Sir: History is repeating itself and Most of the arguments
of Messrs M. Gershlick and S. Shipton (September 4) sound exactly now as apologies of Stalinists against those who tried to tell the truth about what happened in USSR, did then.
For example, I well remember that during the notorious ' Doctors Plot' the stock defence of the Stalinists and their fellow-travellers was Kaganovitch, He was More than the deputy-minister Whom Mr Shipton quotes! By the Way he is deputy-minister in Charge of the -health of the Arabs °,,11,1Y — which contrary to Mr anipton's allegations completely Parallels the South African situation. He is also not married in Israel. Marriages between Jews and Gentiles are illegal in Israel. He larried in a foreign country, and .te Israeli law recognizes his wife aLs "woman known to live with "Ira," only. Also Mr Gershlick's contentions about the "harmony and Progress" of Arabs in Israel are worth exactly as much as similar claims made about Jews (and other nationalities) in Russia. Arabs in Israel were dispossessed ef Most of their land and exactly as in South Africa serve mainly as unskilled workers. To give one raample. The village of Urn-Elnum used to possess 135,000 and du ;11nt ,0'as of land in 1948. Now it has00. The rest was confiscated .Riven to Jews, and Arabs are even !orbidden to sub-rent this land! Yes the lands which the Israeli Pvernment has transferred to the ‘c onistic Organization (the Jewish National Foundation — those White and blues boxes found, I Sc,1,11?Pose, in Messrs Gershlick and .?ruPton's houses) no Arab can .tent, no Arab can buy, and by law 1,1? Arab can receive work on l'Pent! A very good example of tne 'Brotherhood of Man'! Furthermore Jews and Arabs nve under two different legal 7stems. Only to Arabs are applied e notorious 1945 Defence Regu'ation, denounced once by the Present Israeli Minister of Justice 118 "Worse than Nazi." As to the precise charges on Which Mr Gershlick wants to refute me: Rabbi Shneurson is not ' obscure ' but most famous, and has followers in England too. Mr Shatar, the President of Israel, is indeed his friend and disciple and proud of it. Amongst his other friends are the Generals A. Sharon and R. Ze'evi, the chief commanders of the southern and eastern fronts; the ministers, Burg, Bentor, Werhaptig, Sherf, Chazani and Ge'vati.
About the problem of Arab refugees people of foreign countries are simply behind the times. Not only the responsibility, but the planning many years beforehand of the expulsion of the Arabs is admitted by the most reputable Hebrew papers for a long time. So Mr Joseph Weiz, the late head of the Colonization Department of the Jewish Agency, related in Davar (the paper of the Israeli trade unions and the ruling Labour party) on September 29, 1967 as follows: "To the following conclusion I had reached already in 1940: amongst ourselves it should be clear that in this country there is no room for both peoples together. With Arabs we shall not achieve our aim to be an independent nation in this small country. The only solution is Palestine, at least Western Palestine, without Arabs, and there is no other way but to transfer all the Arabs from here to the neighbouring countries. To transfer all of them, not one village, not one tribe shall be left, and the transfer should be • directed to Syria and to Iraq.
... Years later when the UN resolved to partition Palestine into two states to our great fortune the War of Independence broke out, and in it a double miracle came to pass: a territorial victory and the removal of the Arabs. In the SixDay War there came to pass one great miracle, a tremendous territorial victory but the majority of the inhabitants of the liberated territories remained 'stuck' to them — a fact which can undermine the very foundations of the state." As to the torture: It is sufficient to quote only one case: Mr Yusuf Abdallah Adwan of TulKarem was kept in prison and tortured for nine months. His lawyer Mrs F. Larger (14 Koresh Street, Jerusalem) was not allowed to see him for this whole time. Finally she met him by chance in the waiting room of the Military Appeal Commission on September 8, 1969, and immediately saw numerous signs of torture. When she requested the head of the Appeal Commission, Mayor Wolfson, to interest himself in this notorious case — the lips of Mr Adwar had visible marks of burning — he refused, saying it was not his business. In spite of all appeals not the slightest inquiry has been made!
Finally something about the claims made about Judaism. Like every religion and every culture Judaism has its good and its bad side. It should not be forgotten that Rabbis Shneurson and Oershuni invoke the Bible! For genocide — killing the whole people including babies—is found in the Bible, and justified there if carried out by Jews, The verse of I Samuel XV.3 reads: "Now go and smite Arnalek and utterly destroy 'them and spare them not, but slay both man and woman, infant and suckling, ox and sheep, camel and ass." Does Mr Gershlick
approve of this verse and its modern application to Arabs? He omitted to say so. Indeed his manner of answer has reminded me of those Germans who used to quote and boast of Kant in order to shield Hitler; it convinced me, even more than Rabbi Shneurson did, that Jews, like Germans before them, are undergoing right now a process of Nazification, and I say it as a Jew, but one who wants to remain a human being.
Israel Amos Jerusalem, Irsael
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