2 Friday, July 13, 1979

THE DETROIT JEWISH NEWS

Purely Commentary

Horrors in Argentina: Is There
Resort to Public Pressures?

In two previous articles on the New York Times Op-Ed
Page, John Oakes, former senior editor of the NYTimes,
exposed the crimes that have turned Argentina into an
area of inhumanity. In a third article he offers added proof
of the persecutions, arrests without resort to defense in the
courts, disappearance of people branded as the govern-
ment's opponents and an apparent lack of resort to justice
in one of the leading countries in Latin America.
Oakes calls to witness 18-year-old Ana Maria de
Careaga, who suffered in Argentina jails, was terrorized
and brutalized despite her pregnancy, and she must have
escaped with her life miraculously.
Her tragic experiences, recounted and now on the re-
cord,_ included a reference to the brutal treatment of Jews.
Oakes quotes her in his article, "Agony in Argentina":
One time I heard a dog barking in the corridor
and someone ordering him back and forth, telling
him to wave his tail. We thought it really was a
dog. But no — it was a human being, a young man
who had to pretend to be a dog because he had
committed the crime of being Jewish. The guard
made him bark and walk on all fours.
The treatment of Jews was incredible. Once
four Jewish boys were kept there for a week be-
cause they belonged to some Jewish social organ-
ization. The police asked them if Jews were per-
secuted in Argentina. If they said no, they were
beaten and-told "All Jews will have to be killed."
If they said yes, then they were beaten because
they were saying that human rights were violated
in Argentina.
Public opinion seems to be helpless in dealing with the
Argentinian bestialities. Is it possible that there is no re-
sort to justice?
Many Jews in Argentina have defended their govern-
ment, contending that in the main their status is not
endangered. Does such resort to patriotism stem from pres-
sures? If there is a bit of good relationship between the
Jewish community and the government, why aren't there
spokesmen who can plead the cause for non-Jewish as well
as Jewish oppressed? Presently, the situation is too grave to
introduce hope for an end to the atrocities now charged
against the Argentinian government.

The Inhumanity That Is Russia's:
Its Inherited Anti-Semitism

How will history explain the inhumanity that is Rus-
sia's? Will it be sufficient to say that the spreading bigotries
of the 1970s are a perpetuation of the barbarities of
Czarism?
The post-Czarist theories of "Socialist liberalism" con-
tended that the hatreds of the past were being erased. On
the record, Communist Russia outlaws anti-Semitism. In
practice the Soviet Union today is a major anti-Semitic
country.
In practice, the USSR now condones the prejudices
against Jews to a degree that makes saints of the Czarist
regimes.
True: there are no pogroms. In a moral sense, in the
manner in which Jews are portrayed in the Soviet Union,
unquestionably with government approval. the immorality
of hate- and falsehood-spreading the discriminations are
akin to pogroms.
A shocking account of the rise in Soviet anti-Semitism
was reported to the New York Times from Moscow by Craig
R. Whitney whose detailing of some of the hate spreading
occurrences must have shocked many in the Russian gov-
ernment. Yet, the spread of the venom has not been stop-
ped, in spite of the formal outlawing of such practices.
Whitney appears to be leaning to the viewpoint that
Soviet anti-Semitism is a legacy from Czarism when he
states: "The unofficial echo is a swell of deep xenophobia
that combines historical Russian anti-Semitism and
paranoia."
Especially shocking is this demonstration of bigotry
and venomous hatred of Jews contained in the Whitney
report from Moscow:
Soviet anti-Semitism, in both official and unof-
ficial varities, has taken on new and unsettling
forms at a time when the authorities are allowing
more Jews than ever before to leave for Israel and
the United States.
The official campaign against Zionism in the
press, in books and in propaganda has been par-
ticularly intense this year, perhaps as a way of
discouraging even more people from emigrating.
About 50,000 Soviet Jews are expected to be giyen
exit visas for Israel this year.
The unofficial echo is a swell of deep
xenophobia that combines historical Russian
anti-Semitism and paranoia. Soviet sources, both
dissidents and intellectuals in good standing with
the government, say they are disturbed by paral-

-

Two Areas of Oppression That Are Causes of Serious
Concern: the Argentinian Injustices Affecting All
of Her Citizens and Growing Russian Anti-Semitism

lels with the Stalinist "anticosmopolitan" secret
police repressions that began in the late 1940's
and continued until the dictator's death in 1953.
Some of the worst examples of anti-Semitism
are clearly being tolerated by elements within the
bureaucracy. Last winter, an exhibition of paint-
ings by the official Soviet painter Mikhail A.
Savitsky in Minsk included one canvas that led
scores of people to protest to the authorities.
It was part of a collection depicting the
brutalities of the Nazi occupation of Byelorussia.
The painting, titled "Summer Theater," showed a
pile of naked Russian corpses in a concentration
camp. Standing over them, a helmeted Nazi offi-
cer and a prison camp trusty, a Jew wearing a
Star of David, grin sadistically at each other, as if
in satisfaction over a job well done.
Despite protests in Minsk and in Moscow that
the painting was both anti-Semitic and a gross
distortion of history, the painting was not with-
drawn. It was even printed in the journal 'Liter-
tura in Mastatstva, the organ of the Byelorussian
Ministry of Culture.
The Whitney report from Moscow is accompanied by a
reproduction of the vile painting by Savitsky. Even in the
worst period of Nazism nothing worse could have matched
this outburst of dementia in spreading untruths about the
Nazi period and the Jews.
The Whitney expose of what is happening in Russia
reveals that in February mimeographed pamphlets signed
"Russian Liberation Movement" were distributed in
apartment houses in Moscow and Leningrad, charging that
"Zionists" had seized control of the Politburo, the Soviet
Communist party's highest decision-making body. It even
called Leonid Brezhnev "the chief Zionist." The Whitney
report continues to explain in what sounds like a charge
against the official endorsement of what is being circu-
lated:
In any other country, such pamphlets might be
discussed as the work of lunatics. Here, they raise
the queStion of who allowed them to be duplicated
— duplicating machines are strictly controlled —
and handed out. The pamphlets identified the
only "real Russians" on the Politburo as Prime
Minister Aleksei N. Kosygin, the chief ideologist
Mikhail A. Suslov and the Leningrad party chief,
Grigory V. Romanov.
Last month, an anti-Zionist letter that is being
much discussed by the intellectual establishment
in Moscow was sent to scores of influential people
by a man calling himself "Vasily Ryazanov."
Again, the letter was mimeographed. Again, it
seemed to some of its recipients that only someone
with powerful connections would have dared to
write it.
"Not only in the United States Senate, but in the
apparatus of the Central Committee of the Soviet
Communist Party there exists a powerful Zionist
lobby," the letter says. "They do not allow them-
selves to be attacked, with the excuse that this
would bring on accusations of anti-Semitism,
negative reactions in world public opinion and
damage to the policy of detente."
"The letter is written in a cool, rational style,"
said the writer Lev Kopelev, who is of Jewish
descent himself. "It is not the work of a fanatic or
a madman."
Nobody knows who "Rayazanov" is.
Jewish activists in the emigration movement do
not believe the letter or the pamphlets are a reac-
tion to the increased emigration now being per-
mitted to Jews and to few others.
The use of the term Zionism as means of creating
- hatred of Jews has become very common and it emulates
the Arab propaganda techniques. Then there is the anti-
as Whitney re-
American element in the hate
ports:
"I think it's a traditional, historical Russian
anti-Semitism at work," said one, "and it's a re-
flection of the struggle within the party involving
Slavophile, Russian nationalist tendencies."
The "unofficial" anti-Semitism and the official
campaigns directed against "Zionism" appear,
however, to feed on each other. A couple of
months ago, the authorities issued a "white
paper" to "document" the evils of Zionism. It calls
it "modern-day fascism" and warns readers that
it is financed and controlled by foreign espionage
agents who blackmail and victimize innocent
Soviet citizens.
Another book edited by one of the white paper's
authors, and written by Yevgeny S. Yevseyev, a
member of the Institute of Philosophy of the
Soviet Academy of Sciences, was published in a
controlled edition of 500 late last year and calls
Zionism "one of the varieties of fascism, which is
however more dangerous than the German, Ita-

By Philip
Slomovitz

Tian, Spanish and other varieties of fascism."
Informants who have seen the book say it was
printed by the Soviet Ministry of Internal Affairs,
which controls the police. Some of its official de-
scriptions are not as farfetched as another set
now being circulated in Moscow by Prof. Vla-
dimir N. Yemelyanov, who teaches foreign stn-
dents at the Patrice Lumamba University here.
He charges that only Jews are allowed to rise to
the highest levels of Freemasonry, and that
Freemasons rule the world.
According to Roy A.- MecEredev, the dissident
Marxist historian, Prof. Yemelyanov maintains
that President Carter, described as a 33d-degree
Mason, actually takes orders from the head oft' -
Bnai Brith organization in the United. States.
Even official Soviet explanations of why the
authorities are now allowing more Jews to leave
sometimes have an anti-Semitic tinge.
"A fundamental decision has been taken within
the party to let go everyone who wants to leave,"
an official said, "but in practice that's only Jews
and ethnic Germans. We don't want a disloyal
fifth Column here."
Diplomats and many Jews here believe the
main reason for the decision is that the Soviet
Union wants more access to American trade and
technology to modernize its economy. Under
United States law, the only way the Soviet Union
can get that is by relaxing curbs on emigration.
Brezhnev and President Carter were unable to
make any breakthroughs on the question at their
recent meeting in Vienna.
How many Soviet JewS want to leave is not
known. According to the last available census
figures, there were 2.15 million Jews in the Soviet
Union in 1970, and at least 170,000 have left since
then.
"If the present climate of anti-Semitism per-
sists," an activist in the emigration movement
said the other day, "all of them will leave, and
there will be no more Jews in the Soviet Union in
20 years."
The latter prognosis is reminiscent of the Czarist -
threats to Jews when the Russian anti-Semitic policies,
seeking the destruction of Russian Jewry that then num-
bered some six to seven million was to convert a third of
them, murder another third and compel the rest to emi-
grate. Yet the road to emigration for Jews, as well as for the
increasing number of dissidents, is not easy. The Russian
prejudices, more virulent than ever, aim to brand Jews as
Zionists, dissidents as Zionist cohorts, those who seek
emigration visas as enemies of the state. This is the poison-
ous atmosphere that makes of Communist Russia a mere
replica of Czarist cruelty.

Unity Among Israelis:
No Comfort to the PLO

Bruno Kreisky and Willy Brandt drew one act of cer-
tainty from Israel when they glorified Yasir Arafat: an
assurance of unity in the task of rejecting any measure of
comfort to Israel's vilest enemies. Likud and Labor stand
united against submission to or compromise with PLO. So
is, as it should be, the message to the doubters from world
Jewry.

Birmingham Temple Dispute:
Palestinians Per Se
and Comforters of the PLO

Birmingham Temple's rabbi and lay spokesmen are
justified in their right to differ and to advocate their view-
points. This is, after all, the American and Jewish way of -
life. That does not give them the right to equate the views of
an enemy of Israel with those of Israel's leaders.
The man under dispute, I.F. Stone, was an advocate of
Zionism many years ago when he was on the ZOA plate' —
of public lecturers. Since then he has chosen to give col_
to the PLO, whose chief aim is the annihilation of Israel.
That makes him an enemy of the Zionist, Jewish and Israeli
causes. It is one thing to speak in terms of Palestinians, and
another to coniuse it with the PLO. That's where the temple
in question loses its defensive position — when it equates
the views of their controversial speaker with those of
Moshe Day-an. It is not true, as the temple spokesmen
contend, that D ayan favored conferring with the PLO. He
favors, as he has done, conferring with Palestinians, those
in Judea and Samaria, because he is a Palestinian himself,
being a native of Eretz Israel that was listed on the map as
Palestine. And to ascribe to Abba Eban views akin to
Stone's is an abomination.
Surely, Israelis themselves differ and criticize, espe-
cially when internal politics plays a role and parties out of
power would like to regain reins of government. But there
is unanimity in rejecting the comfort an I.F. Stone gives to
the PLO. Besides, the manner of his reference to the head of
Israel's government, coming from a PLO defender, was
vulgar.

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