2 December 26, 1975
THE DETROIT JEWISH NEWS
Purely Commentary
Hypocritical Acts of Western European Powers vis-
a-vis Israel and Jewry at the UN . . . Arab Au-
dacity Regarding Mass Expulsion of the Jews
Hypocrisy Internationalized
This week, climaxed by the sanctity of the hoped-for great day acclaimed as a dedication to Good Will, the world
experienced an internationalization of hypocrisy.
The very nations whence commenced the vilest forms of terrorism themselves began to feel the sting of inhumanity
and violence, yet they shamelessly exercized unity represented by the anti-Semitism which was faceted in the hatred for
Zionism.
What a glorious day for OPEC when Algeria, whose ruler presided over the legitimizing of Mass Murder Advocate
Arafat at the United Nations, opened its airport for the terrorist-murderers who trekked after their criminal act from
Vienna!
And during the same week the Pontifical Pope Pius VI pleaded the cause of the Palestinians, with a briefly conceding
rejection of terror, after all the years of silence when the Jew was the sufferer — never having uttered a word to say that
the Jew, like the Palestinian, had a right to life and liberty!
What a dehumanized week for internationalized hypocrisy!
*
Shocks of Mexico . . . and Sweden
Is the Mexican role in the anti-Zionist crusade of insan-
ities stupidity or hypocrisy, or both? The love fest in which
Jewish leaders joined and which ended in renewed betrayal
of trust by the Mexican government will call for explana-
tions by Jewish spokesmen as well as the Mexicans, while
planned Mexican tours continue to be boycotted. It is hoped
that innocent Mexican Jewry will not be the unfortunate
scapegoat in the controversy.
Meanwhile the submission of European governments
to the Arab-Communist terror remains appalling. The
stand by Sweden remains an especially deplorable one.
In behalf of the Swedish embassy in Washington, Lars-
Ake Nilsson, the embassy's secretary, submitted to us an
unofficial translation statement maintaining an "un-
changed Swedish position on the question of participation
of the PLO in UN debates on Middle East." The Swedish
statement includes this paragraph:
In Sweden's opinion the PLO is the most au-
thoritative representation of the Palestinian Arabs.
This people must be represented in the debates of the
United Nations concerning the future of the Middle
East. This view is based upon the conviction that all
parties directly affected by the conflict must be
heard from if a peaceful solution shall be reached.
The mere contention that "the PLO is the most authori-
tative representative of the Palestinian Arabs" immediately
brands the policies pursued by Sweden as both damaging to
truth and diplomatically irresponsible.
What Sweden does is grant respectability to a pack of
murderers, to fomenters of terrorism, to a group that has
never been formally or in any other way granted spokes-
manship for the Arabs on the West Bank or anywhere else
— except by the submissive acclaim of Sadat, Assad and
Karami. And Franjieh, the elected leader of the oppressed
Catholics in Lebanon, doesn't have the guts to repudiate the
murderer of his people.
Sweden can not be absolved for her actions at the UN.
Even if Israeli voices should be silenced on the subject of
Sweden, for political reasons, the Jewish attitude towards
the Swedish inhumanity on the PLO subject must arouse
contempt in Jewish ranks.
How Will History Judge
This Diabolical Generation?
An armchair philosopher could lean back, try to relax,
ponder over what is happening in this perplexed world. He
would undoubtedly ask how the future will judge a genera-
tion that is filled with tensions and also with domination by
hypocrisies.
Are they really hypocrisies, or is it a combination of
ironies and mockeries?
At best the judgment will be that many in mankind's
ruling positions are laughing up their sleeves at naive and
gullible people.
Mexico is an example. Its spokesmen at the interna-
tional circus joined with the barbarians and the demented
who form the tyrannical majority to denigrate the great
libertarian Zionist movement. The thousands of cancella-
tions of planned tours to Mexico caused its foreign minister
to go to Israel with an apology. That unfortunate country's
president entertained Jewish leaders at what appeared like
a love fest. Then the dementia began to act up again and
Mexico voted anti-Zionisticly at the UN!
Will history judge the Mexican chapter in the acts of
UN inanities (insanities!) as mere stupidity?
Then there is Lebanon. First President Franjieb linked
Israel with the enemies of his party — the Maronite Catho-
lics — whose very existence is at stake at the hands of bar-
baric Moslems dominated by Arafat's so-called Palestini-
ans. Then the protector of his arch enemies, Lebanon's
Prime Minister Karami, also in search of a scapegoat, re-
sorted to the lie that he had heard on Israel radio that the
Jews were planning an invasion of his country to save the
1,800 Jews (was it an admission that the surviving Jews,
Heaven knows how many are left!, are in such great danger
at his, Arafat's and Franjieh's hands?). The plight of their
own people doesn't seem to matter to these politicians who
are united by only one hatred: the Big Hatred, that of
Israel.
* *
Will these incidents be judged by history as mere stu-
pidity? The Lebanese hypocrisies certainly can't be labeled
a joke.
The most hilarious story of all — it would be a huge
joke if it weren't so tragic! — is the Arab call to the Jews
who fled from their lands to return. Return to what? To
more humiliations? To brutalities?
First, in tackling this Arab hilarity, it is important to
look at the record. Iraq, of all countries, inserted large ad-
vertisements in American newspapers under the heading
"Iraqi Jews Invited to Return to Iraq." The invitation, ex-
tended by the Iraqi embassy in Washington, was accompa-
nied by a very vile anti-Zionist statement.
To keep the record straight, let the Iraqi Jews speak for
themselves.
The World Organization of Jews from Arab countries,
in a statement prepared by Maurice M. Roumani, briefly
describes the status of the Jews who fled from Iraq, as fol-
lows:
The Jewish community in Iraq, one of the oldest
and largest in the Arab world, numbered 135,000 in
1948. More than 77,000 lived in Baghdad alone, com-
prising a fourth of the capital's population. The
community was wealthy and prestigious. Before
World War II, Jews held a dominant place in the
import trade and occupied high government posi-
tions.
Today, only 400 Jews remain in Iraq. The over-
whelming majority of the population was relocated to Is-
rael, as a result of intensified anti-Jewish actions which
started with the UN resolution on the partition of Pales-
tine in 1947 and extended till after the cease fire with
Israel in 1949. Hundreds were killed and imprisoned dur-
ing anti-Jewish riots. Zionism became a capital crime
and Jewish property was confiscated.
Jews were thus forced to flee, and to leave all of
their belongings behind. Between 1949 and 1952, 123,371
Iraqi Jews were airlifted directly to Israel in what came
to be known as "Operation Erza and Nehemia."
Few Jews remain in Iraq today and those who do are
continuously threatened by the harassment of local
officials.
To fully understand the plight of the Jews who ran for
their lives from Arab countries — in many of them Jews
had a longer history than the Arabs — the total picture
needs to be reviewed, Roumani's review of the Arab-Jewish
position in the lands which have been practically evacuated
by Jews, contains the following tablular facts:
JEWISH
POPULATION
IN ARAB COUNTRIES
1948 AND 1974
Morocco
Algeria
Tunisia
Libya
Egypt
Iraq
Syria
Lebanon
Yemen
Aden
TOTAL
1948
265,000
140,000
405,000
38,000
75,000
135,000
30,000
5,000
55,000
8,000
856,000
1974
25,000
500
2,000
20
350
400
4,350
1,800
1,000
0
35,420
The facts about this tragedy of Jews from Arab lands
are so well known that they do not need elaboration. But
the world has yielded to hypocrisy. Therefore it is so vital
that repetition should demand an understanding of the out-
rages propagated by Arabs. Even in high quarters the lies
are finding root. Any wonder that Daniel Moynihan should
have called the UN a center of absurdity? But it happened
to develop into more than absurdity. As the developer of the
newest anti-Semitism the UN has become the haven for
scoundrels. And to refute the Russian and Arab sculdug-
gery it is so necessary to keep renewing the appeal to rea-
son. Will it bring fruit?
By Philip
Slomovitz
The U. S. Erosions and the
Frantic Appeal to Reason
There is an unquestionable erosion in American rela-
tions with Israel. Joseph Alsop proved the realism of the
Psalmist's warning: Al tivtekhu b'nedivim — trust not in
princes. The retired columnist was believed to be a friend.
What blinded him? What blinds so many people in the State
Department? What causes people to abandon a sense of jus-
tice when the Jew is involved? Can't the simplest idea of
Israel's right to exist sink in?
That's why the constant appeal to reason. Therefore
the plea with the good Christian neighbors not to abandon
Israel and the continued quest for justice.
Kissingers Return 'Home':
No Allusion to Nazi Terror
Revival by some newsmen, in the process of judging her
life in obituaries, of the criticisms of Jewish leadership dur-
ing the Nazi era and of her charges of collaboration with
Nazis by Jews, caused considerable distress. Naturally so,
because the accusations of failures by Jews to resist were
exaggerated; because they were half truths; because there
was as much heroism as there may have been acts of
cowardice.
The reminder of the controversy between Hannah Ar-
endt and those who differed with her comes simultaneously
with the Kissingers' visit to their "home town" of Fuerth
near Nuremberg in West Germany. The parents of Dr.
Henry A. (Heinz) Kissinger and his brother, as well as his
Wife Nancy, were with him on that highly publicized occa-
sion on Dec. 15, 1975.
The New York Times report of that visit, in a special
cable from Craig R. Whitney, thus introduced the story of
a distinguished statesman's return to his native land:
Heinz Alfred Kissinger was a 15-year-old sec-
ondary-school student when he left Fuerth in Au-
gust 1938, just ahead of the Nazi onslaught that
claimed the lives of most of the 3,000 members of the
Jewish community and destroyed seven of the
town's eight synagogues.
In a simple ceremony today, Secretary of State
Henry A. Kissinger and West German officials only al-
luded to the reasons he left 37 years ago. More than two
years after the offer, Mr. Kissinger accepted Fuerth's
Gold Medal for Distinguished Native Citizens.
"I accept your distinction and shall treasure it," he
said in English and German. "I am honored and moved,
and grateful."
With Mr. Kissinger were his wife, Nancy Maginnis,
and his parents, Louis and Paula Stern Kissinger, who
are spending three days here; and their elder son and his
wife.
Louis Kissinger, a tiny,_ alert man who is 89 years
old and was a well-known teacher at a business school
here before he was forced to flee, said, "We're having a
wonderful time."
The Secretary of State visited the grave of his ma-
ternal grandfather, Falk Stern, in the Jewish cemetery.
He was invited to tour the neighborhood where he was
born, learned to love soccer and studied Jewish religious
texts — earning high marks — but he chose not to.
"I am glad to be back in my home town," he said on
arrival at the airport at Nuremberg, adjacent to Fuerth,
on a flight from London. Reporters were told that he had
intended to see the new rulers of Spain today but
changed his mind because they have been in office only
three weeks.
The Fuerth ceremonies left unspoken any mention of
Germany's Nazi past, the anti-Semitism of the prewar
period and the defeat in World War II. Mr. Kissinger
and the West German Foreign Minister, Hans-Dietrich
Genscher, who honored him as a seeker of world peace,
are bound both by alliance and by personal friendship.
History in its most miserable form is re-enacted en-
vironmentally in the latest Kissinger story. The Kissin-
gers had returned to the area of Nuremberg. The New
York Times story was accompanied appropriately by this
map.
It shows the area o
genesis of Nazism, of the
Nuremberg Laws, the vilest
in anti-Semitism, were legis-
lated. It was the location of
the Nuremberg trials of the
WEST
Nazis. It is a reminder of the
GERMANY
terror that debased a great
Bonn
nation and many collaborat-
•
ing people of the world.
Frankfurt •
Regardless of the glory
CZECH.
•
which marks the return of
C=1) ! °Nuremberg some
of the exiled and the
BAVARIA
refugees — the late Chief
Munich
Rabbi Leo Baeck also re-
turned to receive recognition
and to do a bit of forgiving! —
the reminiscences are not as
joyous as just described in Fuerth. The people that does not
forget must keep learning how to be comforted.