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Friday, June 28, 1985

THE DETROIT JEWISH NEWS

PURELY atkom COMMENTARY
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PHILIP SLOMOVITZ

Refuting The Charge That Israel Negated Geneva Regulations

Hijackers' demands, in connection
with the barbarities now localized in Be-
irut, include the charge that Israel has
failed to adhere to the Fourth Geneva
Convention, Article 49, dealing with civi-
lian detainees. Israel refutes the charge.
An explanation issued in refutation of
the charge on behalf of Israel declares:
At issue are provisions of the
Fourth Geneva Convention, which
deals with the treatment of civi-
lians in time of war. Article 49
prohibits the "forcible transfer
from occupied territory to the
territory of the occupying power
or that of any power."
It was this provision that the
U.S. State Department cited in
April in saying that Israel's trans-
fer of the detainees from Lebanon
violated international law "re-
gardless of motive."
But Israel, both at the time of
the transfer and in .the statement
today (June 20), has cited another
sentence in Article 49 dealing with
the movement of civilian de-
tainees. It says: "The occupying
power may undertake total or par-
tial evacuation of a given area if
the security of the population or
imperative military reasons so
demand. Such evacuation may not
involve the displacement of pro-
tected persons outside the bounds
of the occupied territory except
where for material reasons it is
impossible to avoid such dis-
placement. Persons thus
evacuated shall be transferred
back to their homes as soon as
hostilities in the area in question
have ceased."
Israeli officials argue that the
detention was legal because of the
wave of attacks on Israeli army
units in Lebanon. They also main-
tain that the movement of the de-
tainees to Israel was in accord-
ance with the exception cited in
Article 49 and was made neces-
sary when the Israeli army, in the
process of withdrawing from
southern Lebanon, dismantled its
prison camp at Ansar.
The confusion caused by the repeated
charges against Israel provides the need
for this lengthy clarification. While it
really has little if any relationship with
the inhumanities perpetrated by the un-
civilized hijacking, those who may be puz-
zled by similar accusations that had come
originally from Washington need the
explanatory notes.

Search For Truth
About Lebanon
Must Never End

News media in the civilized world —
there is a growing need to separate the
civilized from the barbarically insaned —
registered the urgently-needed realism in
treating the Israeli connection in the
crisis affected by the brutal hijackers.
Much has been, much more will be written
about the numerous crises involving the
Middle East with the emphasis on the
tragedies of Lebanon. Basic facts must
never be forgotten. There has been a great
deal of injustice leveled in the treatment
of Israel's numerous roles in the Lebanese
and Middle East situations. One espe-
cially vital matter was analyzed in the
current issue of Near East Report of the
American Israel Public Affairs Committee
(AIPAC) by M.J. Rosenberg, the newslet-
ter's last page columnist.
Rosenberg took into account the

"media's seeming indifference to the con-
tinued killings in Lebanon now that the
Israelis are out." He ascribes the dif-
ference to "the press enjoying maligning
Israel and that events in Lebanon pro-
vided a pretext for it." Thereupon, Rosen-
berg proceeds with his testimonial admon-
itions:
But there are other reasons,
some quite ominous. On June 9,
the Washington Post reprinted an
article by London Sunday Times
reporter David Blundy which first
appeared in the British news-
paper one week earlier.
Blundy recapitulated some of
the events of recent weeks.
"Eyewitnesses last week said that
the two camps — Sabra and
Shatila — were wastelands. The
tightly packed houses had been
destroyed by artillery bombard-
ments. Whole areas had been
razed to the ground by bulldozers
and dynamite. The stench of rot-
ting bodies permeated the camp."
He recounted particular hor-
rors. "Cases occur such as that of
the young, wounded Palestinian
and his sister, aged about 13, who
were on the ground floor of the
hospital at Sabra. A soldier, a
member of the Lebanese army's
Shiite Sixth Brigade, told the girl
to pick up her brother. She re-
fused and they both were shot
dead."
There's more — much more.
"A group of 15 Palestinians, wear-
ing white shorts and T-shirts —
patients from a hospital, some of
them with saline drips still in their
arms — were gathered together by
Amal (the Shiite organization)
militiamen and shot with
machineguns. A Palestinian nurse
came out of Sabra with a wounded
man. The man was shot by Amal
militiamen and the nurse was
stabbed with a bayonet. The
bodies were taken away in a
truck."
Blundy claims that there has
been little "accurate reporting"
about what is going on. And he
explains why: "The Sunday Times
and the BBC (British Broadcast-
ing Company) reported killings at
the camps. The BBC's Arabic-
language report of the atrocities
was monitored by Amal fighters,
so the BBC immediately withdrew
its three reporters because it
feared that attempts would be
made on their lives ... In fact,
many reports of killings were not
included because eyewitnesses
were afraid for their own safety."
Blundy also reveals that
foreign correspondents in Beirut
have created a "strange affiance"
to protect themselves from the
wrath of warring factions. "Jour-
nalists who are normally in fierce
competition ... have shared their
sources and information and have
agreed to release stories simul-
taneously so that one newspaper
or agency does not find itself iso-
lated and the target for threats
and attacks."
The local press in Beirut has
been at least as circumspect.
Blundy says that there has been
"scant reference" to the atrocities
in the Lebanese press, although
most reporters and "thousands of
people" know what's happening.
A local reporter told Blundy: "If
we print them (the stories), we will
get a bomb through our window."

.

The bottom line is what
Blundy calls "fear and intimida-
tion." Many reporters have been
"withdrawn because of the risk of
being kidnapped or killed. Those
who remain find it increasingly
difficult and dangerous to work."
The contrast between writing
from Lebanon and from Israel is
obvious. In Israel, or in areas of
Lebanon controlled by Israel, re-
porters can interpret or misinter-
pret the news as they see fit. In
Lebanon — and throughout the
Arab world — the press is terrified
into submission.
David Blundy's article helps
explain an ugly and frightening
situation. Does it not now behoove
editors (like those at the Washing-
ton Post, for instance) to inform
their readers that the editorial
slant of their coverage is dictated
as much by fear as by facts?
Such are the facts not to be over-
looked and ever to be remembered as the
situations develop. Even after the hijack-
ing agonies end — and may that be soon
and speedy! — realism leading to just
evaluating of Middle East conditions must
predominate.

Punishment For Crimes,
Remembering Bestialities

Eventually there must be punish-
ment for what had taken place on the
TWA flight intended for Rome and the
hijacking at Athens. There can never be
compensation for the severest cruelty, for
the horror of the brutal murder of an
American aboard that airline. The Detroit
News summarized it properly editorially
on June 18, under the heading "They Kept
Hitting Him":
As the latest terrorist hijack-
ing grinds on, there will be a ten-
dency to forget the sheer brutality

of the act. We believe, therefore,
that it's worth remembering and
reflecting upon what happened
aboard Flight 847, in particular
the beating and shooting death of
an American serviceman by the
hijackers. The serviceman has
been identified as Robert Dean
Stethem, 23, of Waldorf, Md., a
steelworker in the Navy Seabees.
An eyewitness report of the inci-
dent was carried by Reuter, the
British news agency, which we re-
print from yesterday's editions.
LONDON (Reuter) — An Au-
stralian girl freed by the hijackers
of a TWA jet described how the
gunmen brutally assaulted an
American serviceman before kil-
ling him.
Ruth Henderson; 16, said last
night that the terrorists kicked
him over and over until "they had
broken all his ribs."
She said she was sitting next
to the serviceman Friday night
when the hijackers "dragged him
out of his seat, tied his hands, and
then beat him up." She said:
"I watched as they kicked him
in the head. They kicked him in
the face and knee caps and kept
kicking him until they had broken
all his ribs. Then they tried to
knock him out with the butt of a
pistol — they kept hitting him over
the head but he was very strong
and they couldn't knock him out.
"Then they dumped him back
in his seat next to me and left him
for ages. I tried to nurse him but
there wasn't a great deal I could
do. Later, they dragged him away
and I believe shot him."
Will the guilty ever be able to atone
for this? Even when the hijacking from
Athens to Beirut is resolved, won't this
horrible brutality remain inerasable on
the records of the worst of crimes?

When Bernard Baruch Was Irritated
By Franklin Roosevelt Shortcomings

Specific attention, often mingled
with notoriety, accorded to "the guilt of
silence" during the tragic years of the
Nazi massacres of Jews brings to the
limelight the leading world personalities.
Franklin D. Rensevelt figures promi-
nently in that cat. of characters. So do
the major actors in the Zionist move-
ment.

Dr. David Wyman, in his serious
study of the failures to aid in rescue ef-
forts described in his The Abaridonment
of the Jews (Pantheon Books) lists the
chief offenders, and does not overlook
one of the most picturesque men of that
era. His reference to Baruch is in one
sentence, "Bernard Baruch — influential
with Roosevelt, Congress, the wartime
bureaucracy, and the public — stayed
away from the rescue issue." But in the
currently republished autobiography of
Ben Hecht, who is mentioned frequently
in the Wyman book, Baruch appears in a
role very critical of FDR.

Ben Hecht's A Child of the Century,
(Primus Imprint of Donald I. Fine Pub-
lishers), is subtitled "the quintessential
work of the great journalist, playwright
and co-author of The Front Page", and is
filled with dynamite. It reveals the many
forgotten or overlooked occurrences and
adds to the exposure of indifference in the
matter of saving Jews and especially of

nian door for the rescue of escapees from
the Nazi terror.
Ben Hecht was the great journalist
of the first half of this century. He was
the author of many novels and short
stories which eventually became themes
that dominated the movie industry. He
was the incorrigible, the sensational, the
controversial factor in the media. It was
as co-chairman of the Committee for a
Jewish Army of Statehood and Palesti-
nian Jews with Peter Bergson (Hillel
Kook), and Sam Merlin, that he was the
chief factor in the several movements
that were established to battle against
restrictions of Jewish rights in Palestine,
and as predecessors and collaborators of
Menachem Begin in advocating ab-
solutism in Zionism. That's how he fig-
ured ultra-sensationally in demanding
the rights advocated on a large public
scale.
Hecht authored the sensational ad-
vertisements assailing the British anti-
Zionist actions which prevented Jewish
settlement in Palestine and he also
engineered the fundraising which
enabled the purchase of ships which op-
erated in what the British considered "il-
legal immigration."
Hecht relates about the purchase of
a large ocean boat which the Committee
for a Jewish Army named the "Ben

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