6 Friday, May 27, 1977 THE DETROIT JEWISH NEWS Menahem Begin, Irgun Zvai Leumi, Deir Yassin: Facts of History (Continued From Page 1) amed of their act, were proud of this massacre, pub- sin. This village, off the licized it widely, and in- main roads and surrounded vited all the foreign corre- by Jewish lands, had taken spondents present in the no part in the war, and had country to view the - heaped even fought off Arab bands corpses and the general who wanted to use the vil- havoc at Deir Yassin. lage as their base. "The Deir Yassin in- "On April 12, 1948 terror- cident exemplifies the char- ist bands attacked this acter and actions of the peaceful village, which was Freedom Party. not a military objective in "Within the Jewish com- the fighting, killed most of munity they have preached its inhabitants — 240 men, an admixture of ultra-na- women and children — and tionalisrh, religious mystic- kept a few of them alive to ism, and racial superiority. parade as captives through Like other fascist parties, the streets of Jerusalem. they have been used to "Most of the Jewish com- break strikes, and have munity was horrified at this themselves pressed for the deed, • and the Jewish destruction of free trade Agency sent a telegram of unions. In their stead they apology to King Abdullah of have proposed corporate Trans-Jordan. But the ter- unions on the Italian fascist rorists, far from being ash- model. "During the last years of sporadic anti-British vio- FACIAL lence, the IZL and Stern ERMANENTL groups inaugurated a reign Of terror in the Palestine REMOVED Jewish community. Teach- Eyebrows Neckline Arms legs ers were beaten up for Recommended by Phy s icians speaking against them, FREE CONSULTATION adults were shot for not let- SHIRLEY PERSIN ting their children join Regsstered Electrolopost them. By gangster meth- ADVANCE BUILDING ods, • beatings, window- 23077 GREENFIELD Room 260 smashing, and wide-spread Near Northland & Providence Hospital PHONE 557-1108 robberies, the terrorists in- Over 20 Years Experience timidated the population 1p ( SPRINKLER SERVICE Excellent Work Reasonable Prices Call David Sklar 354-2259 and exacted a heavy tribute from them. "The people of the Free- dom Party have had no part in the constructive achievements in Palestine. They have reclaimed no land, built no settlements, and only detracted from the Jewish defense activity. Their much-publicized im- migration endeavors were minute, and devoted mainly to bringing in fascist com- patriots. "The discrepancies be tween the bold claims now being made by Begin and his party, and their record of past performance in Pa- lestine bear the imprint of no ordinary political party. This is the unmistakable stamp of a fascist party for whom terrorism (against Jews, Arabs, and British alike), lying and mis- representation are means, and .a "Leader State" is the goal. "In the-light of the fore- going: considerations, it is imperative that the truth about Mr. Begin and his movement be made known in this country. It is all the more tragic that the top leadership of American Zi- onism has refused to cam- paign against Begin's ef- forts, or even to expose to its own constituents the dan- gers to Israel from support to Begin. "The undersigned there- fore take this means of pub- licly presenting a few salient facts concerning Begin and his party; and of urging all concerned not to support this latest manifes- tation of fascism." N PEOPLE NO CARS, NO US. If people aren't happy with Glassman Olds, they won't buy cars from Glassman Olds. And pretty soon, there'd be no Glassman Olds. So, we try to treat our customers right. Maybe not like the King of Persia, but with the kind of service and attention we think they deserve. You see, we want your business at Glassman Olds. Your continued business. And we figure we wouldn't get it if we gave you the business. WHERE PEOPLE STILL COME FIRST GLASSMAN OLDSMOBILE INC 28000 TELEGRAPH RD. • SOUTHFIELD • PHONE 354-3300 Had Arendt and Einstein known the facts, it is doubt- ful whether they would have appended their names to this statement. It was be- lieved that Einstein often was misled into affiliations ,resulting from his adamant pacifist views. But, as stated, Begin always was a ready to .get for attack and it-waS not surprising that he should have been so vilified. And it was especially deplorable that the Deir Yassin trag- edy should have been cause for the anger that was ex- pressed. The Deir Yassin incident and the facts regarding Begin and, his party were clarified in a reply that was published in the New York Times Dec. 15, 1948. Very prominent names were among the signers of that letter. It appeared over these names: Konrad Bercovici, Louis Bromfield, Ruth Chatterton, Mordecai Danzis, Guy M. Gillette, Fowler Harper, Ben Hecht, Nathan George Horwitt, Aaron Kope, Jo- seph Morse, Paul O'Dwyer, Rabbi Baruch Rabinowitz, Will Rogers Jr.,. ' Maurice Rosenblatt, Harry Louis Sel- den, Irving Shendell, Johan J. Smertenko, Andrew L. Somers, Alex Wilf, Isaac- Zaar, William B. Ziff. The text of their letter is of great importance at this time. Here it is. in its entire- ty: "Most of the names sign- ed to a letter which ap- peared in The Times of Dec. 4 attacking Menahem Begin and the Israeli Free- dom party are unknown to us. But we are sure that Sid- ney Hook will be astonished to learn, that the contents of the letter to which his name was appended are a compilation of the irrespon- sible fulminations which ap- pear at intervals in the Daily Worker. "We think that Prof. Hook would be as inter- ested as we to receive some evidence in support of the charges made in the letter you published, which are strangely similar to a col- umn in the Worker of Nov. 30. We who have cham- pioned the cause of Hebrew liberation for a number of years have, of course, been subjected to this barrage in the past. Our most thorough investigations have failed to produce any support for them. "Those who have made them to us have remained strangely unresponsive to our requests for sub- stantiation. "The assertion in the let- ter's opening paragraph that the Freedom party is 'closely akin in its organiza- tion, methods, political phi- losophy and social appeal to the Nazi and Fascist party' is a blatant falsehood. The assertion that 'until recent- ly they (Mr. Begin's party) openly preached the doc- trine of the Fascist state' is another lie, equally unsus- ceptible of any proof. "The party, which was formed only a few months ago, cannot already have es- tablished a record of such iniquity as is attributed to it. Quoted below are a few necessarily brief and dis- jointed excerpts from the party's platform: " 'A free democracy in which the people are the source of authority. The people, and the people alone, have the right of deci- sion with regard to all prob- lems of their national exist- ence. `In this democracy all citi- zens will be guaranteed full and unconditional enjoy- ment of civil liberties and human rights and equality of opportunity, regardless of origin, race, religion, po- litical affiliation or sex. `The government of the people will continually strive to raise the standard of living and the opportu- nities for advancement of the workingman, to assure every citizen the minimum essentials of life and to eliminate economic and other privileges tending to create distinctions between man and man and crass and class. - `It is the undeniable right of all workingmen to unite in trade unions which will strive—alongside the state—for the continuous betterment of the work- ingman's standard of living. `The 'state shall endeavor to create conditions most fa- vorable for the devel- opment of industry, agricul- ture, commerce and nation- al resources.' "The distorted descrip- tion in the letter of the cap- ture of the village of Deir Yassin is another case in point. As any objective cor- respondent who was in Pa- lestine at that time will at- test, there is no ground for characterizing the attack on this village as an act of wanton massacre. The Irgun was operating under an agreement which provid- ed for close coordination with other defense forces. "The story of the attack on Deir Yassin was told anew in the Times of Nov. 30. What was not pointed out even then was that the capture of Deir Yassin was vital to the defense of Je- rusalem. At the risk and cost of a number of Hebrew lives the Irgun gave loudspeaker warnings to the inhabitants to withdraw peacefully. "The Arab marauders . from Syria and Iraq„ who were using the village as a vantage point against the Tel Aviv-Jerusalem road, prevented the population from leaving and made it necessary for the Irgun to conduct a house-to-house struggle for the village. "Loss of life is highly regrettable, but it is one of the -unfortunate con- comitants of war. There were undoubtedly non- combatants killed at Deir Yassin. The atom bomb which leveled Hiroshima was incapable of dig tinguishing between soldi and non-combtant, but its use was nevertheless justi- fied. It is in this light that Deir Yassin must be view- ed. "The falsehood that the Irgun has been used to `break strikes' was some- what more particularized in the Daily Worker article. There it was stated that 'in 1946 - Irgun members made a violent assault on textile strikers in Petah Tikva.' Careful investigation dis- closes that in 1946 at Petah Tikva there was juris- dictional strife between in- dependent unions and the trade union monopoly of the Mapai. The Irgun was in no way involved in this and no one else has ever alleged that it was. "The allegation in the let- ter that the Irgun or the Freedom Party preached racism was also made in the Daily Worker. The best refutation of this is informa- tion just received that Arab Moslems and Christians, Circassians, and Druses in northern Palestine have joined the Freedom party. "In view of all this, it seems supererogatory to deal with the other vilifica- tions contained in the rest of the Dec. 4 letter. It may be significant that the letter finally complains that the top leadership of American Zionism has refused to cam- paign against Begin's ef- forts." These are facts not to be ignored. The record must be kept straight. Too much confusion has already mud- died the political waters. Let the facts speak for , themselves. Sharon Strassfeld Heads Book Group NEW YORK—Sharon Strassfeld has been appoint- ed director - of the Jewis Book Council of the Jewis Welfare Board. Strassfeld is a writer and editor; with her husband Mi- chael and Richard Siegel, she edited "The Jewish Catalog." She and her hus- band also compiled and edited the recently pub- lished "Second Jewish Cata- log." t' AV . 10.14e JEWISH NATIONAL FUND • _ l'ArgririP"- 22100 Greenfield Rd. Oak Park, Mich. 48237. 988-0820 Z OFFICE HOURS MON - TOURS 9 TO r 5 FFil 9 TO 4 SUNDAYS -10 am pm NF '7"-'7":"';"`7°.'"