Off Limits

THE JEWISH NEWS

incorporating the Detroit Jewish Chronicle commencing with issue of' July 20. 1951

Member American Association of English-Jewish. Newspapers, Nlichigan Press Association.
Published every Friday by The Jewish News Publishing Co.. 17100 West Seven Mile Road, Detroit 35, Mich., VE. 8-9364.
Subscription $4. a year, foreign S5.
Entered as second class matter Aug. 6, 1942, at Post Office, Detroit. Mich.. under Act of March 3. 1379

SIbNEY SHMARAK
Advertising Manager

PHILIP SLOMOVITZ
Editor and Publisher

• Page 4

OL. XXIV, No. 5

FRANK SIMONS

City Editor

October 9, 1953

Sabbath Scriptural Selections

This Sabbath, Rosh Hodesh Heshvan, the following Scriptural selections will be read in our
.
synagogues:
Pentateuchal portions, Gen. 6:9:11,:32,-Num. 28.`9-15._ Prophetical •portion,

Licht Benshen, Friday, Oct. 9, 5:08 p.m.

Arab War of Nerves: Danger to Peace of World

A struggle resembling the attempt by the
Arabs to defeat the United Nations partition
plan in 1947 and the eventual recognition of
Israel and the young state's admission as a
member of the world organization is now in
progress.
When Israel declared her independence
and assumed a name for the new state, on
May 14, 1948, seven Arab states, having in-
duced innocent Moslem residents of Pales-
tine to join the mass flight from the land—
primarily on the assurance that they would
soon return to take all their possessions
away from the Jews—began a war on the
small Jewish community.
Today, the Arabs are again fighting a
war against progress—in an attempt to stop
a drainage project which must eventually
be of great help to Arabs as well as to Jews.
And within the United Nations there is a
war of words—Arabs repeating charges that
have been heard for, more than five years,
charges which Israel's chief delegate, Am-
bassador Abba Eban, was compelled to
brand as "completely unfounded."

It is not the Huleh project alone that is
involved in the new conflagration—an out-
burst that so far is confined to battles of
words. There is the issue of Jerusalem, which
is kept alive by uninformed men who are
blinded by a regrettable fanaticism; there is
the matter of American aid to- Israel which
is begrudged the young state; and there are
the accumulated hatreds stemming from the
independence gained by the Jewish state by
means of sweat and blood.
Mr. Eban is conducting a courageous
fight in the UN to prove that a series of
`trumped up charges, based on fantasy, have
found their way home in the world press
and have allowed an impression to gain
ground that Israel has aggressive designs."
Unfortunately, while the Arab "hit and
run propaganda," as Ambassador Eban has
described it, is very evident from a study of
the record, too many men in positions of
prominence fall to recognize the reality of
existing facts—especially the reality of Is-
rael's statehood—and are too eager to give
encouragement to propagandists who have
but one aim in view—Israel's destruction.

For a time it was hoped that Egypt's
strong man, Naguib, would play a human
role in the present struggle. But Egypt, like
the other Arab nations, continues to make
fantastic charges against Israel, the latest
among them being that Israel has establish-
ed a settlement in the demilitarized Auja el
Hafir area. It is to be hoped that the Israel-
Egyptian Mixed Armistice Commission,
which has been invited to visit the area, will
recognize the falsity . of the charge.
But the main issue revolves around the
Huleh project. In this instance, too, Mr. Eban
has informed the UN that Israel was willing
to submit the matter far action by the Se-
curity Council. As he 'indicated, the incident
was not helped by the "sabre rattling of the
Arabs across the border." This is the main
irritent: the deplorable sabre-rattling which
is disturbing the peace of the Middle East,
thereby also threatening the peace of the
entire world.

‘f,

t

One of the chief contentions in the Israel-
Arab controversy is the refugee problem. On
this score, too, Mr. Eban- has .made- an .irn
portant point when he 'explained, in a re-
view of the report of the direetor of the `N
Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Ref-
ugees, that the Arab governments are un-
cooperative in the UN policy of "reintegra-
tion" of refugees. The report shows that the
number of refugees in Lebanon declined
from 127,600 to 102,095, increased in Syria
from 82,194 to 85,473, declined in Jordan
from 506,200 to 475,620, increased Gaza on

the Egyptian border from 198,227 to 208,560,
while in Israel, where there were 45,800 in
June, 1950, none are recorded now.
Indeed: nothing is being done by the
Arabs to facilitate the "movement of refu-
gees" for whom work is available in areas
like Saudi-Arabia. The intention is to keep
the refugees in a state of suffering as a po-
litical weapon against Israel. Therein lies
the tragedy of the Arab refugees, whom Is-
rael is prepared to help but who are kept as
pawns of war by their own peoples.

Chief cause for regret is the joint action
taken by the United States and Great Britain
to demand that Israel should halt her. recla-
mation project in the Huleh area. The entire
issue can, if seriously approached, be settled
speedily by the UN Mixed Armistice Com-
mission. But anything resembling amity will
be postponed if this is to be transformed into
a political football, with stipulated conditions
affecting aid to Israel—the status of which
already is threatened by an attempt to di-
vert some funds from Israel to Iran—and
the position of Jerusalem and the confuSion
created by those who fail to indicate that
the New City of Jerusalemhas very few
Holy Places which some religious groups in-
sist on internationalizing, without recogniz-
ing that Israel in truth is not a custodian of
Holy Places.
t
It would have been far healthier for
world peace if the statesmen of the world,
including our own and the British, were sin-
cerely to strive for amity, and were to make
peace—without strings or conditions or un-
real issues—their chief objective.
There is something ironic in the resolu
tion introduced at a Labor Party confer-
ence, last week, by former Prime Minister
of Britain Clement R. Attlee, urging the "ex-
ertion of Britain's influence to prevent any
renewal of hostilities or a rearmament race
between Israel and the Arab states." When in
power, the British Labor Party was respon-
sible for the deaths of tens of thousands of
Jews wbom it ordered turned away from the
_shores of Palestine. When in power, the
British Labor Party was not only anti-Zion-
ist, it was anti-Jewish. Out of power, the
British Labor leaders again are flirting with
Jewish sentiments. It is high time that the
moral and human issues were treated on
their merits, and not for political purposes.
This should apply to our own Government's
leaders who, in their Washington offices,
are playing both sides — Israel's and the
Arabs'—against the middle, but when they
sought offices in their respective homes were
quite outspokenly pro-Israel and pro-Zionist.
Perhaps the Attlee somersault will teach
them a lesson.
t
*
Peace is not remote—provided there is
a willingness to acquire it. Israel seeks it.
Concerted action by our Government and
the United Nations can, as it should, force
the Arabs into considering it. But first there
must be that will for it. It can not be attain-
ed by the type of hate-brewing which mark-
ed the letter of an official of the American
Association for the United Nations to the
New York. Times which has created animosi-
ty towards Israel. • ,
The aim of all peoples of genuine good
will, • therefore, must be to strive for peace.
This objective should be turned into a new
offensiye—in Washington, before the United
Nations, among men and women in positions
of responsibility among the nations of the
world. There can and there must be peace
in the l'Iiddle East, between Israel( and the
Arab nations. Then we shall feel a bit more
secure about world peace.

...

Ad Astra per Aspera

And thou host made him a little less than angels." Psalms
By N. E. ARONSTAM, M.D.

Undaunted the human spirit soared to the unknown,
To reach its lofty peaks;
Aspiration lent it wings, but sered by Infinity
Its pinions solved in the fiery blast of Spheres.
Like Icarus to the very depths of gloom it plunged and sank,
There to lie vanquished and impotent in a math of dust,
While inevitable Immanence pointed its finger of derision
At a fallen angel.

Ah, many are the fallen angels,
Who uncraven dared to lift the veil
From the mysteries of Isis,
To find the ruins of shattered hopes.
But Phoenix-like the spirit rose from its ashes,
Rejuvenated, to other trials,
To endless trials and other failures,.
With unyielding determination to wrest the power
From the grasp of Existence.
Human Spirit, relinquish not thy struggle.

Resume thy fight against the puppetry of Being.
Grapple with this shadowy harlequin,
Which pulls the strings in the Comedy of Illusions.
Human Spirit, thou art one with Destiny,
Whose arrogance can never thwart thee;
And thus, fallen angel, rises once more,
Scale the heights, though a million times thou shouldst fait?
Art thou not one with the All, and a little less than Angels?

H I STOR I ETTE

Max Nordau as Inventor of
Term 'Jewish National Home

An American .trvvish Press Feature

Christopher Sykes, in his essay on the Balfour Declaration);
origin in his new book, "Two Studies in Virtue," (Knopf) main-
tains that the term "Jewish National Home" was invented by
Core
Max Nordau. In a footnote to his discussion of the Zionist Co
gress decision to found a "Heimstatte
or "National Home," he states:
"In an article published in 1920,
Nordau made a candid assertion that
it was intended to deceive by its mild-
ness and was in no sense an abjura-
tion of the Jewish claim to a Pales-
tinian state. He said: 'I did my best
to persuade the claimants of the Jew-
ish state in Palestine that we might
find a circulocution that would ex-
press all we meant, but would say it
in a way so as to avoid provoking the
Turkish rulers of the coveted land. I
suggested "Heimstatte" as a synonyms
of "State" . . This is the history of.
Nordau
the much commented expression. It was equivocal, but we all un-
derstood what it meant. To us it signified "Judenstaat" then aS
it signifies the same now . Now there is no reason to dissimu-
late our real aim.' (From the MS. of the article, lent to the writes
by Mr. John Carter."
•

140 Jewish Marshals Generals Admirals

,

,

E. Rubin's "140 Jewish Marshals, Generals & Admirals," pub.._
fished in London, England, by DeVero Books, is an amazingly
vealing book.
Even the best informed reader, who knows all about Australia's
General Sir John Monash, China's Brig.-Gen. Morris Cohen,
Italy's General Ettore Ascoli, Great Britain's Brig.-Gen. Frederi0k:
H. Kisch, America's Commodore Uriah P....Levy, Brig.-Gen. Samuel
T. Lawton, Maj.-Gen. Maurice Rase and others, will be amazed at
the mass of information about scores of military men who weitS
Jews.
Many lands are represented in this ,book- 7.the United Statc*
Great Britain,. Russia, South Africa, Italy,,Ittidia, Israel, Gerrnanyo,,
prance, Belgium, Canada, .China, Australia, Austria-Hungary..
Israel's three distinguished inen'„WhO 'are 'described in tOs„,,,
Yaacov. Dori aitd.
book are .'Maj.-Gen: Yigael Yaderi,'
.
„.
Brig.-Gen. AlOuf Mordechai'Makieff;:.
An interesting opening sectiop L:t4akee.. ,.r,eference ; also ;
large number of Jewish Nobel Pri**innerS, reViewS the activities A .
of early Israelite warners and tens,,abo9t Maccabi. and Bar.koehba._
Symon Gould of American Library. Service,..
N. Y. 36, has undertaken to encourage the 'introduction of this :H
volume in all libraries, as means:of presenting the facts atiout
Jewish military leaders to the public,. at-large. He has e?i•piescct::,
the hope that there will be enough• OgiriOutiOns to .m k • t. su ch

fund possible.

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