Washington Report, November 1988, Page 32

Issues in the News

Israeli Study Sees "Massive Increase" in Civil Rights Violations: A human rights study released in Israel in late October accused Israeli occupation authorities of pursuing a double standard of justice in which Palestinian Arabs are punished much more severely than Israelis convicted of the same or lesser offenses. The study said Israel's own statistics revealed that to date in 1988 more than 250 Palestinians have been killed, more than 5,000 injured, and more than 18,000 arrested, including 2,500 detained administratively without charge. This, the study said, is a "massive increase" in violations of Arab civil rights since the Palestinian uprising began 10 months earlier.

Plastic Bullets Increase Injuries: Israeli Defense Minister Yitzhak Rabin says he is "not worried" at concern expressed by the US and other governments over increased Palestinian deaths and injuries since Israeli soldiers began using plastic bullets in occupied territories. "Our purpose is to increase the number of (wounded) among those who take part in violent activities, but not to kill them," Rabin said. "The rioters are suffering more casualties. That is precisely our aim." Since the bullets penetrate the body but are said to be non-lethal when fired at a range of more than 75 yards, Israeli rules of engagement have been relaxed to enable Israeli soldiers to fire at Palestinians even in non-life-threatening situations.

Israeli Poll Shows Shifts Toward Conciliation: A poll commissioned by Israel's Labor Coalition and carried out by the Canadian firm Desima showed such remarkable Israeli public opinion shifts toward conciliatory positions that it has been challenged by Likud's official pollster, Mina Tsemach. The Desima poll released in early September showed 60 percent of Israelis favor negotiations with the Palestine Liberation Organization if it accepts UN Security Council resolutions 242 and 338, recognizes Israel, and abandons terrorism; 80 percent believe "territories, peace, and security" to be the year's most important political issue; 71 percent favor an international conference on Middle East peace; 11 percent favor unconditional talks with the PLO; 37 percent favor a Palestinian state if a stable peace can be achieved; 60 percent oppose a Palestinian state under any circumstances; 57 percent favor a territorial compromise; 42 percent oppose territorial compromise; and 72 percent favor evacuation of the Gaza Strip as part of a stable peace settlement.

In her own polling for Israel's Union of Chambers of Commerce, critic Tsemach says she found 84 percent of the Israeli public consider economic policy to be a central issue in the elections, while 81 percent similarly consider the Arab uprising in the occupied territories to be a central election issue. Tsemach expressed "amazement" at the Desima figure showing 60 percent of Israelis favoring negotiations with the PLO under the conditions specified above, saying "in my polls the figure has remained consistent for months, never exceeding 50 percent."

Israeli Political Parties Number 28: A total of 28 political parties registered to appear on the 1988 Israeli election ballot, including the two major political blocs, the right-wing Likud and the left-wing Labor Alignment. The number was reduced, however, when the Israeli Knesset banned Rabbi Meir Kahane's Kach Party from participating in the 1988 elections, on grounds that his program to expel all 2.5 million Arabs in Israel and the occupied territories is racist. Removal of Kach, which held one seat in the outgoing Knesset, and which was expected to capture three to seven seats in 1988, was expected to divert a significant number of voters to the Likud and its extreme right-wing allies.

Hadassah Is No. 1: With 385,000 members in the United States and Puerto Rico, Hadassah is the largest Jewish women's voluntary organization in the US and the largest Zionist organization in the world, according to the American Zionist Foundation, which reports that Hadassah raised $65.6 million for projects worldwide in 1987. B'nai B'rith International, the largest Jewish men's organization, has 150,000 members and its separate women's affiliate, B'nai B'rith Women, reports 125,000 members. Other Jewish organizations and their claimed membership figures include the American Jewish Committee, with 50,000 members and a 1988 budget of $20 million; the American Jewish Congress with 50,000 members and a budget of $8 ,million; and the Anti-Defamation League (ADL), a non-membership offshoot of B'nai B'rith. The ADL has a budget of $29 million.

AIPAC Under Jewish Fire: The Anti-Defamation League, the American Jewish Committee, and the American Jewish Congress have recently criticized hard-line tactics and pro-Likud policies of the registered pro-Israel lobbying group, the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, which claims 55,000 members and has a $6.6 million budget this year. The three criticizing organizations are considering setting up in Washington, DC, their own "Israel Desk" to serve as an alternative voice to AIPAC, whose activities also are coming under increasingly critical media scrutiny.

How the Iran-Iraq War Ended: The People's Mujaheddin, an Iranian political party opposed to the Islamic fundamentalist government of the Ayatollah Khomeini in Iran, has smuggled out details of a July 17 Tehran meeting at which a decision reached the day before by the ayatollah and Parliamentary Speaker and Armed Forces Commander Ali Akhbar Hashemi Rafsanjani to accept a cease-fire with Iraq was discussed with some 40 key government, military, and religious officials assembled from major cities throughout Iran. At the meeting, attended by Khomeini's son Ahmad, officials reported that the army would have to be completely re-equipped and even then could expect no victories for at least five years. Meanwhile, the Iranian treasury was empty, the country was facing an energy crisis, and Iraqi-equipped People's Mujaheddin units—which had already penetrated nearly 100 miles into Iran in two earlier military offensives—were readying a third. Rafsanjani and Iranian President Ali Khamene'i then said they would resign if the ayatollah did not personally sign with them an Iranian acceptance of the UN cease-fire resolution.

Reagan Dedicates Holocaust Museum: President Reagan, in a speech dedicating the cornerstone for the US Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington, denounced revisionists engaged in "minimizing or even denying the truth of the holocaust" and called upon the Soviet Union to release Soviet Jews who wish to emigrate to Israel. The museum will be built with an estimated $170 million to be raised privately on land donated by the federal government.

Jewish Emigration from USSR Still Rising: Of 2,051 Soviet Jews allowed to emigrate in September, 190 or 9.3 percent went to Israel, according to the national conference on Soviet Jewry. The September releases brought the total number of Jews allowed to leave the USSR in 1988 to 11,238. Most Jewish emigrants still are passing through Vienna. Only 76 Soviet Jews decided in September to fly directly to Israel by way of Bucharest, Rumania. It appears that 1988 will be the highest Jewish emigration year since 1980, when 21,471 Jews were permitted to leave the Soviet Union. The 1988 figure so far is 12 times the total for the same time in 1986.

Sephardic Jewish Leaders Meet in Israel: World Sephardic Jewish leaders meeting in Jerusalem October 19 described themselves as a "force for intergroup tolerance and intergroup harmony in Israel and the diaspora." Sephardic Jews left Spain in 1492 at a time when both Muslims and Jews were being expelled, and took refuge in Islamic lands from Morocco to Afghanistan. They were the first Jews to arrive in the United States, coming in 1654 to both New York and Rhode Island from Brazil. Although they now are a majority of the Jews in Israel, they comprise only 10 percent of Jews outside that country. Of America's five to six million Jews, about 300,000 are Sephardic.

Germany Resumes Libyan Ties: West Germany is resuming full diplomatic relations with Libya after a break of more than two years because of Libya's alleged involvement in a terrorist attack on a West Berlin discotheque in which two American servicemen and a Turkish woman suffered fatal injuries.

Spokesman Says PLO Ready to Negotiate With Israel: PLO spokesman Bassani Abu Sharif told newsmen during Yasser Arafat's visit to Strasbourg to address the European Parliament in October that the PLO leader's explicit endorsement in his speech of UN Security Council resolutions 242 and 338 was a clear-cut endorsement of Israel's right to exist. "Yasser Arafat made clear and said in front of hundreds of parliamentarians that he is holding out his hand for peace, and he is waiting for a courageous Israeli leader to sit down and talk to to negotiate peace," Abu Sharif said. "We want to go to an international conference to negotiate with Israel." He said that by recognizing and negotiating with the PLO, Israel would obtain "a negotiated peace (and) an international guarantee for peace and security." He added that "we will be ready to accept UN forces on the borders, if this would make the Israeli government feel better."

Jewish Peace Vigils in New York: Pro-Israel peace groups are staging weekly vigils in New York in front of the building at 515 Park Ave. which houses a number of national Jewish organizations including the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations, United Israel Appeal, and the World Zionist Organization-American Section. Participants, whose weekly vigils grew out of a demonstration last April of several thousand US supporters of Israel's left-of-center parties, call for negotiations between Israel and the Palestinians and seek to dispel the impression that most US Jews support hard-line strategies of the Likud bloc over the more conciliatory positions of the Labor Alignment and other Israeli political parties to its left. Vigil participants come from more than 18 groups including the New Jewish Agenda, American Friends of Peace Now, Americans for a Progressive Israel, and the International Jewish Peace Union.

Peace PAC Formed: Formation of the Israel-Palestine Peace Political Action Committee (I-PPPAC) has been announced by Jerome Segal of the University of Maryland. Board members include former Democratic presidential candidate George McGovern, editor Michael Lerner of Tikun magazine, journalist and author Milton Viorst, and Ezra Goldstein of New Jewish Agenda's Middle East Task Force. The organization, which plans Middle East peace activities well beyond the 1988 elections, is headquartered at Suite 141, 4431 Lehigh Rd., College Park, MD 20740.

Egypt Delays Taba Takeover: The government of Egypt has agreed to an Israeli appeal to delay until after Israeli elections the Egyptian reoccupation of the Taba beach area on the Gulf of Aqaba. The area's return to Egypt was confirmed by an international arbitration commission decision. Egyptian occupation of the area will mark the final withdrawal by Israel from all Egyptian territory seized in 1967, as specified in the Camp David agreements that preceded the Egyptian-Israel peace agreement.

Israeli President Excoriates US Jewish Community: Israeli President Chaim Herzog, in a Jerusalem interview with Jerusalem Post Washington correspondent Wolf Blitzer marking 40 years of Israeli independence, harshly criticized the US Jewish community. "When the history of the establishment of the state of Israel and the creation of this dream turning into reality—of this dream of which we dreamt for 2,000 years—comes to be written," Herzog said, "one of the most disturbing and disappointing chapters will be the story of the failure of the greatest Jewish community in the world—the American Jewish community—to take advantage of the historic opportunity which was offered to the Jewish people—for which they prayed for 2,000 years—and not to come on aliyah (immigration) to Israel in substantial numbers."