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Global Digest

Search For Jews'
Stolen Artworks

40

Posters in Jerusalem opposed the visit of U.S. Secretary of State Madeleine Albright and special envoy Dennis
Ross.

Deal-breakers

Stridency of Hamas, Israeli right rises as Israel,
Palestinians near an accord.

DAVID LANDAU

Special to The Jewish News

Jerusalem

A

series of intelligence warn-
ings that Hamas terror •
attacks are imminent is
providing the best proof
that Israel and the Palestinians are
near an agreement.
Further proof is also coming from
right-wing members of Prime
Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's coali-
tion, who have renewed their threats
to bring down the government if the
premier agrees to transfer additional
West Bank lands to the Palestinians.

David Landau is a writer for the
Jewish Telegraphic Agency.

But despite the flurry of diplomatic
activity surrounding Netanyahu's and
Palestinian Authority Chairman
Yasser Arafat's visits last week to New
York and Washington, plenty of skep-
tics still doubt that a deal will be con-
cluded.
Some cite Netanyahu's coalition
difficulties; others point to the pre-
mier's reluctance to abandon tracts of
the biblical homeland.
Even. some more optimistic
observers warn that Netanyahu and
Arafat can sign an agreement under
the watchful eye of President Bill
Clinton with no guarantee it will be
implemented.
Israel and the Palestinians, nudged
on by American officials, are inching
closer to a long-elusive accord under
which Israel will redeploy from a fur-

ther 13 percent of the West Bank in
return for stepped up security
arrangements with the Palestinian
Authority.
During a Sept. 28 meeting with
Netanyahu and Arafat at the White
House, Clinton proposed a mini-
summit in mid-October to sign the
accord and to agree on methods for
pursuing the permanent-status negoti-
ations, which are already long over-
due.
Arafat and Netanyahu met jointly
Tuesday with U.S. Secretary of State
Madeleine Albright to prepare for
that summit.
Looming ever closer is May 4,
1999, the end of the five-year interim
period provided for under the Oslo
accords.
While Arafat was dissuaded by

Sao Paulo, Brazil (JTA) — The
hunt for artworks looted by the
Nazis is pressing ahead here. A
commission created by the Brazilian
Justice Ministry in 1997 is using
leads supplied by the World Jewish
Congress to search for more than
100 such works sold in the country
between the 1940s and 1970s.
Two artworks — oil paintings by
Claude Monet and Pablo Picasso
-- have been placed under the pro-
tection of the Special Commission
to Examine the Nazi Legacy in
Brazil.
According to Rabbi Henry Sobel
of the commission, the oils were in
the possession of two Sao Paulo
families, who did not know they
were stolen and are cooperating
with the commission. The works
sold for $2.2 million in 1939 and
are worth considerably more today.
Many of the artworks looted by
the Nazis from their Jewish owners
found their way to Switzerland dur-
ing and after the war. They were
sold to help Nazis hiding in Latin
America after the war, Sobel said.

Uzbekistan
Denies Visa

Moscow (JTA) — Uzbekistan has
refused to renew the visa of an
American rabbi who serves as the
head of the Jewish community in
the former Soviet republic's capital
of Tashkent.
Rabbi Abba David Gurevitch,
who was born in Russia and holds a
U.S. passport, has worked in
Uzbekistan since 1990 as chief
emissary of the Lubavitch move-
ment for Central Asia. He has
opened several Jewish educational
institutions, including a Jewish day
school in Tashkent. Some 30,000
Jews live in Uzbekistan.
The Foreign Ministry declined
to give a reason for rejecting his
renewal application. The visa con-
troversy comes in the wake of new
law on freedom of conscience and
religious organizations, which came
into force in May.

10/9

1998

Detroit Jewish News

43

