Communist Party writes

Israeli warlords
victimizing citizens

Evidence of growing distain for the demo-
cratic rights of its citizens is provided by the
Israeli government’s actions against anti-war
forces in the country.

Recent examples of punitive actions against
Israeli citizens is brought to light by the Com-
munist Party of Israel, in a letter to Canadian
Commuists.

The letter charges that Israeli ruling circles
fear the peace forces of the country, who op-
pose Israeli aggression against its neighbors.
Members of ‘the Communist Party which. unites
Arabs and Jews in its ranks are subjected to
particular restrictions. The letter is headed:

Appeal for Action and Solidarity in Defense
of the Persecuted Israeli Partisans of Peace,
Struggling Against the Policy of Aggression
and Annexation. :

Slightly abridged, the letter reads:

With the growing alienation of wider circles
from the official Israeli policy, the Govern-
ment is intensifying its encroachment on de-
mocracy and attempting, through various
means to silence and impede the struggle of
the progressive forces in the country.

Among the conspicuous victims of this hys-
teric onslaught on democracy are the anti-war
partisans of peace, who have been deprived of
basic tenets of the charter of Human Rights,
endorsed by the states of the world including
Israel. These are the scores of Israeli citizens
who suffer the limitation of the Compulsory
Residence restrictions issued against them by
the military authorities under the infamous
British Mandatory Emergency. regulations,
which Israeli governments have continually
kept in force despite popular opposition.

The list of these Israeli citizens who are
“holders” of compulsory residence orders—i.e.
orders limiting their residence to their towns
and villages—includes leading cadres and activ-
ists of the Communist Party of Israel and pro-
gressives opposed to the aggressive policy of
the Government.

Elected by the Public

They include members of the Political Bu-
reau of the CP of Israel Emile Touma (restric-
ted to Haifa) and Salim El-Kassem (restricted
to Nazareth), members of the Secretariat of
CPI Saliba Khamis and Zahi Karkabi. (restrict-
ed to Nazareth and to Haifa), all the other
Arab members of the Central Committee of the
CPI and the leading cadre of the Party dis-
tricts and branches.

Some of these hold public elective positions
such as Salim El-Kassem, Jamal Moussa (of
Acre) and Othman Abu-Ras (of Taibe) who are
members of the Executive Council of the His-
tadrut (General Trade Union Federation).

Others include municipal and local councils
members, such as Mun’em Jarjura, member of
the Nazareth municipal council, Ramzi Khou-
ry, member of the Acre municipal council; Sha-
fiq Khoureya, member of the Shafa A’mer mu-
nicipality, Raji El-Najame, member of the local
council of Aibeleen, Ahmad Nasrallah, mem-
ber of the local council of Um El-Fahm, Abdel
Hamid Abu-Aita, member of the council in
Taibe, Nassim Abu-Khaet, member of the
council in Tira; Lawyer Mohamed El-Haj,

member of the local council of Kufr Yassef and-

poet Naif Salim, member of the local council
of Pkea’s.

The latter has been further restricted by a
house arrest order which means that he has to
stay indoors from sunset to sunrise.

Further, the editors of the Communist Party

press such as CC member, Ali Ashour deputy .

chief editor of the Arabic party organ AlI-It-
tihad, A’issam El-Abbassi, Ibrahim Mougraby
and Jameel Shehadeh have all -been restricted
to their towns, the first two in Haifa and the
latter two in the village of Kufr Yassef. So has
been restricted to Nazareth the administrator
of Al-Ittihad Yousef Sabbagh.

Non-Communists Victimized Too

The Arab leaders of the Young Communist
League of Israel—Nimer Murkos, Omar Saa’di

and Wajeh Sema’n, together with other mem-
bers of the YCL Central Committee and edi-
tors of the YCL organ in Arabic Al-Ghad, poet
Salem Jubran and Nabil Aiwedah, have all
been restricted.

Among the,non-party progressives, thus vic-
timized, are lawyers such as Mohamed Mel’ari
of Haifa, and Husni Airaki of Tira, teachers
such as Hassan Bishara teaching in the second-
ary school of Taibe and Rushdi Khaskeh teach-
ing in the secondary school of Jaffa, and uni-
versity students such as Darwish Kashova’
who is not allowed to pursue his studies by
being restricted to Tira. :

The choice of Arab communists as the ob-
ject of greater discriminatory and oppressive
measures is a gross anti-communist onslaught
designed to achieve two objectives.

a) To limit the political activity of the Com-
munist Party—the consistent militant fighter
against the government policy of aggression
and expansion.

b) To sow suspicions among the Israeli pub-
lic, which is being subjected to an intensive
process of brain-washing with chauvinist na-
tional sentiment, as to the patriotism of the
Communist Party and its international policy.

A coarse example of the first was the action
of the authorities in Ramleh where compulso-
ry residence orders were used to frighten a
number of young people and force them to
leave the Young Communist ‘League.

As to the second objective the anti-commu-
nist campaign has never disappeared, though
its intensity varies.

Demand Withdrawal

The Israeli ruling circles are most fearful of
all the peace forces and concretely of the Com-

munist Party of Israel because it embodies, in -

its policy, the best interests of the Israeli peo-
ple. This is the more so because being a party
uniting Jewish and Arab communists it em-
phasizes the validity of the community of in-

terests of both the Jewish and Arab peoples. -

By calling for the implementation of the
Security Council resolution No. 242, it merges
patriotism with internationalism. By demand-
ing the withdrawal of the Israeli forces from
the occupied Arab territories, and the recog-
nition of the sovereignty and independence of
all states in the region, by demanding the res-
pect of the right of all the peoples in the Mid-
dle East, including the rights of the people of
Israel and the Palestine Arab people, the Com-
munist Party of Israel expresses the highest
national interests of Israel. .

Unpopular Policy

The Israeli Government practises cynicism
and shows disrespect to peoples’ intelligence
when it claims that its measures are invoked
to “safeguard the security of Israel!”

The fact that these restrictions are part of
the general anti-communist incitement and har-
assment of communists and anti-war forces
negates the claim that compulsory residence

orders against scores of Israeli citizens are a,

measure against a “threat to the country’s
security.” :

Only political considerations and a fear for
a growing unpopular policy, can prompt the Is-
raeli ruling circles to take such arbitrary,
course actions which trampie on democratic
freedoms and deprive citizens of their elemen-
tary right—freedom of movement in their
homeland.

We therefore call upon you to express your
solidarity with the fight to eliminate this gross
violation of democracy which is also an ex-
pression of national discrimination.

The letter, signed by Meir Vilner, general
secretary of the Communist Party of Israel,
calls upon Canadians to ‘publicize these facts;
mobilize support in defense of the people fight-
ing for peace and against the policy of aggres-
sion and annexation, and protest to the Israeli
Government, demanding the abrogation of
these restrictions which are a flagrant viola-
tion of the basic principles of human rights.”

PACIFIC TRIBUNE—FRIDAY, DECEMBER 22, 1972—PAGE 6

These Lebanese children, killed this year by Israeli raiders, were
victims of long-range Israeli plan, blurted out by General Peled, to
permanently incorporate Arab lands into Israel.

Plan since 1967:
to keep Arab lands

It is five years since the UN
Security Council unanimously de-
manded the evacuation of Isra-
eli troops from all Arab territo-
ries ocuupied as a result of ag-

* gression. Yet, stubbornly follow-

ing its policy of annexation,
Israel is seeking to “legalize”
the fruits of its aggression.
“By all indications, not only
does Tel Aviv not intend to ful-
fill “the resolution of the UN
Security Council, but it comes
out with new plans for their
‘Israelization’,” journalist  L.
Koryavin points out in the
Soviet newspaper, Izvestia, and
is incorporating these territo-
ries into the state of Israel.
This is evidenced by Tel
Aviv’s new illegal actions con-
cerning the occupied Gaza sec-
tor, the western bank of the
Jordan River, and Golan Heights

‘in Syria. The Tel Aviv authori-

ties have worked out strategic
plans for the “development” of
Arab territories, spread over 10
years.

Plan to Keep Arab Lands

The Izvestia journalist re-
lates that, ‘“‘A representative of
the Palestine Liberation Organ-
ization, Said Hassan,.in a mes-
sage to the UN Special Political
Committee, referred in this con-
nection to a very eloquent re-
port in the Tel Aviv newspaper
Ma’ariv quoting Israeli General
Peled who had blurted out the
secret plans of Tel Aviv.

“According to the general,
Israel by its 1967 attack had
intended to undermine forever
the military potential of Egypt
and other Arab states and thus
first establish its military and
political dominance in the oc-
cupied Arab territories and then

make also “de jure” their incor-
poration into the Israeli state,”
said Koryavin.

Israel appears determined to
continue setting up’ in occupied
Arab territories its militarized
settlements, expelling the indi-
genous Arab population from
their native places and replac-
ing them by Israelis. In those
settlements, as an Arab journal-
ist aptly put it, “the sword will
prevail over the plough.” With
purely military functions as-
signed to them, the settlements
will become bases for Tel Aviv’s
new aggressive plans. _

No U.S. Peace Bids

The Moslem Council of Jerus-
alem published a statement re-
cently stressing that there are

instances when the occupation” ~

authorities try to oust the Arab
population and replace it by Is-
raelis. They are_also closing
down Moslem mosques and re-
building them into “religious
units of Judaism.”

Arab political circles connect
the outrages being committed
by the Israeli occupiers in the
captured Arab. territories with
the support which Tel Aviv re-
ceives from the United States.

Vice-Premier and Minister of
Information and Culture of
Egypt, Hatem stressed that at
present there are no proposals
coming from the U.S. on the
settlement of the Middle East
crisis, especially proposals
which would be aimed at the
evacuation of Israeli troops
from the occupied Arab territo-
ries. Moreover, Washington, as
the minister stressed, also put
pressure on the UN to try to
prevent the discussion there of
Israeli outrages.

In an Israeli concentration camp.