2 Friday, February 20, 1976

THE DETROIT JEWISH NEWS

Purely Commentary

Kenen Exposes Distortions
by a U. S. Career Diplomat
Israel has counted many antagonists in the State
Department.
As a matter of fact, the Jewish people have suffered
from enemies in many official ranks. There were unfriendly
manifestations in the consular corps, especially in the Hit-
ler era when many Jews who could have been rescued fell
victims to Nazism because career men failed to provide exit
visas for those seeking escape from German occupied
territories.
In ambassadorial and consular ranks there have been
manifestations of enmity toward Israel and in the State De-
partment there are desks where animosities emanate.
I.L. Kenen, who headed the American Israel Public Af-
fairs Committee with distinction, writes in the AIPAC's
Near East Report of which he is editor emeritus, and ex-
poses the enmities and truth distortions of David G. Nes. So
that Americans may know who are the true interpreters of
events in the Middle East, it is important that Kenen's ex-
pose of Nes should be made known as widely as possible.
Kenen states in Near East Report:
David G. Nes, our charge d'affaires in Cairo
when the 1967 war erupted, has been pro-Arab on
the speaking platform and in The Baltimore
Sun. We have clashed with him in both forums and
are aware of the trained diplomatic restraint with
which he poses as "evenhanded."
In a Sun column on Jan. 22, Nes, now retired,
disregards facts to reach unwarranted conclusions.
Describing the recent UN Security Council debate,
he writes that the "basic demands of the PLO are
entirely consistent with previous UN recommenda-
tions, supported by the U.S." Accordingly we are
back to "Square One" of 1947.
Nes lists these alleged consistencies between
PLO demands and UN resolutions:
One — "Israeli withdrawal from the 'occupied
territories' is called for in Resolution 242."
Untrue. The United States has consistently re-
jected the Soviet-Arab demand for "complete with-
drawal." The Resolution calls for withdrawal to
"secure and recognized boundaries" — "defen-
sible" in the words of former President Nixon.
Two — "Establishment of an independent Pa-
lestine state as recommended in the 1947 partition
resolution."
That, too, is untrue. The PLO covenant and
communiques would liquidate the Jewish state, ex-
pel its Zionist settlers, and establish a "secular
democratic state," as exists in no Arab country.
Three — "The 'right of return' as recognized in
Resolution 194."
Nes should read the 1948 Resolution. The phrase
"right of return" never appears. Paragraph 11
merely "resolves that the refugees wishing to return
to their homes and live in peace (italics ours) with
their neighbors, should be permitted to do so at the
earliest practicable date . . ."
All Arab delegations voted against that resolu-
tion at Paris on Dec. 11, 1948. For paragraph 5,
which they never quote, called for negotiations.
Since no Arab leader has been willing to negotiate a
genuine peace with Israel, any mass repatriation
would have been suicidal.
Contrary to Nes' claims, there is ample diplo-
matic testimony that the Jews pleaded with the Ar-
abs not to leave in 1948. I heard British Ambassador

Enmities from Diplomatic Sources . . . Career Man's Antago-
nism Exposed by Kenen . . . Jews Always Lived in Holy Land,
Emphasizing Indivisible Link of People with the Land

By Philip
Slomovitz

Jewish people," Britain was awarded a mandate by
faithful made their pilgrimages and many returned to live
the League of Nations in 1922 to administer Pales-
there.
tine with the express proviso that the Balfour Decla-
The historic truth regarding the Palestinian historic
ration be implemented. (A joint resolution of Con-
background as to legitimacy of occupancy and the right of
gress gave U.S. endorsement to the Balfour
sovereignty is outlined authoritatively as to who Palestine
Declaration the same year.)
belongs to in this analysis:
Two months after the mandate took effect, Brit-
"In 30 centuries Palestine was conquered 14
ain unilaterally turned over the administration of
times. Yet through all the generations the Holy
all of Palestine east of the Jordan River to the Emir
Land was never without Jews. And those who lived
Abdullah. This area, which was called Trans-Jor-
outside Palestine kept unbroken their link with the
dan, constituted 80 per cent of the original mandate.
land, praying for its redemption and their own re-
Although the Jewish area was now reduced by four-
turn: "Next year in Jerusalem!"
fifths, settlement proceeded rapidly as Jews bought
The Arabs of Palestine never had a government
land (most of it unpopulated) and worked to clear
and never comprised a separate political or social
the swamps and make the desert bloom.
entity. Muslims conquered Palestine in 637. Pales-
What is happening today is a travesty on justice.
tine was ruled from Mecca, then Damascus, then
Baghdad. By 870 the land had fallen into the hands just rights of Jews are being abused not by their neighbo:-s
of local chieftains; anarchy brought further destruc- alone but by the Western European countries which had
tion and desolation. In 1099 came the Crusaders, been in the vanguard in support of Zionism.
There isn't even total security in the American posi-
then the Ayyubids, the Mamelukes and finally the
Turks; Palestine was a province of the Ottoman Em- tion. Too many voices are heard urging Jews to deal with
those who would destroy the homeland. The Israeli is al-
pire for 400 years — from 1517 to 1917.
The modern history of Palestine begins with ways on the defensive. The battle for survival goes on. The
Turkey's defeat in World War I and the occupation resistance to the enemies demands mobilization in Diaspora
of the Holy Land by British troops. After promulgat- as well as Medinat Israel. There can be no faltering in soli-
ing the Balfour Declaration in 1917 supporting "the darity. The alternative to solidarity with the defenders of
establishment in Palestine of a national home for the Israel's right to live is cowardice.

Dachau: Memories Behind Barbed Wire

By JACK SIEGEL

DACHAU (JTA) — It was
a grey, gloomy and some-
how very fitting day.
My companion and I
walked past the barbed
wire and I could almost
visualize the gaunt, sick-
ened faces and claw-like
fingers pressed to and
gripping the interstices.
We didn't stay long; the
effect of putting such things
together was not real and
we moved into the long and
wide field where, flanked by
watch-towers once machine
gun-manned, there were
two sections of oblong-num-
bered areas where the bar-
racks housing the inmates
used to be.
On the right, as we moved
in, was a moat, now a dry
ditch with patches of snow,

which separated the field
from the fence shielded by
trees. They were bare of
foliage in the winter and
hardly shielded the camp of
whose activities people used
to say, we didn't know what
was happening. A Plaque,
somehow aged and ageless,
said, Plus Jamais, Nie
Wieder, Never Again.
At the opposite end of the
field, were three monu-
ments — Protestant, Catho-
lic and Jewish — symbolic
of the religion of all the peo-
ple who were annihilated
there. Some nuns, who
stopped to pray over one
barracks site moved in the
Catholic memorial which
had a church in the rear. It
was called Heilige Blut
(holy blood).
My companion and I

passed the "Grave Of The
Ten Thousand Unknown,"
to an area once used as a
shooting range and where
executions were per-
formed. In back of the
range was the blood ditch.
Turning around again and
surveying the area, it was
all so difficult to believe.
The term, "moving,"
which a woman used about
the memorial as she left,
hardly began to reach the
enormity of the b e stiality. It
escaped comprehension as
though momentarily it
would be necessary for the
jack-booted Nazi janissaries
to come out of that history
commanding respect for
their reality.
Now ahead were the cre-
matoria and we advanced
towards them. The "Brau-

sebad" (shower), which was
used as a decoy to get in-
mates to enter, ultimately
to be gassed, was just a bare
room.
Further in were the ovens
themselves, standing there
so benignly as though they
once had baked bread. Over-
head were solid beams with
hanging cord where, I
learned for the first time.
some inmates were hung to
death, perhaps simulta-
neously with the burning of
others.
It was cold with unre-
membered history, and I
said, one must do this again
and again and keep this
death alive. We walked to
the car and across the lot
was a ball field where some
young Germans were play-
ing soccer as if nothing had
ever happened.

Cadogan read into the UN Security Council records
British police dispatches of April 26, 1948, and I
have recently read the hitherto classified cables
from American diplomats in Haifa (April 26-29), and
in Cairo (April 29). Nes will find them in the U.S.
Archives (or Near East Report Sept. 3).
Nes' description of the 1948 war is absurd revi-
sionism. The Jews did not try to capture the West
Bank but at great cost built a corridor to lift the Jor-
danian blockade of Jerusalem.
Glubb Pasha of the Jordanian Arab Legion
blamed the Egyptians for "sacrificing the future of
the Arabs of Palestine" and has written: "The Arab
governments were largely responsible for the ruin of
the Palestine Arabs."
Nes is one of a large group of hate - spreading Ameri-
cans who hold or held important positions in the nation's
foreign service. Most of them have lived in the Middle East
and have had occasion to witness the truth. But they start
with animus towards Jews and end with it. Therefore the
painful task of repeating the truth to offset the damage
that comes from official U.S. and other diplomatic quart-
ers. Among the distortions regarding Palestine and Israel's
role in the Middle East are misrepresentations about the
history of the Holy Land and the peoples who lived there for
many centuries.
Jews have never left Palestine. The ancient homeland
was never abandoned. It lived as the homeland in prayers
Writer Jack Siegel is shown in the photograph, above, left, at the entrance to the Dachau Concentration Camp.
and in hopes for historic redemption and it drew the Jew to
it with love and affection. Poets sang paeans to a land, the Below, left, is a memorial sculpture inside the camp, and at right are one of the crematoria and a hanging beam.