THE DETROIT JEWISH NEWS
2 friday, June 15, 1919
.
Purely Commentary
The Russian Emigration Factors as They Affect Those
Defecting From Israel and the Overwhelming Preference
for the West in the Ranks of Those Securing Exit Visas
There are functioning conditions which cannot be ig-
nored in any discussion of global controversies. No matter
how realistic the Israeli approach, regardless of the justice
of her case, in the Middle East controversies there is little
chance of securing concessions for Israel. Whatever results
will be attained will be out of hard bargaining.
Nevertheless, the facts must be emphasized and the
demands for justice consistently reiterated.
In the matter of the so-called "illegal" settlements, it is
especially important that the Jewish ranks should not be_
misled into believing that a new settlement, on a few a
by a handful of Jews, is an intention to disrupt the pe
That's as far from the truth as the extremest of Arab adv
cates of Israel's destruction are from Sadat's peace plans.
That the people involved should not be misled into a preju-
dicial position is vital to the issue.
force and occupied by Jordan in 1948, or that it
was retaken by Israel while defending itself in
1967, or that its sovereignty was murky. Simply
because Israeli troops went in, says Hansell,
"under international law, Israel thus became a
belligerent occupant of these territories."
From that pronouncement, all else flows: "terri-
tory coming under the control of a belligerent
occupant does not thereby become its sovereign
territory," and under Article 49 of the 1949
Geneva Convention (intended to prevent dis-
placement of populations) the "occupying power
shall not transfer parts of its own civil population
on to the territory it occupies." Hence, settlements
are "illegal."
But the Israeli settlers are not displacing Arabs,
and do not threaten to. Moreover, those rules
were never applied to Jordan when it was the
occupier. Oregon Senator Bob Packwood at-
tacked the "illegal" charge in a speech last week:
"From 1949 to 1967, Jordan held the West Bank.
No second Arab-Palestinian state was ever
created in those 18 years. No country except Great
Britain and Pakistan ever recognized Jordan's
sovereignty over the West Bank. No Arab country
has ever conceded Jordan's right to the West
Bank." -
Sovereignty - who owns the land - is the key.
Jordan claims it; the PLO claims it and Israel,
through its continued settlement policy, asserts
its own claims. The moment Israel gives up its
right to settle, it gives up that claim to sovereignty.
If Israel were to admit it is not at least part owner,
an independent Palestinian state would be born,
which - in this decade, at least - would be an
intolerable threat to Israel's security.
That's why Mr. Carter, blind to the danger of a
radical Arab state nestled in Israel's vitals, calls
the settlements "an obstacle to peace"; in reality,
they are an obstacle to the PLO.
Dealing With Settlements
and the M.E. Realities
Because the dispute over the settlements on the Israeli
borders are destined to continue, an essay by William Sa-
fire in the New York Times, already having attracted wide
attention, retains its importance as an admonition to those
who may go overboard in prejudging and then judging
Israel's policies.
The fact has been alluded to that the areas claimed by
Jordan have been designated as part of Israel's role in the
Middle East when Palestine was partitioned.
Safire explaits it and his analysis merits popularizing.
In the essay "Those 'Illegal' Settlements," Safire stated:
WASHINGTON, May 23 - As Israel and Egypt
begin negotiations this weekend on the degree of
autonomy to be given Palestinian Arabs, the cen-
tral question is this: To whom does the West Bank
belong?
Our State Department has no position about
who owns that land, except to say that it does not
belong to Israel. Although Secretary Vance ad-
mitted in 1977 that it is "an open question as to
who has legal right to the West Bank," his
spokesmen lose no opportunity to label Israeli
settlements in that area as "illegal."
When a reporter asks for the legal opinion on
which such condemnation is based, the best the
State Department can come up with is a six-page
letter written to House Foreign Affairs subcom-
mittee chairmen on April 21, 1978, from legal ad-
viser Herbert Hansell.
In that letter, Mr. Hansel! pointed out that the
UN partition of 1947 was "never effectuated";
that's a lawyerly way of saying that Trans.:Jordan
(the name meant "across the Jordan") grabbed
the West Bank by invading the new Jewish state
in 1948 and became the occupying power.
Here the Hansell Doctrine takes its curious
leaa p. Never mind that the West Bank was taken by
.
The Emigration from Russia,
the Developing Trends and the
Israel and Diaspora Contrasts
Increased emigration of Jews from Russia, the search
for havens in the' United States as contrasted in the num-
bers settling in Israel, the American influence and the
support for efforts to secure visas for the Prisoners of Con-
science continue to be among the very important aspects of
the current movements for havens for those seeking exit
visas from the USSR.
It has become a mass movement. The predictions are
that this will be a record year of emigration from the
Soviet Union. There are suspicions that attempts to scuttle
the effects of the Jackson-Vanik Amendment, Russia's
lesire to attain Most Favored Nation status without com-
mitments, have been injected as factors in the debates over
the latest proposed agreements between the United States
And the Soviet Union.
Meanwhile, in Jewish ranks, there are the dilemmas
)ver the percentage of Jews going to Israel as contrasted by
he much larger numbers of those choosing Western ha-
• ens, especially the U.S. •
New York Congressman Jack F. Kemp, in a lengthy
malysis of the situation, appealing against relaxation in
Undeveloped Land, PLO Hatred:
Realism Must Come to Surface
as Atmosphere Is Purified
enforcing the provisions of the Jackson-Vanik Amend-
ment, drew upon Israeli sources to analyze the existing
threats to the demands for strict adherence to the principle
that people have a right to choose where to live. In the
process, he incorporated the facts regarding Soviet Jewish
emigration, as outlined in the accompanying charts.
For Israel, the decline in the choice of the Jewish state
as homeland, the preference given to the U.S., is, of course,
deplorable. Israel needs new settlers. Israel is given as the
objective for securing exit visas by Russian Jews. But when
many arrive in Vienna they insist on abandoning the Israel
objective, as the figures for emigration since 1967 indicate.
These are the facts and they are accepted as unavoid-
able. The basic need is to provide havens for those who find
life in the USSR intolerable.
The need as it has developed is to make certain that
those who come here are integrated into the Jewish com-
munity which provides for them so generously and so de-
votedly.
Michigan members of Congress have all been helpful
in pressing for assistance to those desiring to leave Russia.
Congressmen William Brodhead and James Blanchard are
exerting their influence to assist in reuniting families set-
tled in this area with those who have yet to secure their exit
visas. It is part of the human rights movement in which our
legislators play an important role.
Year
1968
1969
1970
1971
1972
1973
1974
Israeli
visas
issued
Emigrants
leaving
379
2,902
1,016
14,310
31,478
34,922
20,181
229
2,969
,1,027
13,022
31,681
34,733
20,628
Arrivals
in Israel
231
3,033
999
12,819
31,652
33,477
16,816
New
invitations
sent
6,786
27,301
4,830
40,794
67,895
58,216
42,843
58
251
1,456
3,879
Year
1975
1976
1977
1978
Total
Emigrants
leaving
13,139
14,138
17,159
30,594
13,221
14,261
16,736
28,865
8,531
7,279
8,348
'12,231
4,928
7,004
8,483
16,867
34,145
36,104
43,062
105,711
180,248
177,382
'135,416
_42,926
467,687
January to
September
1977
On the Israeli-occupied West Bank, the PLO
says it is successfully organiiing a resistance
movement. "Back in 1970 the Israelis were bust-
ing our cells faster than we could put them to-
gether," said a guerrila branch commander in Be-
irut. "But now, we are ahead of them and we are
also organizing resistance cells among Israeli
Arabs who were dormant for years."
Emigrants to
countries
other
than Israel
Arrivals
in Israel
New
invitations
sent
ARRIVALS IN VIENNA' FROM TWENTY CITIES
(Monthly average)
City
Moscow
Leningrad
Kiev
Odessa
Tashkent
Kishinev
Minsk
Chernovitz
Riga
Lvov
Tbilisi
1973
126
70
142
138
87
106
37
399
107
83
162
1974
115
64
89
144
25
189
15
119
53
68
67at
Jews emigrating from the Soviet Union first stop in Vienna.
1975
1976
100
64
82
152
7
68
16
57
29
45
19
108
104
86
232
9
80
17
60
29
48
16
117
101
127
228
12
117
18
75
36
50
13
City
Vilnius
Samarkand
Dushanbe
Kaunas
Kutaisi
Sukhumi
Derbent
Kharkov
Mukachevo
Others
Total avera
for U.S.S.R.
U.S.S..
It will resort to terrorism, if necessary, to pre-
vent "defections" by Palestinians on the West
Bank- and in Gaza.
Israeli
visas
issued
' The figure is not final
January to
September
1977
The mess created by haste in judging controversial
issues affecting Israel inevitably leads to prejudices that
affect public opinion.
Two matters especially surfaced in the attitudes
created toward Israel. One is besmirched under a general
title of "settlements," the other is being sullied under the
initials PLO.
In time, the issue involving new settlements must gain
clarification. In a civilized society it had been considered a
human accomplishment to strive for the development of
abandoned land and to fructify the soil. With all the talk .
about Israel's grabbing land belonging to Nablus Arabs,
nothing has been said about the land having been neg-
lected, that the owners on record will be compensated, that
by fructifying the soil the entire area will be benefited.
There are other matters of concern which create un-
happy and regrettable controversy. Time will solve it, as
long as there will be Jews conversing with Arabs.
The other matter, that of the PLO, escalated as a result
of many claims that PLO is ready to confer with Jews, and
some have been led to believe that the PLO is ready to
recognize Israel's existence. Are there many who are thus
being duped into utter misapprehension of the actual state
of affairs? Then let them read the very extensive article on
the PLO in the June 11 New York Times. Youssef M.
Ibrahim, the NYTimes correspondent, writing from Beirut,
covers a vast field of PLO activities and he summarizes in
part the tactics that are the PLO policies:
It will strive to depict the Palestinian cause as
"Islamic."
It will press for active revival of the so-called
"eastern front," made up of Syria, Iraq and Jor-
dan.
It will put pressure on conservative Arab re-
gimes to loosen ties with the United States in favor
of closer bonds with the nations of Western
Europe.
It will try to win over Arab citizens Israel.
The PLO feels it can compel the United States to
recognize it, not only by undermining the au-
tonomy talks and by isolating Egypt but also by
attacking American interests.• This view tran-
scends the previous tactic of terrorist activities,
with the goal of achieving a fundamental "destab-
ilization" of United States relations with the
Arabs.
Citing cutbacks in oil production and expc
following the Islamic revolution in Iran as an
example of effective leverage, the organization
advocates similar action by other -Arab oil-
producing states as a way to achieve Palestinian
rights...
SOVIET JEWISH EMIGRATION SINCE SIX-SAY WAR .
Emigrants to
countries
other
than Israel
By Philip
Slomovitz
1973
1974
106
107
78
39
146
103
9
5
35
811
40
94
19
11
34
29
84
9
9
440
2,894
1,719
1975
21
3
5
5
9
6
55
26
4
327 .
1,101
1976
17
3
8
3
4
4
36
42
5
274
1,188
Ir
.
Spokesmen say the y will continue a prohibition
against terrorist activities outside Israel, such as
airliner hijackings.
From Arab assemblies students of the PLO and the
Middle East events could cull hundreds of decisions brand-
502
254 ing Israel's image and pledging the destruction of the
Jewish state. Yet there are those who believe the PLO can
1,267
be reasoned with. It doesn't require time to clarify the issue.
The tactics of the PLO are in themselves the condemna-
tions of the genocidal-bent arch enemy of Israel.
20
9
13
7
4
2
15