SPECIAL COMMENTARY

Human Rights Or Cash?

regime on the planet. While the gen-
Philadelphia
eral principle of free trade should be
ads come and go, but the
supported, rewarding China by
principles of democratic gov-
removing the yearly congressional
ernment are supposed to be
check on human-rights issues (via the
eternal. Anyone who follows
votes on Most Favored Nation status)
the debate on what most pundits call
is a mistake. This is especially true
the most important bill before the
now that China has increased its
Congress this year will notice that a
domestic oppression while
passion for human rights is
threatening democratic Tai-
currently out of fashion.
wan with aggression.
The bill, approved by the
Beijing's Communist
House Wednesday, would
leadership has opened up its
grant Permanent Normal
economy to western invest-
Trade Relations in China.
ment in recent years, which
Lobbying on behalf of the bill
has
created some prosperity
by large corporations, the
for the Chinese. However,
White House and the Repub-
there is no increase in free-
lican leadership is so intense,
dom. Human rights have
it has even brought together
JON A THAN S. not advanced since the
such fierce foes as House
T OBIN
1989 Tiananmen Square
Majority Whip Tom DeLay
Spe
cial to
massacre in Beijing. Indeed,
(R-Texas) and President Bill
the Je wish News
reports show the situation
Clinton.
worsening. The regime's
The only thing they have
numerous gulags are filled.
in common is a devotion to
China has remained most oppressive in
their large contributors. The business
the area of religious freedom. A new
community believes free trade with
report by the U.S. Commission on
China will make a lot of people a lot
International Religious Freedom has
of money. Labor unions and some
documented this most impressively.
Christian groups are opponents of the
Obsessed with destroying all non-
bill.
Communist-controlled faith organiza-
The only other obstacle is that
many Americans haven't forgotten that tions, Beijing has stepped up its brutal
repression of the tens of millions of
China is the last great totalitarian
Chinese Catholics, Protestants and
Jonathan S. Tobin is executive editor
Muslims, as well as members of non-
of the Jewish Exponent newspaper in
Western faiths, such as Falun Gon. In
Philadelphia. He can be reached via e-
Chinese-occupied Tibet, the oppres-
mail at jtobin@jewishexponent.com
sion amounts to cultural genocide

against the local faith-based national
culture.
Among the commission's 10 mem-
bers are two Jews — chairman Rabbi
David Saperstein, head of the liberal
Religious Action Center of Reform
Judaism, and Elliot Abrams, the politi-
cally conservative, former Reagan
Administration State Department offi-
cial. Abrams is currently president of
the Ethics and Public Policy Center in
Washington, D.C. They, along with
other members of the commission,
decided to buck administration pres-
sure, urging Congress not to pass the
trade bill until China takes the follow-
ing steps:
• Open a dialogue with the United
States on religious-freedom issues.
• ratify the International Convention
on Civil and Political Rights.
• allow human-rights organizations
unhindered access to Chinese religious
leaders, including the many who are
imprisoned.
• release all those imprisoned for prac-
ticing their faiths.
The commission also wants Con-
gress to pledge to hold annual hear-
ings on human rights and religious
freedom in China. Rabbi Saperstein
told me the thrust of the commission's
efforts would be to create an apparatus
similar to the Helsinki Commission,
which monitored human-rights abuses
in the former Soviet Union when it
highlighted the oppression of Jewish
refuseniks and prisoners of Zion. His
hope is that shining a spotlight on

rights violations will create momen-
tum for progress, as it did with the
Soviets.
Both Rabbi Saperstein and Abrams
are right. What's more, the commis-
sion's courageous decision to stand up
against the tide of business-influenced
advocacy should signal the Jewish
community that it, too, has a role to
play in this debate. This is especially
true since the rhetoric of "engage-
ment" with China is the same argu-
ment we refused to accept when busi-
nessmen, who opposed the Jackson-
Vanik sanctions against the Soviet
Union in the 1970s, said their deals
would bring freedom to Soviet Jewry.
But aside from the efforts of these
two men, little has been heard from
Jewish groups. After having taken the
lead on human-rights causes like
Bosnia and Kosovo, where there were
no more Jews at risk than in China,
the Jewish community has been
unable to find its voice? Why was the
Jewish community urging war over
the rights of ethnic Albanians in Ser-
bia when it prefers to take a pass on
an economic measure with the rights
of over a billion Chinese and Tibetans
are at stake?
Given the scale of oppression and the
Jewish stake in supporting the principle
of religious freedom, the silence on
China is morally indefensible.
People of faith must speak up. Reli-
gious freedom is not a matter of fash-
ion. And human rights should never
be for sale. O

Gazit appreciated the welcome he
received from the Arab students at
University of Michigan-Dearborn.
Perhaps there are Arabs who wish to
promote peace and cooperation with
their neighbors. Is this such an impos-
sibility?
Sara Schiff
Huntington Woods

Israeli peace talks ("Taking Stock," May
19, page 26) have been the "Jewish
Right of Return" and why it is forbid- -
den for Jews (Israeli citizens or not) to
be allowed to live in Arab countries.
By the mid-1950s, Israel's Jewish
population was comprised of approxi-
mately 600,000 from the pre-state
yishuv, 600,000 refugees from Europe
and 600,000 refugees from the Arab
countries, most having been forced to
abandon property, businesses and
communal property.
The Palestinians also claim that
600,000 of their ancestors were kicked
out of Israel (we prefer to state that they
fled). Perhaps, the issues of "compensa-
tion" and the "right of return" could be
matched and might even cancel each
other out. If not, then Israel should put
the Jewish claims on the table.
The second issue has to do with the

right of Jews to live in Arab countries. I
do not know if, after the peace treaty,
Jordan canceled the law that forbids
Jews from living there, but why should
the Palestinians be looking at evicting
the Jews from settlements (or villages or
towns) in the West Bank and Gaza
Strip? Why don't they simply offer citi-
zenship or permanent residency to those
Israelis now there?
I'm not saying that I want to move
my family to a loft in downtown Gaza,
but it is the idea that they may have
accepted the reality of Israel's existence
(because of the gun), but they won't
accept the idea of Jewish people existing
in their countries. Where is King Hassan
when you need him?
Nathaniel Warshay
.Oak Park

r

We Appreciate
Beth El Coverage

We are writing to express our apprecia-
tion for your outstanding coverage of
Temple Beth El's 150th anniversary
("Redefining Reform," May 5 and 12).
It was clear from the recent articles
that your writers devoted a great deal
of time researching the temple's exten-
sive history. As the first and oldest

Jewish congregation in the state of
Michigan, we are proud of our rich
past and are pleased that the Jewish
News chose to share it so eloquently
with its readership.
The clergy, staff and lay leadership
of Temple Beth El look forward to
continuing to serve the Jewish com-
munity of metropolitan Detroit for at
least the next 150 years.
Marion Freedman
president
Rabbi Daniel Syme
Temple Beth El
Bloomfield Township

Jewish Right
To Return

Two issues that obviously have been
absent from the discussion of the Arab-

LETTERS on page 42

wrAl

5/26

2000

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