Kadafi Endorses a Jewish Homeland--but in Alaska

Libyan leader Moammar Kadafi suggested Tuesday that Jews could set up a homeland in either Alaska, the three Soviet Baltic republics or the formerly disputed French region of Alsace-Lorraine.

“We (Arabs), for our part, cannot accept responsibility for the atrocities of Hitler. We cannot accept Jews on our land,” the Libyan leader told a summit meeting of nonaligned countries in Belgrade.

He suggested that the responsibility should be shouldered by the Germans, as onetime subjects of Hitler and sometime rulers of Alsace; the United States, as the main supporter of Israel, and the Soviet Union, which allows Jewish emigration to Israel and the United States.

“Let them go to Alsace-Lorraine. Let them go to Alaska. Let them go to the Baltic states. Let them go to any of these places,” Kadafi said.

“The United States is encouraging Jewish emigration from Russia to Palestine. If you accept a Jewish state in Palestine, let us change the map of the whole world,” he added.

“We, the Muslim people, wish to live in New York because we like to live in New York. Why not? The Jews like Palestine, so we like New York as a place to live.”

Kadafi, surrounded by a phalanx of bodyguards, including two women in green military fatigues and scarlet berets, caused a stir earlier in the week by sending six camels to Belgrade so that he could drink their milk during the summit.

During his almost 90-minute speech--far beyond the 20-minute limit that Yugoslavia, the summit host, has tried to impose on speakers--some delegates shifted in their seats as Kadafi made his proposals for a Jewish homeland.

Kadafi recalled that France and Germany had fought several wars over Alsace-Lorraine before the region was restored to French control after World War II.

“Up to the present time, it is a no man’s land,” he said. “There will be another war because it stands between Germany and France. If it is deemed to be part of Germany, let Germany give it to the Jews. Let it be a buffer state between Germany and France.”

Kadafi, dressed in a white robe and a traditional black Libyan hat, reminded his audience that the United States had bought Alaska from Imperial Russia in the 19th Century.

“America is sympathetic to the Jews, and Russia is allowing emigration to the Promised Land, so let’s give them Alaska,” he said.