Important Lesson
From the Media:
When Insistence
on Facts
Establishes Truth

THE JEWISH NEWS

Commentary, Page 2

A Weekly Review

of Jewish Events

Second Camp
David in Offing

Lessons of
Nazism and the
Inerasable Past

Editorials, Page 4 -

VOL. LXXIV, No. 24 17515 W. Nine Mile, Suite 865, Southfield, Mich. 48075 424-8833 $12.00 Per Year: This Issue 30

Feb. 16, 1979

Savon's Plea to Iran's Jews:
'At Least Send the Children'

Dayan PLO Statement
Raises Political Furor

JERUSALEM (JTA) — Foreign Minister Moshe Dayan
said Tuesday that Israel could not deny the PLO's political role
in the Mideast conflict and its status in the peace-making
process. His statement, revolutionary in terms of established
Israeli positions, immediately sparked a furor in political cir-
cles, with Prime Minister Menahem Begin trying to soft-
peddle the remarks as a slip.
Dayan said, "The PLO is not a state (but) we cannot deny
their position or their value in the conflict and eventually in
order to reach an agreement. It isn't just the terrorists or the
terrorist organization. It's also the civilian part of it, that is to
say the Palestinian refugees. No one, and certainly we do not
think that a final settlement of the conflict in the Middle East
can be achieved without a settlement of the refugees, (or) that
they can go on living in refugees camps in Jordan, in Lebanon,
even in Gaza . ."
While the Foreign Ministry sought frantically to
"interpret away" Dayan's
bombshell statement,
pressure against the
minister mounted Tuesday
within the Likud. The usu-
ally moderate chairman of
the Likud Knesset faction,
Liberal Party member Av-
raham Sharir, called pub-
licly for Dayan to resign —
if what he had said indeed
represented his thinking.
Labor Party chairman
Peres said Dayan's remarks
would make the "national
MENAHEM BEGIN
consensus regarding the PLO
most fragile, if not smashed
outright." Peres said Dayan's
statement would "sow confu-
sion" in the Israeli public and
deplored its timing, just be-
fore "Camp David II."
Peres said the Labor
Party's fears had been
aroused back in September
when the Camp David
agreements were signed.
These agreements envisaged
negotiations involving repre-
(Continued on Page 10)
MOSHE DAYAN

JERUSALEM (JTA) — President Yitzhak Navon issued an im-
passioned plea over the weekend to Iranian Jewry to send at least their
children to Israel if they were reluctant to come themselves. "There is a
warm home waiting for them here," Navon said, noting that there are some
20,000 Jewish children estimated to be living in Iran.
Some 500 Iranian Jewish children have been sent to Israel during the
last several months, and most have been absorbed into youth aliya schools
and villages.
In New York, Leon Dulzin, chairman of the ;World Zionist Organiza-
tion and Jewish Agency Executives, disclosed that about 8,000 Iranian
Jews arrived in Israel during the last few months. 1,000 of whom intend to
remain as citizens, while 5,000 more left Iran for other countries. He
estimated that there are still some 65,000 Jews in Iran.
"We will take and absorb in Israel as many Iranian Jews as
come," Dulzin told a press conference at Jewish Agency headquar-
ters in New York. He said the situation of Iranian Jews is a matter of
concern because "they might face danger." Asked why Iranian
Jews did not leave en masse, Dulzin said, "We used every possible
way in the last four months to convince Iranian Jews to come to
Israel." He did not elaborate but said he hoped there still was time
"to save as many Jews as possible" in Iran.
Some 1,000 Iranian Jews have settled in France since the rioting
began in Iran. According to news reports, the Iranians in France and other
Western European countries are taking a "wait-and-see" attitude and will
consider returning to Iran "once things calm down."

(Continued on Page 5)

YITZHAK NAVON

LEON DULZIN

Brown Assures Israel Sees Military Sites

TEL AVIV (JTA) — U.S. Defense Secretary Harold Brown declared on his arrival in Israel Tuesday that the
U.S. and Israel share a common strategic goal which is to maintain stability in the region. He reiterated America's
commitment to ensure Israel's security. Brown, who has already visited Saudi Arabia and Jordan on his first tour of
the Middle East, flew to Egypt from Israel.
Brown spent three days in Israel visiting the Golan Heights, the West Bank and Israeli military installations.
The Israelis had hoped to impress him with their defense requirements. The recent political changes in Iran and
the impending military alliance between Iraq and Syria have heightened Israeli
fears that a hostile new power bloc will rise on its eastern front. Israel is especially
concerned that Iran, with the most powerful military machine in the region, will
join the Arab rejectionist front against Israel.
Israel prepared a revised list of its future weapons requirements to
present to Brown because of the regional developments.
The new list is reportedly smaller but no less costly than an earlier one
inasmuch as Israel is seeking some of the latest and most sophisticated electronic
weapons syetems.
There were differences with Washington over Brown's itinerary. The Israelis
considered it essential that Brown tour the West Bank.
They wanted to impress upon Brown Israel's view that the West Bank is vital
to security and believe this can best be done if he sees for himself the vantage points
from which Jordanian guns once menaced Israel's coastal plain.
HAROLD BROWN

Knesset Repudiates Charges of West Bank Torture

•

JERUSALEM (JTA) — The Knesset on
Wednesday approved by a massive major-
ity a government statement repudiating
recent charges of torture on the West Bank
published in the Washington Post. Justice
Minister Shmuel Tamir revealed that the
state attorney in person is required, under
new regulations issued by Premier
Menahem Begin, to investigate each and
every case in which an allegation of torture
has been made and is not immediately re-
jected by the International Red Cross.
Tamir said the IRC had visited in pri-
vacy with more than 1,200 prisoners who
had alleged torture, but in 94 percent of the
cases nothing was found to back up even
the mere allegation.
"There is no system of torture in Israel,"
Tamir declared. "We reject torture as crim-

inal and loathsome — not because of the
public relations consideration, but because
of the adverse effect it would have on our
interrogators and on our entire society of
which they are part."
Tamir rejected calls from Shai,
Hadash and Sheli Knesseters for a
commission of inquiry, under a Sup-
reme Court justice, to be set up to in-
vestigate tbe torture charges. Sheli's
Uri Avneri said such a commission
would clear the air and disprove the
charges once and for all, but Tamir was
not impressed by that argument.
The call for a commission of inquiry was
made earlier this week by Jerusalem Post
staff correspondent David Krivine in an
article. Krivine spent months last year in-
vestigating the torture charges published

in the London Sunday Times.
Krivine wrote that in his view torture
was not practiced, certainly not as a sys-
tem. But there was some violence (slapping
and the like) sometimes used, apparently
when interrogations were urgent and in-
formation could save lives. In any event he
wrote, a commission of inquiry ought to be
appointed by the government "if only to
clear the air."
Premier Menahem Begin expressed
"amazement" over the publication of the
Washington Post story. He told reporters
that the allegations, derived from reports
to the State Department by a former em-
ploye of the U.S. Consulate in East
Jerusalem who was involved with Palesti-
nians, were "totally baseless."
Begin recalled that similar allega-

Lions were proven "inventions of our
enemies." He blamed "great papers
like the Times and Post" for publishing
such accounts.
Tamir invited international jurists and
representatives of "fair and neutral coun-
tries" to come to Israel to see for them-
selves that there is no mistreatment of
prisoners. He said that American Congres-
sional committees, judges, lawyers and
other "people of standing" would be wel-
come to study prison conditions in Israel.
Tamir denounced the allegations in the
Post story as "evil slander" and declared
that "there is no torture in Israel's prisons
and there never has been." He said he took
a very grave view of the Post story because
the facts could easily have been verified.
(Continued on Page 6)