Purely Commentary
An American Type of Nefarious 'Protocols'
The New York Times, with all its genuine greatness, rendered
a disservice with its series of articles on the fourth anniversary of the
Six-Day War. In a sense, the denigrations had a good introduction
with a totally unrelated article that led the page in the issue of June 5.
The first column essay on "The Meaning of Hypocrisy" seemed to
describe some of the data on Israel.
That page contained a most deplorable piece by a Jew whose
negations have been known for a very long time. Robert Moses' "Har-
'ness the Jordan" revived an old issue regarding the Jewish protest
against crucifixion-type libels that were introduced at the 1964-65 New
York World's Fair. It's a rather nasty piece, but was hardly unex-
pected from Robert Moses.
But the worst of all was the one entitled "Israel—The 51st State?"
Anyone who knows the manner of attack upon Israel, world Jewry,
the Jews of America and United States Middle East policies from
Arab propaganda quarters understood the approach at once. It is part
of the scheme to exaggerate the American position, to underestimate
the need to protest American policies in the Middle East and to describe
all that is being done as merely a sellout to Israel at the expense
of the Arabs. From such quarters one can hardly expect a true evalua-
tion of an American position that has become aggravated because war-
threatening Arab effendis have become satellites of the Kremlin and
refuse to talk to their Jewish neighbors.
The exaggerations in the article on the mythical "51st state" by
its author, David G. Nes, are cause for concern. A former State
Department official in Cairo who has become an activist for Arabs in
this country, Nes gives the impression that the United States goes
all out to provide monetary assistance to Israel. He fails to indicate
that assistance to Israel is either in the form of planes that are sold
at an established price—never as a military gift—or loans that are
repaid.
He returns to the scene all too often to be ignored, and Nes must,
therefore, be fully exposed. In the current issue of Near East Report,
I. L. Kenen, the editor of this Washington periodical that deals with
American policy in the Near East, tells of the State Department's
repudiation of Nes and reveals the following:
A typical Nes distortion:
"Until 1967 we assured Israel a continuing supply of mod-
ern military equipment through West Germany and France and
thus were able to avoid Arab hostility on this score."
The truth is that we refused to provide Israel with arms
from 1952 to 1962. We forced Israel to look elsewhere. And
often since 1962 we withheld arms from Israel on the discredited
thesis, which Nes still holds, that this might win Arab goodwill.
Moreover, Nes does not disclose that the United States
has granted large-scale economic assistance to Arab countries
and has even provided arms free to a number of them.
Nes does not have the decency to acknowledge that Israel
has been compelled to borrow heavily to pay for her security.
Israel has the highest per capita foreign currency debt in
the world.
And there is nary a word in the Nes article about the fan-
tas - ic Soviet aid to Egypt and other Arab states, which far
?eds that provided to Israel.
Most bizzare is the Nes complaint that State Department
policy in 1967 made Israel privy to U.S. intelligence.
Both the Department of State and the Israel Embassy told
the Near East Report that Nes' statements were "imaginary,"
"highly inaccurate" and "tendentious."
Nes went so far as to say: "The effectiveness of the Israel
air strikes on June 5, 1967 was ensured, in part at least, by
information on Egyptian airfields and aircraft disposition pro-
vided through U.S. sources."
We find it shocking that an American diplomat should
have made a statement which is calculated to confirm the Big
Lie which Nasser hurled in 1967, when he charged that Ameri-
can military intervention was responsible for Egypt's defeat.
Nes even contends that "military intelligence requirements
levied by Washington upon the Cairo Embassy, CIA and mili-
tary intelligence staffs were very largely based on Israeli needs."
The fact is that the United States and Israel have been
in a continuous dialogue over Israel's arms needs and this
country has based its response to Israel's requests on its own
appraisal of Egypt's acquisitions from Russia.
But to suggest that there was some secret and sinister
intelligence relationship between the United States and Israel
is an obvious absurdity.
Self Contradictory
-
Indeed, Nes appears to have forgotten his own testimony
about U.S. intelligence back in 1967, after he left Cairo. Less
than four days after the war, the embittered diplomat made
headlines in the Baltimore Sun when he charged that the Jor-
dan administration—and the State Department in particular
—had ignored his "clear warnings months in advance" and had
"made no moves to deter Egypt's President Gamal Abdul
Nasser from his dangerous adventure."
Three months later, Nes' superior in Cairo at the time
of the war, Richard Nolte, replied publicly to Nes' charges:
"Nowhere in his mind, at least as revealed in his con-
versations or in his dispatches, or in anyone else's, was there
any suspicion whatever that the Egyptians would make a chal-
lenge to Israel. This caught not only all of us by surprise, it
even caught the Israelis by surprise."
But if Nes contends that Washington was not taking his
alleged intelligence seriously, what kind of intelligence was the
State Department able to pass on to Israel—if any?
Although Nes insists that Israel enjoys "almost total im-
munity from criticism in this country," he himself has no trouble
circulating such criticism.
2—Friday, June 18, 1971
By Philip
Slomovitz
Exposing a Former State Department Employe's
Propaganda to Harm Israel . . . David G. Nes' Role
as a Defamer of Israel . . . And the Gaza Distortion
Before his article was printed in New York, it appeared
in much more virulent form in one edition of the London Times,
which had the grace to yank it from subsequent editions—a
nefarious deed which drew an attack from Christopher Mayhew,
the British MP who leads pro-Arab forces in London.
It was then reprinted in its entirely in Middle East Inter-
national, along with Mayhew's denunciation of the London
Times. The magazine containing this article was then circulated
by the pro-Arab American Friends of the Middle East (AFME)
on Capitol Hill.
Nes has also used this particular article as the basis for
lectures in the past few months in this country. And it has been
picked up in a number of newspapers. His obvious purpose is
to try to mobilize sentiment against further arms sales to Israel.
At a time when the United States seems to be unpopular
in the world and lacking friends, it seems very odd indeed that
an American ex-diplomat should be trying so actively to im-
peach one of the few good friends that America has.
It is because Nes' poisonous attitude invades American com-
munities that the facts about him must be made known so that he
should be exposed wherever he may appear.
*
*
*
The Sanctimonious 'Monitor'
The New York Times was not alone in its unfairness. A week after
it published the Moses and Nes articles, the Christian Science Monitor,
who can boast of very good coverage of the Middle East events, pub-
lished an editorial, "It's Time for a Solomon," which contained some
sad references to Mrs. Golda Meir.
If, as the Monitor suggests, Mrs. Meir may try to sound tough
for "home consumption," what about the threats that came from Nasser
and now come from Sadat? Weren't they for home consumption? And
if Sadat's position should be appreciated, why not Israel's? And why
charge that "Mrs. Meir is trying to—rewrite American foreign policy
into support for hanging on to those spoils of war?"
Why hasn't the Monitor, instead, urged that Sadat consent to a
talk with Mrs. Meir? Never have we seen support in the Monitor for
direct talks between Jews and Arabs—the only way in which neighbors
can live in peace. There is a bit of prejudice in the Monitor's position.
*
*
*
Gaza, the Sore Spot, Uncorrupted History
Israel inherited troubles and aggravations with the Six-Day vic-
tories. Not least among the sore spots is the Gaza Strip. While guerril-
las have been in action in Jordan, many of the losses suffered as a
result of terrorism were in Gaza. Most of those killed were Arabs
who are constantly attacked by their kinsmen because they choose
to accept the lucrative jobs offered them by Israel. There are thou-
sands—perhaps 30,000—Arabs who travel, mainly from Gaza, and from
Jordanian areas, into Israel to work on construction jobs at salaries
they never before dreamt of. The terrorists don't like it, so they kill!
On June 11 two Arabs were killed and 87 wounded in one of the most
serious and saddest offenses against their fellow men by Arab
terrorists.
Their American counterpart and their Beirut supporters won for
these terrorists a platform in a paid half-page advertisement in the
New York Times, with a request to "break the wall of silence" on
Gaza. The Gaza Day Committee which inserted the ad made claims
to alleged historical rights of Arabs to the Gaza area. One of the con-
tentions in the ad is: "It is in Gaza that Hashem, the grandfather of
Vie Prophet Mohammed, lies buried—hence its Arabic name, Ghazat
ilashem . . ."
What are the facts?
In reality, Gaza is the Greek transcription of the Hebrew azzah
and reference to it will be found in I Kings 5:4. Does that precede
Mohammed and his grandfather of the fifth and sixth centuries of
this era? Gaza (azzah) was the Greek city in the Hellenistic period
that was noted for its fairs. For the Arabs who occupied the city it
became Ghazzeh and Jews always lived there, except for a time after
the city's capture by Napoleon in 1799 when most of them left—but
some remained even then.
As a matter of fact, Gaza served as a district office for Jewish
settlements in Palestine in 1940 and for a few years thereafter, sharing
that role with Tel Aviv.
A valuable description of Gaza's historical record will be found
in the Funk and Wagnalls Jewish Encyclopedia (1905). -
The current interest, besides the sad role of Israel in this oc-
cupied strip of territory, is that the Arabs residing there were, in
the main, kept there as in a prison incarcerated by Egypt. They were
denied any right to travel or to see their kinsmen in Jordan and the
area became a concentration camp for them—until they regained the
freedom to move around or to change their residences if they wished.
That's what the terrorists dislike.
Eminent Christians'
Call for Fair Play
While the threats to Israel have
mounted and the terrorists gained
hearings in many quarters, there
are heartening signs that the right-
eousness in Christian ranks will
strive toward fair play in behalf
of Israel and of Jews who still
are in areas where they are sub-
jected to humiliation.
Under the name Christians Con-
cerned for Israel, a distinguished
roster of eminent churchmen has
taken a firm stand on Jerusalem
and on other issues affecting both
Israel and the Jewish people.
It is heartening to note that this
group, under the leadership of
like Dr. Franklin Littell of Ten,
University, Father Edward _ .
Flannery, Lehigh University Prof. -
A. Roy Eckardt and Mrs. Eckardt
and their associates, had taken a
strong stand in support of just
rights for Israel. They criticized
churchmen who permit bigotry to
intrude upon the thinking of many
clergymen as well as parishioners,
and their stand is one of firmness
for fair play.
Similarly, another group, "Amer-
icans for a Secure Israel," strives
to present facts that are to lead
toward proper understanding of Is-
rael's just position in the Middle
East.
Noteworthy also is the position
taken on matters affecting Israel
and Russian Jewry by Senator
Henry M. Jackson of Washington.
In an emphatic appeal to Secre-
tary of State William P. Rogers,
Senator Jackson defied the Rus-
sian disclaimers about interference•
in her foreign affairs and urged
that "sense of outrage of the
American people" be expressed in
condemning the discriminations
against Jews.
In his address at the Jewish Na-
tional Fund meeting in Boston on
Sunday evening, Senator Jackson
made this emphatic appeal in Is-
rael's behalf:
It is now undeniable that the
State Department policy of act-
ing on Egypt's behalf by with-
holding from Israel the arms
she needs for her own defense
has failed to weaken the Rus-
sian position in the Arab states.
In the resulting atmosphere of
American vacillation it is not
surprising that the Soviets
should have been willing to at-
tempt an historic consolidation
of their position in the Middle
East, nor is it surprising that
the United Arab Republic should
acquiesce in permitting it. There
can no longer be any. justifica-
tion for delaying the sale of' vital
aircraft to Israel. In my view
we should take immediate steps
to assure that Israel will receive
the means with which to pro-
vide for her own defense.
As long as we have such good
friends we have a bit less to fear
over an uncertain future. These
friends assist us greatly in periods
of serious concern.
Max Fisher, Receiving Honorary Gratz Degree,
Affirms Primacy of Jew
Educational Needs
PHILADELPHIA (JTA) — In a
broad searching review of tht fu-
ture of the American Jewish com-
munity, Max M. Fisher, president
of the Council of Jewish Federa-
tions and Welfare Funds, observ-
ing that the effects of today's so-
cial climate on youth has "brought
home to every thinking American
Jew how heavy are our casualties
on the Jewish front," signaled
the vital role that must be played
by Jcwish education in preserving
Jewish continuity and survival.
In a major address Monday
THE DETROIT JEWISH NEWS night at the 71st commencement
exercise at Gratz College, where
he was awarded an honorary de-
gree of doctor of humane let-
ters, Fisher, while noting that
Jewish education is now on the
"top level of priorities" of fed-
erations and welfare funds, none-
theless called for "fresh and re-
vitalized approaches toward mak-
ing the past more meaningful to
Jewish youth" while reaffirming
Judaism's viable heritage for to-
morrow.
Fisher prescribed "exciting
ideas and promising programs
as first steps toward enlarging
and improving Jewish education
in America" and as vital to.pe-
curing the survival of American
Jewry. He urged that "we'must
put a high value on Jewish sur-
vival, not only because of what
we are—but because of what we
can yet give."
At the urging of students and
young people, Fisher noted, many
communities are taking a fresh
look at their over-all education
programs—responsive to their cri-
tique which called on communities
"to strengthen what is good, re-
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