PURELY COMMENTARY
Bronislaw Huberman
Continued from Page 2
active on behalf of the Pan-
Europa movement. His papers
and his musical estate were given
to the Central Music Library in Tel
Aviv.
He was a most remarkable man and
was widely, deservedly, admired. The
Palestine Symphony Orchestra he
organized developed into the present
Israel Philharmonic.
It is no wonder that one of the world's
most famous musicians, Arturo lbscanini,
responded to him and was the featured
participant in the opening concert of the
Palestine Symphony in 1936.
Huberman and Thscanini shared their
hatreds for Nazism and were opponents of
Fascism and Fascists like Hitler,
Mussolini and their like.
Those of us who knew and remember
Bronislaw Huberman renew admiration
for him in memories revived by recovery
of his stolen Stradivarius. Music-lovers
Emma and Morris Schaver were among
those who knew and labored with Huber-
man for the advancement of musical
cultures in the Jewish State.
The Bronislaw Huberman name will
always live in glory in recorded Jewish
history.
WocSayers
Continued from Page 2
arouse the curiosity over the total U.S.
Jewish reaction to the seriousness of the
issue that divides the views of the Israel
governing cabinet on the pending peace
proposals. It may well be that the impor-
tant AIPAC movement may have been led
into a blunder in the No-Saying to the
Secretary of State.
AIPAC has reason to be proud of its ac-
ceptance by our government, of the
legitimacy it is given by the heads of our
government as an authoritative actions-
body treating the Israeli and Middle East
issues. Can it afford to be one-sided on a
major issue that is in dispute in Israel?
Shouldn't it encourage serious study
rather than haste in judgement in order
to be a practical adviser to Israelis?
Prime Minister Yitzhak Shamir must
have been elated by the "Hell No" to
Russia as a reply to a • question to the
AIPAC delegates in Washington. Yet
Foreign Minister Shimon Peres continues
to have the ears of half of his fellow
members in the Israel Cabinet on the pro-
posed peace plan and the idea pro-
mulgated may be cause for debates for a
long time to come. As long as Russian par-
ticipation is under scrutiny, the debate
will continue.
The confrontation between the
Shamir and Peres factions is reportedly on
an almost equal basis. Yet it is not ir-
reparable. There is a pragmatism that
must influence a solution. There is a
measure of leadership that may influence
the desired realism. The highly respected
diplomat Abba Eban, whose services in
U.S. and Un ambassadorships are un-
forgettable, has important advice which
he outlined in an important article that
was published in the New York Times.
Therein he analyzed the vexing prblems,
asserting:
The opportunity to face this
central challenge now arises
through the statesmanlike move
by Secretary of State George P.
Shultz away from the American
passivity that had effectively im-
38
Friday, June 5, 1987
George Shultz
peded progress for several years
and toward a carefully formulated
scenario for an international con-
ference as a framework for nego-
tiation between Israeli, Jordanian
and Palestinian representatives.
This scenario, worked out in
consultation with Foreign
Minister Shimon Peres, is far more
advantageous to Israel than the
more risky enterprise that Mr.
Kissinger carried to success in
1973 through 1974.
First, Egypt would now attend
as a treaty partner, not as a
disgruntled adversary.
Second, Jordan has now com-
mitted itself for the first time to
Israel and the United States to
negotiate on the basis of agreed
procedures that would prevent an
imposed solution.
Third, the Soviet Union, which
had totally cut itself off from con-
tact with Israel between 1967 and
1973, has been in continuous
discourse with Israeli officials at
many levels.
Fourth, and most crucial,
Secretary Schultz has promised
the kind of protective solidarity,
support and common action with
Israel, the like of which his most
benevolent predecessors could
never have considered. These
commitments do not guarantee
success, but they certainly secure
Israel's interests against injury or
risk to an unprecedented degree.
An idea that has this measure
of Jordanian, Egyptian,
American, European, Soviet and
Israeli support is not likely to
perish because of a single setback.
Now that we have optimal con-
ditions for negotiation in the exter-
nal domain, and public support of
the conference idea in recent
Israeli domestic polls, Foreign
Minister Peres must strive to
achieve a parliamentary or
popular mandate at home.
Israel's friends abroad should
accompany this enterprise with
sympathy. They ought surely to
encourage an effort to end the
deadlock, which could only lead
THE DETROIT JEWISH NEWS
to explosions, of which all Middle
East peoples would be the main
victims.
This is a collective viewpoint of great
importance, not to be ignored.
The problem in dispute is obligatory
for serious study by all of us. It is a
challenge for peace. It is something not to
be ignored. It could well continue as a bat-
tle between pragmatism and idealism.
The pragmatism is undisputed. A
great opportunity has arisen for peace,
with Jordan among the activitists. The op-
posing force under Shamir's guidance does
not trust the Soviet Union as a participant
in a peace conference. The warning is that
Russia would gain power in the Middle
East, would emerge as a disrupting ele-
ment harming Israel.
Both the U.S. Secretary of State, who
has a measure of confidence in the prac-
ticality of the pending peace plan, and the
plan's backers express confidence that
such disruptive tactics can and will be
prevented. They point to a veto power
against Russian domination. It is the
disbelief in the ability to counteract Rus-
sian influence that resulted in the No-
Saying in Washington.
Now the urgency of it all is even more
challenging. Threats to peace are always
inexcusable. Abandonment of peace can
become a crime. Both pragmatism on a
diplomatic scale and the idealistic crav-
ing for peace demand a common accord.
Should there be a yielding to fear over the
Russian attitudes, or is there ground for
confidence that an American support for
a pending plan and a comparable Jewish
confidence that a craving for peace can be
attained?
All of which introduces another ele-
ment in the expressed doubts: whether the
fears engendered can be risked? It is on
this score that there is need to remind the
Israelis in the opposition and our fellow
Jews that risk has never been off the
Jewish agenda, that there have always
been dangers to our existence, that the
fears of them are always confronted with
the confidence in an "Am Yisrael Chai,"
that the Jewish people lives on and on .. .
Whatever the risks, they are worth being
confronted and challenged in the interest
of peace.
De Sousa Mendes:
A Saintly Hero
Aristides de Sousa Mendes was
honored posthumously last week at the
Portuguese Embassy in Washington.
He was one of the giants in the cause
of justice in the last war.
As consul general of Portugal in
France, he defied the Nazis and issued
30,000 false passports including 10,000 to
Jews, to allow them to find refuge from the
Nazi death camps.
Hitler's Gestapo chiefs in Paris
ordered him to stop issuing the passports.
He kept up his rescue tasks until his
government recalled him and ousted him
from his post.
Now his government admits its guilt
and honors him posthumously.
An act of justice has been observed,
with U.S. and Israeli participants.
Yad Vashem in Jerusalem has already
recorded his immense heroism. A U.S.
Congressional tribute is planned to
remember his name.
He was a replica of Raoul Wallenberg.
It took years for the pressures to mount
for worldwide recognition of the
Wallenberg courage and massive rescuing
of Hitler's victims.
It is important that the name of
Aristides de Sousa Mendes never be
forgotten. May it always be treated with
dignity, respect and deep gratitude.
Residents of the children's home of Izieu, France pose for the
camera in 1943. The roundup of these children in 1944 is one
of the main charges against Nazi war criminal Klaus Barbie,
now on trial in Lyon. All but one child died at Auschwitz.