Israeli Settlements

Your editorial included some false analogies and misperceptions which, unfortunately, cloud the issue of resettling Soviet and Ethiopian Jews in Israel. In the next five years, the Israeli people will be called upon to absorb 1 million new immigrants from the Soviet Union and Ethiopia.

This enormous movement of immigrants represents the successful culmination of the efforts of four successive U.S. Presidents who steadfastly pushed the Soviet Union to open up the gates of freedom. Now that those gates are open and Soviet Jews are free to leave, it is not unreasonable to ask the United States to co-sign commercial loans to enable Israel to borrow money from U.S. and European banks to build schools, sewers, roads and homes and to create new jobs.

Linking this humanitarian act to the political future of the settlements in the occupied areas is inappropriate and unworthy of two countries which are democratic allies. It is unfair to compare withholding approval of loan guarantees to Israel with America’s denial of trade benefits to the Soviet Union because of the latter’s restrictive emigration policies. The trade benefits to the Soviet Union were economic, not humanitarian. Moreover, the Soviet Union’s policy until very recently was to suppress free speech and civil rights. Israel is a democracy which upholds the best standards of free expression.

The issue of settlements and the future status of the West Bank and Gaza is important and ultimately must be addressed during future peace negotiations. In the meantime, however, we cannot allow the recent Soviet and Ethiopian immigrants in Israel to become pawns in geopolitical gamesmanship.

RABBI JOEL REMBAUM

Chair, Commission on the Middle East

Jewish Federation Council of Greater Los Angeles