Newsmen Force Arabs to Retract Anti-Israel Lie

ROME (JTA) — Two former Jordanian officials were forced by sharp question-
ing at a sparsely-attended news conference here to retract a charge that Israeli
occupation authorities were imposing death sentences on Arabs in the West Bank area.
The charge was one of a number of similar allegations made by Rouhi el-
Khatib, former mayor of East Jerusalem, and Rimahoui Kassem, former vice-president
of the Jordanian Parliament and Information Minister, on a tour of Europe. The two
Jordanians accused Israel of aggression and with "unjustified annexation" of East

Jerusalem, as well as of enforcing "oppressive military and emergency laws" in the
occupied areas and with "imposing death and life imprisonment on the slight suspicion
of using arms." Under questioning, they conceded that no death sentences had been
imposed in the occupied areas. The former mayor reportedly said in Geneva that
demonstrations against Israeli "oppression" in East Jerusalem were being carried out
by Arab women because the Israelis "have threatened demonstrators with 15 years'
imprisonment."

NEWS
.
THE l ig WISH

The Neighborhood
Changes:
Problems,
Frustrations,
Realities

MICHIGAN

A Weekly Review

.

Commentary
Page 2

The Fortas
Appointment:
Rallying Cry
of 'Cronyism'
Widely Refuted

of Jewish Events

Editorial
Page 4

Michigan's Only English-Jewish Newspaper — Incorporating The Detroit Jewish Chronicle
$7.00 Per Year; This Issue 20c
July 5, 1968-17100 W. 7 Mile Rd., Detroit 48235 VE 8-9364
27

VOL. LI I I, NO. 16

40.

Republican Congressmen. Counter
USSR Arms Freeze Attempts With
Demand for Phantoms for Israel

Israel Terminates Polish
Trade Pact; Professors
Condemn Anti-Semitism

Direct JTA Teletype Wires to The Jewish News
JERUSALEM—The foreign ministry announced Tues-
day that Israel will not renew its 14-year-old trade pact
with Poland which expires Oct. 1 and has so informed
the Polish government through the Dutch Embassy in
Warsaw, which is handling Israeli affairs in that country.
Poland severed diplomatic relations with Israel after the
June war. According to a foreign ministry spokesman,
trade between the two countries has been at a standstill
since the rupture, but Poland owes Israel more than
$2,500,000 within the framework of their agreement.
The termination of the trade agreement will end the
agreement on payment as well, the ministry spokesman
said. The trade pact was signed in 1954 and renewed
itself automatically unless intention to terminate it was
announced by either party three months prior to the re-
newal date. Apart from the break in diplomatic ties,
Isriel's relations with Poland have deteriorated markedly
during the past six months owing to the intensive anti-
Jewish campaign instituted by the Warsaw regifne and
the mass purge of Jews from high posts in the Polish
government and Communist Party apparatus on charges
of "Zionist" sympathies. In contrast with Poland, Israel
continues to maintain formal trade relations with other
East European countries that broke diplomatic ties after
the Six-Day War. Some of these have lately shown in-
terest in widening their trade with Israel. Israel has both
trade and diplomatic relations with Romania.
NEW YORK — One thousand university ptofessors
from. 100 campuses across the United States called on the
(Continued on Page 3)

WASHINGTON (JTA)----The Republican leadership of the House of Representatives, appar-
ently responding to a Soviet maneuver to freeze arms shipments to Israel, Tuesday urged immedi-
ate sale of Phantom Jet Fighter Bombers to Israel to restore the balance of air power in the
Middle East.
House Republican Leader Gerald R. Ford of Michigan announced that he is co-sponsoring a
resolution introduced by Rep. William Broomfield, a member of the foreign affairs committee and
also a Michigan Republican.
The resolution demands that the administration act on the long-deferred Israeli application.
Rep. Broomfield, referring to a Soviet memorandum on arms control submitted Monday by
Premier Kosygin, which called for reducing arms shipments to the Middle East, said the United
States should restore the balance by selling the Phantoms to Israel before entering discussions
on Mideast arms control.
Rep. Broomfield, as a member of the foreign affairs body, visited Israel after the Six-Day War
and has since observed the military re-supply situation. He said Tuesday that the "Russians have ir-
responsibly poured hundreds of the latest types of Supersonic Jet Fighters and Bombers into the
radical Arab states while the United States administration has refused to provide Israel with the 50
Phantoms she desperately requires. The Arabs now have a 4'to-1 edge as compared with the 3-to-1
superiority they enjoyed before June 5, 1967.
The Congressmen pointed out that the Russians are now talking about "slackening the arms
race" because "they have at this point supplied the Egyptians with more jets and sophisticated
munitions than they can digest. Until the Egyptian forces, aided by Soviet military advisers,
can absorb the new equipment, Moscow obviously wants to call a convenient so-called freeze so
that the United States will not sell the Phantoms to Israel. This is a cynical maneuver to put pres-
sure on Israel and facilitate the Arab military build up."
The Soviet memorandum just issued "supports proposals concerning the implementation of
measures for regional disarmament and for reduction of armaments in various regions of the
world, including the Middle East. The question of such measures for slackening the Arms race
in the Middle East could be considered only in conditionings of elimination of the consequences
of the Israeli aggression against the Arab countries, and, above all, the full evacuation of the Israeli
forces from the territories of Arab countries occupied by them."
The Republican House leadership said it was the position of Rep. Ford that Israel should not
evacuate the occupied territories in response to a Soviet demand of this type and that any boun-
dary settlement to be meaningful, must be the result of direct Arab-Israel negotiations in the
(Continued on Page 7)
context of a general peace settlement.

Orthodox-Reform Confrontation Faces
Israel on Mixed Praying at West Wall

Direct JTA Teletype Wire to The Jewish News
A confrontation was shaping up between Israel's Orthodox
JERUSALEM
religious establishment and a movement of Reform Judaism which is holding an in-
ternational convention here and insists that it has the right to worship at the Western
Wall according to its practice of men and women praying ogether, The ministry of
religious affairs has barred access to the shrines for mixed prayers by members of
the World Union for Progressive Judaism stated that it will hold mixed prayers
religious political party, Mizrachi-Hapoel, Hamizrachi, and the orthodox
ban, the
movement, Bnei Akiva, have summoned their members to mass prayers on

—

•

youth
Thursdays, hoping to prevent access to the Wall by sheer numbers.

The Reform group appealed the ban to the Knesset and the cabinet. A ministerial
committee of the latter met Monday without conclusive results. But spokesmen for
the World Union for Progressive Judaism stated that it will hold mixed prayers
at the Western Wall as scheduled. Their position is that the West Wall is a shrine of
all Jews, not one particular branch of Judaism.
Their position is shared by a majority of Israelis. A public opinion poll on the
dispute found that 41 per cent of all adults questioned favored allowing the Reform
Jews to"conduct their prayers in any way they saw fit. Twenty-six per cent shared
the Orthodox stand that .there is no room for a Reform movement in Israel, and 33
per cent had no opinion.
Delegates from 24 countries representing more than 1,000,000 Reform and
Liberal Jews, including a number of Detioiters, are attending the parley.

Campaign Against [orb's Develops
Into Pandora Box for Anti-Semites

By MILTON FRIEDMAN

(Copyright, 1968, Jewish Telegraphic Agency, Inc.)

WASHINGTON — The bitter campaign launched by Sen. Robert P. Griffin,
Michigan Republican, against Senate confirmation of Abe Fortas as Chief Justice
of the United States has opened a Pandora's box of anti-Semitism.
This is not to suggest that Sen. Griffin is personally motivated by the fact
that Fortas is Jewish. But his drive to keep Fortas from becoming the first Jew in
American history to occupy the nation's third highest post has been gleefully wel-
comed by the lowest dregs of anti-Semitism.
It was obviously not the intention of Sen. Griffin to become the champion of a
cause that has electrified the blatant bigots as well as the subtle gentlemen of preju-
dice. But he has achieved, however, inadvertently, that dubious distinction.
Sen. Griffin said his aim was to challenge the designation of Fortes as Chief
Justice by a "lame duck" President. He also objected to the President's selection of
a "crony" to fill the post.
But the senator encouraged anti-Semitism when he centered his fire on Fortas
and said not a single word about the simultaneous appointment of Judge Homer
Thornberry, of Texas, in his press release.
Was it a lame duck appointment to make Fortas, already an Associate Justice,
the Chief Justice, but insignificant that an entirely new member was at the same time
named to the Supreme Court?
Sen. James Eastland of Mississippi is a leading foe of civil rights and anti-bias
legislation. He happens to be chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee which must
(Continued on Page 5)