Friday, February 22, 1957

Harry Cohen Re-Elected Head of
Detroit Mo'os Hitim for Fourth Term

Harry Cohen hag been re-
elected .for the fourth ,term as
president of the Mo'os Hitim
Organization of Detroit, it was
announced this week by Mrs.
Harry Shulman, chairman of
the nominating committee.
Serving with him will be
Mrs. Paul Deutch, Mrs. Joseph
Fisher, Morris Gould and Abe
Katzman, vice-presidents; Har-
ry M. Shulman, treasurer; Mrs.
Maurice Gare-
lick and Mrs.
Joseph M. Mar-
kel, secretaries.
Members of
the board of
directors i n -
elude Mrs.
Samuel Aaron,
Mrs. Reuben
Allender, Mrs.
Hyman Alt-
m a n , Charles Cohen
Charlip, Mrs. S. Faber, Mrs.
Paul Freeman, Harry Friede-
berg, Mrs. Sam Goldman, Dr.
Joseph Jacobs, Irving L Katz,
Mrs. Abe Katzman, Mrs. Na-
than J. Kaufman, Mr. and
Mrs. Baer Keidan, Mrs. Max
Kogan, Mrs. Joseph Kunin,

•

Mrs. Jack Miller and Mrs. Wal-
ter R. Naftaly.
Others are Mrs. Douglas Pur-
ther, Mrs. Julia Ring, Mrs. Ju-
lius Ring, Edward Robinson,
Dr. and Mrs. Joseph Rotten-
berg, Charles N. Shere, Mr. and
Mrs. Meyer Shugerman, Mrs,
Harry M. Shulman, Lee M.
Shulman, Harold - Silver, Mrs.
Irving Small, Barney Smith,
Mrs. Charles A. Smith, Mrs.
Sidney. Tauber, Mrs. Al Weis-
man, Dr. Israel Wiener, Mrs.
Frank Winton and David Zack.
The rabbinical advisory board
is composed of Rabbis Morris
Adler, Milton Arm, Jacob Chi-
nitz, Hayim Donin, Leon Fram,
Leo Y. Goldman, Benjamin
Gorrelick, Solomon Gruskin,
Israel Halpern, Mordecai S.
Halpern, A. M. Hershman, Rich-
ard C. Hertz, Moses Lehrman,
Samuel H. Prero,.Milton Rosen-
baum, Jacob E. Segal, Joshua
S. Sperka and Isaac Stollman.
Last year, the Mo'os Hitim
Organization served nearly
2,500 persons who might have
not- had the necessaries with
which to observe Passover. All
cases, whether• referred by city
or private agencies or by pri-
vate sources, are screened to
avoid duplication, Cohen stated.

Raised for Israel Bonds
i; Truman Attacks Administration

.

Fla., (JTA)
totalling
sere at the
three-day
eked the
campaign
$75,000,-
the sale

.

•

00tp
of •
Isr.
fk in-
dusty
000 if_ r.).
st pur-
chase in th,
ne Israel
bond camp.
started
in May, 1951.
Dr. Joseph J. Schwartz, execu-
tive vice-president of the Israel
Bond Organization, told the
2,000 guests from all- parts of
the country, that "the 1957 Is-
rael bond campaign must raise
a minimum of $75,000,000 if
Israel's economic stability is to
be maintained at a time when
the country must a b s o rip a
greatly increased flow of new-
comers.
He reported that between
May, 1951 and the end of 1956,
Israel bond sales totalled $270,-
667,200. These bonds, he ern-,
phasized, provide more than
one-third of funds for Israel's
financing now that other sources
Of development capital have
been curtailed or eliminated.

Purely Commentary:

The American People and the Spirit of Emile Zola

These are crucial days. In a matter of hours, there will be
a showdown on the Middle East crisis as it affects the security
of Israel. The pressures that are being exerted upon Israel to
abandon her absolute demands for security are so strenuous that
Israel and her friends are posing the question: Are there many
friends left for Israel in the great American republic? The
answer is an emphatic YES!
There were times, in the past few years during which the
embattled people of Israel appeared to be helpless, with no one
to come to its aid except their kinsmen in democratic countries
who can still speak freely, when we wondered:
Why isn't the* in our day,• a champion of human rights
like g•mile Zolail(the fearless defender of Alfred Dreyfus); to
cry out a new "J'Accuse" to an indifferent world?
There was just cause for such a question. For a long time—
too long a time—there was silence about the explosive situation
in the Middle East. Only a handful of libertarians recognized
the increasing symptoms of troubles that can well lead to another
world war—unless there is peace in that area.
Then came the brilliant military strokes of the mat/
Israeli nation. The fumbling of the democracies, the blunders
of our State Department, the confusions that dazed unrealistic
peoples in the United Nations, nullified the victories for a just
cause in Gaza. and the Sinai Peninsula and at the Suez Canal.
Arab potentates now are invading our land and are brazenly
asking for blackmail. In a sense, the blackmailers are the
victors rather than the democracies.
Yet, it can not be -said that Israel has lost the war. That
would be a wrong conclusion. By adhering to the right to battle
for her security and her existence, this very small nation
gives evidence that she is continuing to win the battle for
freedom.
Furthermore, the manner of rallying friends to her cause
adds to the multiplying evidence that Israel also is winning the
battle for all democracies.
We do not have a single Emile Zola: it is beginning to
appear as if the entire American people is becoming moulded
into a collective Zola. This nation once again emerges as a
people that revolts against injustice, that is horrified by double
standards of morality, that is dedicated to the ideal of fair play.
Of course, there is always a minority that thrives on hate
and spreads venom against Israel and her Jewish kinsmen. We
believe they are in a minority today.
(We asked Senator Paul Douglas, of Illinois, last month,
whether he has sensed strong anti-Israeli or anti-Semitic
feelings in Congress, and his reply was that he. , had never
seen such strong feelings of friendship for Israel as at this
time.
All one need do is gather the rapidly accumulating moun-
tains of clippings from our daily and weekly press, to find a
staggering amount of good will towards Israel—and admiration
for the Israelis' determination not to permit anything step into
the path of her security.
Long ago—it seems so long ago—in the pre-Israel Statehood
days, the Jews in -Palestine were offered bait by the Arabs:
they were told that if they will shut their doors to new
immigrants, the Arabs will call them friends and will live
happily with them forever after; else, they said, it means war.
But the Palestine Jews gave a negative reply: their freedom
was not the only issue at stake: they were dedicated also to
the task of rescuing all Jews who faced threats of extermination
in many lands, including those ruled by Moslems: they risked
war, and now they are, determined to win the peace.
Now we have an analogous situation. Israel is told that she
tan have economic assistance; perhaps also military supplies—
provided she leaves the strategic points she still holds in Gaza
and the Sinai Peninsula. Her reply is that, in spite of her present
hardships—and they are frightening—she must concern herself
with the morrow as well as the today. She must have basic
securities, in order that there should never again be a return
to the days when Jews were threatened with extermination.
Israel, her leaders say, has yielded enough: the little country
already _llas evacuated territory, taken by her in the 72 hours

Former President Truman,
who was the guest speaker at
a dinner of the conference hon-
oring Eddie Cantor, said that
unless the United Nations can
protect Israel from murdering
gangs and end the illegal block-
ade of its ports, "it is not moral-
ly justified in asking her to
give up the means of, protecting
herself from them."
Following the dinner, Ida
Cantor, wife of the comedian,
collapsed with a heart attack
and was rushed to a Miami
hospital where she is reported
as recovering.
Mr. Truman scored the Ad-
ministration policy in the Mid-
dle East and condemned the Ei-
senhower doctrine as "too little
and too late."
"I am sorry to say," he de-
clared, that "the policy on which
our Government had embarked
did not bring 'about a situation
that was conducive to reason-
able agreement between Israel
and the Arab states. On the con-
trary, it produced the opposite
resul t, and - conditions grew
worse . . Nothing was done.
Soviet arms and agents flowed
in—not only . to Egypt but also
to Syria. At the same time we
cut off all shipments of -arms-

`Modern `J'Accuse' .
Libertarian Action
in Collective Form.

By Philip
Slomovitz

that followed the Oct. 29 action, that is four or five times the
size of the State of Israel. She only holds points that spell
liberty. What else does the world expect?
Secretary of State John Foster Dulles has not answered this
challenge, but the press of this country has. Look at the accumu-
lated articles and study the evidence.
Norman Cousins, the editor of Saturday Review, was given
an earful of anti-Israel propaganda by a schoolteacher in one
of the refugee camps in Gaza. He set out to acquire the facts.
His "Letter to a Teacher in Gaza," in Saturday Review, is a
masterpiece of dispassionate and fair reporting. It is heartening
that his plea is for peace and justice.
Frank Gervasi, the well known author and foreign corres-
pondent, just back from writing for The Reporter from Geneva
on "Israel and the Refugees of the Gaza Strip," presents facts
that should dispel all libels that have been hurled at Israel.
He points to Israel having "just about as many Arabs as its
hard-pressed economy, still heavily dependent on foreign
assistance and investment, can accommodate," and proceeds to
offer actual numbers of refugees—facts that speak louder than
words. The facts are too valuable to be hidden away. Here they
are, in Gervasi's words:
"Admittedly, the Arab population of the refugee camps is
not as big as Nasser's press agents would have one believe:
Their figure is a nice, round 1,100,000. The United Nations
Relief and Works Agency, whiCh feeds and cares for them,
counted them at 922,279 as of the end of last June. However,
the refugees have been known to hide their dead, to hang onto
old ration cards and to pass newborn babies around from family
to family to acquire new cards. The total may well be closer
to official Israeli estimates ranging from 600,000 to 650,000.
"This much is certain: There were 1,100,000 Arabs in
British-mandated Palestine as of November, 1947, when the
United Nations partitioned the area. Of these, 150,000, accord-
ing to verifiable Israeli records, remained in the country when
the others left. The evidence is overwhelming that the 1947
-exodus was instigated by outside leaders who promised the
Palestinian Arabs a triumphant return and much loot with the
annihilation of the Jews. Anyhow, that woud leave 950,000
potential refugees. Of those, 450,000 remained in the Arab part
of Palestine annexed by Jordan at the time of the 1948 armis-
tice. They are on their own land, in their own homes, no worse
and no better off than they were before. Under no circum-
stances should they be counted as refugees although they are
so considered and as such live on the UN dole.
- "Subtracting the Jordanian 'refugees' from the 950,000, one
arrives at a figure of 500,000. Allowing for natural increment
of births over deaths, the present tea
' l' total can hardly be
much more than 600,000. Of these, 217,000 are in the Gaza
Strip, which was occupied by the Egyptians at armistice time."
Fair-minded observers, including UN officials, have indicated
that the only solution to the refugee problem is the resettlement
of the refugees in Arab countries, But we have reached an
unusual stage: Israel, as part of her conditions for the introduc-
tion of a civil administration in Gaza, under Israeli-UN
supervision, offers to absorb the 217,000 Arabs who are now in
the Gaza refugee camps—people who now are "stateless," in
Egyptian judgments, and are unable to move out of their present
positions.
Perhaps this is the reason for Arab stubbornness in reject-
ing the 'Israeli plan: it offers a solution, whereas the Arabs'
kinsmen refused to provide proper human status for them.
If it were only by virtue of Israel's assumption of respon-
sibility for a large portion of the refugees, thereby solving an
aggravated world problem, the Israeli proposals should be
accepted. But President Eisenhower and Secretary Dulles see
the issue differently, and that delays solution and compels the
Israelis to insist not merely on U.S. promises but also to ask
for Egyptian assurances that there will be no further threats
to Israel's existence.
The coming few days surely will witness the showdown:
they will be tense with threats and challenges. They are days
that will test the stamina of the Israelis and the vision for
better days of the statesmen ot the world.

to Israel. And that was the most
cowardly thing we have done
in many and many a day. You
know the consequences . . . The
present situation is dark and
full of peril .
"In spite of the dangers of
the present, Israel will sur-
vive, as it did of old," Truman
said "Zion will again be a
place of peace. The survival
of Israel has always been a
matter of faith—of the faith
that moves mountains. From
the days of the Hebrew
prophets to our own, Israel
has been faithful to its be-
liefs, and to its covenant with
God. The creation of the State
of Israel has been a miracle
of modern times. We in this
fortunate a n d proposerous
country of the United States
can never be indifferent to
its fate. And we as citizens
must do all in our power to
correct the mistakes and blun-
dering of our own Govern-
ment. We must hold our elect-
ed leaders, by the force of
public opinion, to the only
course of conduct that can
preserve peace in the Middle_
East and save Israel , from
destruction."
The former President scored
the Administration's inaction in
recent years in getting the Arab-
Israel issue settled and leaving
an area for Soviet exploitation.
As a result of "drift and pro-
crastination," he continued, not
only is Israel in danger but the
threat has spread to Europe and
is undermining the West.
"The time is long overdue,"
continued Mr. Truman, "for our
'government to adopt a clear and
vigorous policy in the Middle
East—to use its influence and
power to bring peace, to make
known where it stands and
above all to work together with
its friends and allies." He also
asserted that "we won't get any-
where with this Middle East
situation unless we go to the
root of the trouble."
Reviewing h i s Administra-
tion's record in the creation of
the State of Israel, he said it
was consistent with policy re-
garding other peoples in the
area and "was not an act of
favoritism." He noted that since
1922, Congress had been on rec-
ord as favoring the establish-
ment of a Jewish homeland.
Mr. Truman said that for Is-
rael, Americans have "admira-
tion' and gratitude. Admiration
for their will to exist in spite
of all obstacles, and gratitude
for giving us our moral code."

* * *

International Photo

—

Former President Harry S.
Truman gets a •• hug from
comedian Eddie '- iittor at the
Israel Bond dinner celebrating
Cantor's 65th birthday. Mr.
Truman was one of many
celebrities in public life to
attend the tribute, w hi c h
helped inaugurate the 1957
bond campaign for $75,000,000.

