the accomplishment of the Israelis inside their country, I could envisage the immense contribution they could make to the economic and social development of the entire area. What a tragedy for Arabs and Israelis alike that they do not concentrate their energies on advancing the stan-
dard of life of people now livi in poverty and insecurity.
The war is tragic, the const quences are dangerous, buthumf history has known tragedies whi have produced positive result I can only hope that this may 1 the result of the present wa I am as desolate about the lo, of Arab blood as I am abo the loss of Jewish blood, but say, sir, Israel must not be aba' doned by the civilized worl particularly in view of the ruthle attitude of the Soviet Union.
My final word is to say to Secretary of State for Exter Affairs (Mr. Sharp) that his stat ment tonight was dignified a realistic. He can rely on t support of all members of t House in anything Canada c do to resolve the war. I spe not only as a Jew but as a Canadi who believes in internati( justice and, above all, in a sen of justice and decency in fellow Canadians.
lONiSCO ON imiD-iAST WAR-
"A persecuted people shoul have a country of its own"
BY JACK MAURICE Jerusalem Post
PARIS — The Arabs' "determination to destroy Israel is something that I fail utterly to understand," the French playwright and essayist, Eugene lonesco, wrote in "Le Figaro" recently.
lonesco, who was awarded the Jerusalem Prize at the Sixth Jerusalem International Book Fair last April, wrote that the Arabs claim "all they wish is to reconquer their territories; but in 1967 it was not a matter of reconquering territories but exterminating a people."
He added: "It is just that a persecuted people should have a strip of land to cultivate where it can live in peace. That is why the Jews wanted a country of their own. But they were threatened with finding a cemetery there."
The 1967 Jerusalem Prize-winner, Andre Schwarz-Bart, ("The Last of the Just") arrived in Jerusalem just after the war began, to lecture French-speaking schoolchildren and radio audiences and to "help out in any way I can," he said on arrival.
No word has been heard in Jerusalem from any of the other prize winners: Swiss novelist and playwright Max Frisch (1965); Italian novelist Ignazio Silone (1969), and Argentine short-story writer and fabulist Jorge Luis Borges (1971).
The first laureate, in 1963, was   the  late  Lord Bertrand
Russell.
The present war was launc by the Arab bourgeoisie for f own profit, the French Nobel L rature Prize winner, Jean-Sartre, wrote recently in extreme Left-wing French d he edits, "Liberation."
Thus, he said, this war, stead of advancing, is boun set back the Middle-East's gress towards socialism."
He Wrote: "Their admir effort since the beginning of; century, when the Israeli na did not yet exist, is enoug" justify the presence of the J on this land which nobody ever made fruitful before.
"The destruction by viol of the Israeli nation is, theref inadmissible."
However, "Israel will viable country only when it ceeds in reconciling its own ri with those of the exiled Pales ians.
"There can be lasting p only if (Israel and the Ar solve the problem of the front and occupation themselves, out allowing the big power impose a solution."
In an recent interview the Israel daily "Al Hamish Sartre said this had been a " picably hopeless war"andder the French press which, he had predicted "with satisfac the defeat of three million Isr by 100 million Arabs.
YARIY
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His personal dynamism and perfect English have made him one of Israel's key spokesmen before the world press, a role he was able to assume after 1968 and his retirement as intelligence chief.
Yariv was born in Riga, Latvia in 1920 and was 15 when he came with his parents to Eretz Yisrael. For three years he studied at Pardes Hanna agricultural high school and joined Hagana when he was 18.
In 1941 he joined the British Army and fought in the Mideast and North Africa. He also served in Europe when the Jewish Brigade was formed and completed officer courses attaining his captaincy.
In 1945 he took part in operations to rescue and transport to Israel the remnants of the holocaust and in purchasing operations of the Hagana. He became Hagana
Chief of Staff, Jacob Dori's Adjutant.
Yariv's efficiency and made him a battalion comma in the 1948 war and. resulte his dispatch to France to s at military officer's staff coll On his return to Israel, he ablished a parallel college Israeli officers, the I.D.F. C mand and Staff College.
After commanding the col until 1956, he was appoi Central Command Chief of and it was a year later tha was sent to the U.S. and Ca as I.D.F. Military Attache.
Ahrele Yariv joined the eral Staff Intelligence Branc the summer of 1961, beco its chief a few years later he was given the i-ank of Gen (Aluf).
Yariv's wife, Nechama, is the well known Israeli pio Yoffe family of Nahalal. Sh a   landscape   designer and Yarivs have one son, Assaf.