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56 Pages
Thursday, November 11,1993 Cheshvan 27, 5754 65<U
■ Publications MailRegistration No. 1683 - Postage Paid at Toronto (61C.+ 4C GST.)
Peres, Hussein sign economic
AMMAN — Jordan's King Hussein and Foreign MinistM;Slilnion Peres last week signed ''understandings" on econondc coop^tion and discussed the outline of a peace treaty after nine hours of talks, senior officials said. Hussein reportedly made clear that Jordan^^annot sign a peace treaty with Israel unless Syria doerso flrst. Officials indicated that broad cooperation was i^reed upon and that Peres and Hussein actually signed documents. "It is understood that Jordan won't a separate agreement, but short of a peace treaty, they agreed to do a lot," one official said. Meanwhile, the stalled Taba talks on Palestinian self-rule are slated to resume this week in a secret tocation hi Cairo.
A kippa-clad Herb Gray, holding a silver-embossed Hebrew Bible, was sworn in last week as the new Liberal government's only Jewish cabinet minister. [Canapress Photo Service: Fred Chartrand]
By PAUL LUNGEN, RONCSILLAG and JOEL JACOBSON
OTTAWA — Wearing a bright blue kippa and clutching a silver-embossed Hebrew Bible, veteran Windsor member of Parliament Herb Gray was sworn in last week to the two cabinet portfolios of Government House Leader and Solicitor General.
For Gray, an MP since 1962, the ceremony marked the seventh time he ha$ been asked by a Liberal prime minister to serve in cabinet. Gray has held a Yariety of cabinet offices whose one common thread is a link to financial matters: National Revenue, Consumer and Corporate Affairs, International Trade and Commerce, Regional Economic Expansion and as president of the Treasury Board.
His first cabinet appointment came in 1969 when then prime minister Pierre Tnideau made him a minister without portfolio, working with the finance minister.
That appointment gave Gray the distinction of being the first-ever Jew-
ish federal cabinet minister. It was also the first time Gray donned a kippa and brought a Hebrew Bibje to the official swearing-in ceremony.
That Bible, purchased at Rodal's Book Store in Montreal, was a gift from his parents and in-laws. Gray said he has used the Bible in every swearing-in ceremony since, though until 1979, ceremonies, weren't televised.
In 1980, that changed and the pub-liic for the first time saw Gray in his skullcap and Bible. That event caused quite a stir in the Jewish community, he recalled. ''People expressed pride and satisfaction about it," he told 77ie C/M
Gray, who has also served as interim Leader of the Opposition, said his appointment as Government House Leader "is certainly a challenge."
His main task will be to bring forward and co-ordinate the government's legislative program, which includes plans to reform parliament by giving individual members a greater role in the drafting of legislation as well as giving MPs more clqut in
developing budgets and determining government expenditures.
As Solicitor General, a post once held by Robert Kaplan, Gray will be the country's top law enforcement official, responsible for the country's federal prison system and the Royal Canadian Mounted Police, which oversees the pursuit of Nazi' war criminals.
Gray said no decision has yet been taken on the role in the House of Commons of the Conservative and New Democriatic parties, whose poor electoral showing left them without official party status.
He said he was ready to work with both the Bloc Quebecois and the Reform Party if they are ready ' 'to work with me to help Parliament's operations [proceed] smoothly."
The first 24 hours in government were"hectic, exciting and emotional," Gray said. "It is moving to be called to be a senior minister. At the same time it gives you a sense of awesome responsibility."
[Cont'd, on page 9]
JERUSALEM (JTA) — Jewish residents of the territories have launched a second series of violent demonstrations in as many weeks to protest the latest attack by Arab terrorists bent on destroying the Israeli-Palestinian peace initiative.
The demonstrations occurrwJ last Sunday after terrorists attacked a car carrying Rabbi Chaim Druckman.
Rabbi Druckman is a founding member of the Gush Emunim settlers movement and a former Knesset member from the National Religious Party.
Ephraim Ayubi, 30, the rabbi's driver, was killed in the attack. Rabbi Druckman suffered bullet wounds in the arm and shoulder.
, The Damascus-based Democratic Front for the Liberation of Palestine, a group opposed to the peace process, claimed responsibility for the attack.
Israeli security officials said Rabbi Druckman may well have been targeted for assassination.
Rabbi Dmckman was attacked some six miles south of Hebron on the way from his home near Kiryat Gat toa yeshiva in Kiryat Arba.
Gunmen reportedly sprayed the car with 20 bullets from a Kalashnikov rifle and then fled in their vehicle, which had Israeli license plates.
It was the latest in a series of riecent attacks by radical groups seeking to derail Israel's autonomy accord with the Palestine Liberation Organization, and it provoked a violent reaction.
The week before, Israeli settlers embarked on a series of violent demonstrations after an Israeli fi'om Beit El, Chaim Mizrachi, was kidnapped and murdered by gunmen from the Islamic fimdamen-tialist Hamas movement.
The violent demonstrations, directed at Palestinian homes and property, were held as a prpiest against an Israeli government that the settlers believed has turned a blind eye to their security needs.
In the latest demonstrations, dozens of Israeli settlers came to the scene of the shooting, while hundreds of others report-v. edly charged the outdoor Arab market in-Hebron, where they overturned food ■ stalls, smashed windows and blocked roads.
A demonstration was also held in downtown Jerusalem last Sunday night. Settlers and yeshiva students battled with mounted police and border police and blocked major thoroughfares.
The demonstrators snarled traffic in the capital as the work day ended and then tried to make their way to the prime minister's residence;.
The demonstration followed the ftmeral of Ayubi, which was attended by several thousand mourners, among them rabbis and political leaders from several parties. , In the West Bank settlement of Kiryat Arba, leaders of the Judea and Samiaria Council resolved to block all the main ar-
teries in the territories last Monday morning.
Settlers held a stormy meeting with Maj. Gen. Nehemia Tamaria, commander of the Israeli army's central region. They warned him "not to be surprised" if some settler, unable to control his grief and anger, were to enter an Arab village and kill dozens of inhabitants.
That, the general was tojd, would change the entire politicalequation in the Middle East in one stroke.
Tamaria, in a brief television interview, said that Israeli soldiers would soon open the roads that had been closed by pro-testers.
[Cont'd, on page 11]
By LEORA FRUCHT
"JVhdt does Jerusalem need?/It doesn't
need a mayor-It needs a ringmaster with a wiiip.in his
hand
To tame prophecies and to train prophets
to gallop Round arid round in a circle.''
— Yehuda Amichai
JERUSALEM - In his ode to Teddy. Kollek, poet Yehuda Amichai described the mayor as "ringmaster" of thecircus. Laist week, after 28 years, Kollek finally lost control of the unruly circus of a city that is Jerusalem.
In the minds of Jerusalem residents, Teddy, as he is known by all, no longer had the magic. And it was a kind of political magic that enabled the mayor, a Labor party associate, to win six successive elections in a town that is a bastion of the right.
This time, part of Kollek's magic — his apolitical image -- was inadvertently shattered by both Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin and Palestinian leader Faisal Husseini.
Rabin's insistence that the municipal elections in general, and the Jerusalem vote in particular, represented a mini-referendum on the peace process only damaged Kollek. By depicting him as a partisan Labor party candidate, Rabin eroded KoUek's support among the city's right-wing majority who until now viewed the long-time mayor as a pragmatic, independent figure.
[Cont'd, on page TO]
Ed Mirvish interview
Page 2
Inside
Veterans' voices live in archives
Pages 4
BQ no danger: Richler
Page 27