The

On Sept. 28, 400 Ottawa Jews
narched before the Soviet em-
bassy protesting the treatment
of Jews in the USSR. In reply to
an article appearing the follow-
ng day in the Ottawa Citizen,
Victor Mikheev, Counsellor of
the USSR embassy wrote the
1ewspaper an open letter which

de several important’ points.
The Citizen story reported
: the protesters claimed
Viet Jews were denied their
Itural heritage. “To deny a
Iture means to deny access to
cwledge,”’ writes Mikheev.

gest percent of educated peo-
e. No other ethnic group in any
ountry can boast 25% of its
adults with a university degree.
“There are 2,151,000 Jews in
the USSR — about 0.8% of the
sountry’s population. However,
hey comprise 6.1% of its sci-

of its writers and 3.4% of its
doctors.” :

Turning to religion, Mikheev
argues that cultural heritage
cannot, as many suggest; be re-
duced to religion. While nobody
as and is persecuted in the
SSR for religious, beliefs, he
Writes, “Soviet Jews, as’ other
ople, prefer science to beliefs
d do not wish to remain be-
d in the pursuit of knowl-

PART 4

Role of the United Nations

_ Because of broad international
Support and the jactive political
Campaigns of the PLO, the inter-
National community as it is le-
Bally organized in the United Na-
ions, conferred legitimacy on
the Palestinian struggle and the
PLO as the sole representative
Of the Palestinian people. Initial-
ly, the UN in 1948, recognized
the right of the Palestinians to
 Tepatriation in Resolution 194,
and reaffirmed that right almost
€very year since then.

dealt with the Palestinians only
as refugees. Beginning in 1969,
_ 4S a direct consequence of the
_ armed struggle of the PLO, and

the General Assembly recogniz-
€d the status of the Palestinian
Ople as a colonized people en-

‘Soviet Jews account for the’

tists, 5.2% of its artists, 6.9%

From then until 1967 the UN

_ the political support of the so- _
Clalist system, the Afro-Asian ©
States and some European states, .

PLO Chairman Yasser Arafat speaking in Havana.

edge.” Only 3% of Soviet Jews
in the European part and 12%

in the Asian part of the USSR’

still consider themselves believ-.
ers. “Saviet Jews are members
of the government, the Commu-
nist Party, the KGB, Foreign Af-
fairs, the army etc. — just as all
other national groups.”
Answering the “prisoners of
conscience” argument alleging
Soviet Jews are persecuted for
asking to emigrate, Mikheev
describes as “‘strange logic” the
protesters in Ottawa who “pre-
tend that the USSR doesn’t like
‘its Jews’ and on the other hand
claim the Soviet Union will not
let them go.”
He ‘says that there are now
115,000 Jews from the USSR in
Israel who over the last 30 years
received their exit visas without

A reply to the Ottawa Citizen

role of Soviet Jews

delay. In the post war period
less than 2,000 were refused
visas — those with military in-

formation, families who would.

be abandoned, and persons un-
der investigation for criminal
acts. :
“But we face another prob-
lem,”’ he says. “After a stay in
the West, many Jews are apply-
ing to return to the USSR —
the number is constantly grow-
ing. I can tell you, for instance,
there are presently 10 applica-
tions in the Soviet embassy in
Canada from former Soviet Jews
to return home.”

Mikheev invites the Ottawa
Citizen to investigate the reas-
ons for such moves by Canadian
Jews, suggesting this might be
instructive to the paper’s read-
ers.

Stop actions against Portugal

TORONTO — The Canadians
for a Democratic Portugal re-
cently passed a resolution call-
ing on Canadian, U.S. and West-
ern European countries to lift
their economic embargo against
Portugal, on the NATO powers
to cease all military exercises
off the shores of that country.

Another resolution points to

_ The PLO and the

ast ina series On the
Pslestine struggle for justice

titled to independence. Every
year since, the General Assem-
bly passed resolutions recogniz-
ing that the status of the Pales-
tinians today is the same as the
status of the Africans in Rho-
desia — they are oppressed and
they defined the oppressor as
Israel. :
Several UN resolutions affirm-
ed the right of the Palestinians
to struggle — by all means —
to attain independence. The cul-

mination’ of steady recognition .
of the Palestinian people, came

in October and November 1974
when the UN General Assembly
invited the PLO to attend the
29th Session and address it on
the aspirations of the Palestinian
people.

Subsequent to the address de-
livered by Yasser Arafat, chair-
man of the PLO Executive Com-
mittee, and the ensuing debate,
the General Assembly passed
two historic. resolutions. And
they were passed on a memor-

Vi

the military attacks by mercen-
ary troops backed by South
Africa against newly-indepen-
dent Angola under the cover of
FNLA and Unita and calls on
the Canadian government to
give recognition to the legitim-
ate Angolan government and
press for its seating in the
United Nations.

able date, November 22, the
same date that the Security
Council in 1967 passed an in-
- famous resolution 242 whereby
it did not recognize the Pales-
tinians. But in 1974 the General
Assembly did. -
One resolution recognized the
right of the Palestinians to in-
dependence in Palestine. The
other called for full observer
status for the PLO as the sole
representative of the Palestinian
people — with rights to speak
but not to vote. Today, no less
than 105 states in the world (just
35 short of the UN membership)
recognize the PLO. This is more
states than recognize Israel.

_A Long Struggle

Ever sinee the onset of the
Palestinian-Zionist - struggle in
Palestine, our people have had a
single goal — of independence.
Thus they rejected British co-
lonial control exercised between
1917 and 1948. They - violently
rejected British attempts to as-
sist in the transformation of Pa-
lestine from an Arab land into
a European Jewish national

- home. ”

Despite. many strikes and re-
volutions between 1917 and
1948 the Palestinians were de-
nied their independence and, in
1948, were unsuccessful in re-
sisting the establishment of Is-

| crael. The objective reality of
Palestine changed materially in-

the following two decades and
Israel succeeded in permanently
altering the demographic ratio of
the Palestinian population. But
the struggle continued.

In their attempt to recognize
the existence of a large Jewish
population, almost equal to the

Arab, Christian and Moslem po-

Date to be set in January

Plans under way for
world Communist meet

By FILS DELISLE

BERLIN—The date of the Eu-
ropean Conference of Commun-
ist and Workers’ Parties will be
decided early in January at a
meeting in Berlin.

This fact emerges from the

mid-November consultations here .

of a special commission set up
by the parties to prepare confer-
ence documents... It demolishes
the wishful thinking and the
crude fictions in the North Ame-
rican press, which say the con-
ference will never get off the
ground.

One of the most grotesque of
these is last week’s New York
Times story about difficulties
caused by ‘“Moscow-sponsored”
strategy of “telling” some Euro-
pean Communist parties ‘what
line to follow in their own coun-
tries.”

An examination of relations
betwen Communist parties in the
capitalist and socialist countries
of Europe shows that no parties
in the European socialist coun-
tries have in any way sought to
impose policies upon Communist
parties in western Europe.

And, it is not the Soviet party

which. is drafting the documents
for the conference but the So-
cialist Unity Party of the German
Democratic Republic. That task
was assigned the SUP by parti-
cipating parties because the SUP
is the host party. A number of
meetings of a special editorial

commission ‘representing all the

parties cffered each the right to
propose amendments. On the
basis of such collective, demo-
cratic discussion, various changes
have been made in the docu-
ments as part of the process

‘of achieving a consensus, a

statement of aims approved by
all the participating parties. That
approach, as even the New York
Times admits .in its  other-
wise scurrilous report, led to
“progress” at the mid-Novem-
ber meeting here. -

Detractors of the conference,
some observers feel, have an
additional motive in their at-

tempts to set one party against
another. It is that a successful
conference of the Communist
and Workers parties of Europe
will give added momentum to
the movement for the holding of
such a conference on a world
scale,

: United Nations

Excerpts of a speech deli-
vered at a public meeting in
Toronto last month by Dr. I.
Abu-Lughod, Senior Consult-
ant to the Palestine Social Re-
search Centre in Beirut and
Director of Graduate Studies
at North Western University.
A Palestinian, Dr. Abu-Lug-
hod is the. author of eight
books, the best known, being
“The Transformation of Pa-
lestine” and “The Arab-Israeli
Conflict.”

We hope to provide our
readers with a background of
the Palestinian struggle for
justice. This is the last of

Nae parts.

pulation, the Palestinian move-
ment for national liberatjon
came forward with the program
of a unitary, non-sectarian, de-
mocratic state on the basis of
“one man one vote.” Such a goal,
if realized, would ensure the
survival of all individuals, irre-
spective of their national origin
or religion, on an equal -basis.

They realize, however, such
a policy conflicts most seriously
in principle and in vision with
the Zionist premise which en-
tails the establishment of a pure-
ly Jewish state for the Jewish
people. They are conscious that

Israel ‘exists on territory to.

which it has no legal title (most
of the land has been either con-
fiscated or expropriated). They
are fully aware of Israel’s rejec-
tion of the Palestinian right to
repatriation. Consequently, they
formulated their goal of ulti-
mately liberating Palestine from
a regime which they view as a
settler, colonial regime.
. The Ultimate Goal

In confronting a settler regime
(just as South Africa is) the Pa-
lestinians believe that armed
struggle waged by the masses
with the vorld-wide support of
free people would dismantle it.

The reality of Israeli occupa- |

PACIFIC TRIBUNE—DECEMBER 19, 1975—Page 5

tion of the West Bank and the
Gaza Strip, the gradual Israeli
success in
areas as subordinate units of
production and the success of
Israel in settling and occupying
some of these areas, combined
to pressure the Palestinians to
address themselves to the im-
mediate need of rescuing these
areas from continued occupation

and, possibly, incorporation by

Israel.

Thus the transitional program

of the PLO addressed itself to

the question of rescuing the ~

West Bank and Gaza Strip from

Israeli control and. establishing s

a national authority in any part

of Palestine which it liberates.

The PLO believes that the tran-
sitional program is a stage to-

ward total liberation. All organi-
zations: actively adhere to this
program. Palestinians in the oc-
cupied areas showed their sup-
strikes _
and demonstrations which are
the only means open to a people

port to the PLO throu,

under colonial control.

Thus the ultimate goal of the _

Palestinians is the establishment
of a state for all those Moslems,
Christians and Jews who con-

sider Palestine their homeland. __

integrating these

cial