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. .