Friday, January 5, 1919 41 ®
THE DETROIT JEWISH NEWS
Lost Cause?
Genocide Convention
tigating a possible case of
genocide.
Director, United Nations Office,
When genocide is men-
Bnai Brith International Council
tioned at the UN these days,
(Copyright 1979, JTA, Inc.)
it is usually within the con-
On Dec. 9, 1948, the text of politically motivated
United Nations General accusations against rival
Assembly unanimously ap- states. In particular, the
■ ••
proved a Convention on the state of Israel, peopled by
Prevention and Punish- Holocaust survivors and by
ment of the Crime of Jews who escaped persecu-
Genocide.
tion in Arab lands, and one
While Raphael Lemkin, of the few states to have pro-
the father of the 'Genocide secuted someone for
Convention had suggested genocide, is increasingly
outlawing the premeditated the target of fraudulent
extermination of a people at charges by spokesmen of
o- an international meeting as Communist and radical
early as October 1933, it Arab states.
was the immediate impact
As the Nazi propaganda
and unparalleled horror of genius Joseph Goebbels
the Holocaust which impel- would have proposed, the
led the UN member states victims are depicted as the
to finalry act on this ques- perpetrators, and their
tion and adopt the UN's first slaughter is justified. Thus,
binding human rights Uganda President Idi Amin
treaty.
cabled a justification of the
The UN's international extermination of the Jews
commitment was hailed at to UN Secretary General
•
the time by the President of Kurt Waldheim, then
the General Assembly, Prime Minister Golda Meir
Herbert V. Evatt, who de- of Israel, and Yasir Arafat
o dared: "In this field relat- of the Palestine Liberation
ing to the sacred right of Organization (PLO) on
existence of human groups, Sept. 12, 1972, just a few
we are proclaiming today days after the Munich
the supremacy of interna- Olympic games massacre.
tional law once and for all."
"Germany," Amin wrote, "is
In the light of 30 years' the right place where when
experience, this judg- Hitler was the prime minis-
ment was painfully pre-
mature. For we find not
•
one single case where the
Genocide' Convention,
accepted in 1978 by 83
states, was invoked to
BEERSHEBA — At
prevent or punish acts in- Ben-Gurion University of
tended to destroy a na- the Negev, the Yiddish Cul-
tional, ethnic, racial or ture Studies Program offers
religious group.
a variety of courses which
Although there have been explore the contemporary
at least a dozen reported in- influences of Yiddish in the
stances of mass butchery in culture of the Jewish state.
just the last 20 years, in- The program also stresses
cluding three in 1978 in the universality of Yiddish
Cambodia, Uganda and themes as reflected by this
Lebanon, no United Na- year's Nobel Literature
tions organ has even taken Prize Liureate, Isaac
upon itself the task of inves- Bashevis. Singer.
•
The program, newly ex-
Bond Campaign
panded in its third year of
by Alpha Omega operation, was made possi-
ORLANDO, Fla. -- The ble by the generosity of Mr.
M
15,000 member Alpha and Mrs. Harry Singer of
Omega International Den- New York.
The teaching of Yiddish
tal Fraternity has become
at
BGU takes on added im-
the first organization of its
kind to be honored by State portance in light of the uni-
versity's special demog-
of Israel Bonds.
Alpha Omega is planning raphic make-up, explains
a world-wide campaign in president Yosef Tekoah.
behalf of Israel Bonds. Is- "One-third of our students
rael's 31st anniversary year are from Oriental Jewish
in 1979 will be designated backgrounds and the uni-
he "Year of Isarel" by versity is well removed from
1pha Omega and all chap- Israel's Yiddish speaking
"' Wers are asked to hold enclaves," says Tekoah.
"The Ben-Gurion Uni-
luncheons, dinners and
other programs of celebra- versiq- has taken an
tion, prior to Alpha Omega's active part in bridging
annual convention, which the gap between Israel's
will be held in Israel next diverse communities. It is
December. During these through such efforts as
functions Bonds will be pur- the Yiddish program that
chased and the coveted we hope to increase
Maimonides Award of Is- mutual understanding,
rael Bonds will be presented Museum Director
to an outstanding dentist on
JERUSALEM — Dr.
behalf of each chapter.
In addition, the Bond Malachi Beit-Arie, 41, has
Organization will design a been appointed director of
plaque listing the 31 mem- the Jewish National and
bers and chapters most University Library at the
actively involved in Israel's Hebrew Universtiy. He suc-
progress, symbolizing one ceeds Prof. Reuvan Yaron
for each year of Israel's who held the position for
statehood. The plaque will five years and is now chair-,
be affixed to a dental school man of the Israel Broadcast-
ing Authority.
in Israel.
By HARRIS 0.
SCHOENBERG
li
'
Center Dedicated
ter and supreme comman-
der, he burnt over six mil-
lion Jews." •
The choices of the UN
and Arafat as recipients
of Amin's cables were
significant. Just two
years later the terrorist
chieftain, whose own
organization, El Fatah,
defines its purpose as not
only the "liquidation of
Israel," but the "oblitera-
tion" and "extirpation"
of its Jewish society, was
to be given a hero's wel-
come and highest honors
at the UN.
The policy of most UN
member-states to • limit at-
tention to the crime of
genocide means there will
be no commemoration of the
30th anniversary of the
Genocide Convention.
Thus, the UN is not only
being used to smother
genuine complaints of
genocide in order to protect
governments accused of
that crime, but also to sup-
port a group like the PLO
which is committed to the
destruction of the Jewish
state.
Curiously, American op-
position to ratification of
the UN Convention has al-
ways entailed fear of hasty
or ill-advised demands by
other governments - for in-
ternational action against
alleged violators of the
treaty provisions. What we
have witnessed instead is
an extra-ordinary refusal to
use the convention's
rudimentary machinery
• even under the most press-
ing and tragic circum-
stances.
Almost half of the UN's
present member-states,
including the United
States, have not even
bothered to ratify or ac-
cede to the Genocide
Convention.
However, legal means for
preventing, halting, or
punishing genocide can
never really be effective as
long as states have other
priorities or adopt positions
like that expressed by the
Soviet Union in March
1973, when it stated that
"there does not appear to be
any great urgency about the
matter." Thus, additional
new modes to deal with the
crime of genocide are neces-
sary to help overcome de-
ficiencies in the Conven-
tion.
-
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CLEARING OUT
Entire Stock of
respect, and ultimately
integration among our
communities," explains
Tekoah, a former Israeli
ambassador to the
United Nations.
According to Anna Dre-
isner, wha teaches courses
at the center, Yiddish has
been a popular subject
among the students. "Inter-
est in and demand for the
courses has increased at a
faster rate than we had ex-
pected," says Mrs. Dreisner,
who came to Israel from Po-
land in 1964.
President Tekoah noted
that the program will be ex-
panded as resources become
available. Last year, Singer
sent a sizeable collection of
Yiddish books to the Yid-
dish program.
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