Jews and Arabs
Sir: One of the most disgusting features in Mr David M. Jacobs's remarks — to use his own style — is his way of answering facts with misleading and unfounded generalisations. Take his use of the term ' Jewish refugees from Arab lands.' The greatest Arab-Jewish community in Israel is from Morocco. They came mostly in the years 1950-1957. During those years Morocco was firmly under the French rule and France the chief ally of Israel. In addition both the late Mohammad V and his son Hassan II, kings of Morocco, are famous for their particular friendship and protection of the Jewish community. How then can Jews of Morocco be thought of as ' refugees '? Who expelled them who loaded them on trucks and brought them to the border, as in the cases that I mentioned and to which Mr Jacobs — disgustingly — does not refer?
But perhaps the best evidence is what the Moroccan Jews in Israel are saying right now, and I will quote Mr Kokhavi Shemesh, one of the leaders of the Israeli Black Panthers.' Referring to the supposed hatred of Arabs for Jews he says: "The establishment is the one who cultivated this hatred by means employed already when we lived in Iraq and Morocco. The Jews lived next to the Arabs in Iraq in peace and rest until the emissaries of Zionism came and threw bombs into Jewish centres in order to generate conflicts between us and the Arabs." (Ma'ariv, April 11, 1972) It will interest you and your readers that a common JewishArab alignment is being rapidly formed in Israel and outside, whose aim will be to prevent both our peoples being used by foreign racists. While of course there are some Jewish intellectuals who oppose both apartheid and Zionism, like me, for example, the important point is that the Zionistic Federation and all the Jewish organisations dominated by it have refrained from a single declaration about the apartheid. This includes such organisations as the World Jewish Congress, the American Jewish Congress, and the Commonwealth Association of the Jewish Congregations. On the part of the South African government a similar attitude is displayed. While money cannot be exported from South Africa for any charitable purpose whatsoever — even the Red Cross and Oxfam — Zionistic funds going to Israel are excepted from this prohibition. Your readers have only to ask themselves the old question: ' cui bono?' and they will come to the conclusion — to imitate Lord Macaulay — that not only the Zionistic organisation supports apartheid but it does so for money . .
Finally I would like to quote some figures in rebuttal of Mr F. E. Isaac's (Letters August 5) totally false picture of the situation of the Arab minority in Israel. I will concentrate on Arabs in Israeli universities. In the Hebrew University of Jerusalem among about 1,500 teachers there was not a single Arab last year. The number of Arab students was about 250 out of 16,000, including 7,000 Jewish students from overseas. Similarly the Weitzman Institute of Rehovot has not a single Arab scientist or student. Tel Aviv University has one Arab assistant teacher. Haifa University has one Arab lecturer and five assistants. Haifa Technical Institute has none" and the same is true for Be'er Sheba College and the Bar-Ilan University. When considering that Arabs in Israel are 13 per cent of the population — more than the percentage of Jews in any country other than Israel — this is a most shameful record unequalled I believe by any other civilised country in respect of any other significant minority. Your readers would do well if they consider all the assertions of Mr Isaacs in the light of those figures.
Israel Amos London, WI
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