Pag* 3
SERVING NEBRASKA. Omaha. Neb., Frl., Aug»«t6,1382
o
tin
h leader Omahan (X) nick will g 7:30 p.m. in ine jcwtsn community Center on his perspective of the Middle Kail. The appearance of Mr. Klutznick, Secretary of Commerce in the Carter Administration, and past president of B'nai B'rith International and the World Jewish Congress, lias been announced by the Jewish Cultural Arts Council.
Construction closes main JCC driveway The Jewish Community Center has announced the temporary closing of the existing main driveway at 132nd Street. Steven J. Hod, executive director, said the main drive will close on or about Monday for approximately seven days for grading and paving as the. new main drive. Meanwhile, a temporary t-ntrance to the parking lot will be located at the North
end of the property where the old dirt road into Livingston Plaza was located. Mr. Rod said it will be necessary for all motorists to use "extreme caution" and obey speed limits of five to 10 miles an hour during this construction period, At the end of the seven day period, the new four lane main driveway will be open and the entire parking lot will be paved, he said.
§| *-,-,
B'nai B'rith plans to fight propaganda WASHINGTON (JTA) The world's largest Jewish service organization is mobilizing its membership in 45 countries to counter the propaganda war being waged against Israel's attempt to remove the Palestine Liberation Organization from Lebanon. As part of the effort, B'nai B'rith International is sending letters to euch of more that 200,000 members in the United States. The last time such letters were sent was in March 1977 following the Hnnafi Muslim take-over of B'nni B'rith International headquarters here. Included in the packet is a four-page folder which provides answers to the most frequently asked questions about the Lebanese situation.
Among the | 4 s ? u e s •*—tlisciraed, 'be folder takes up the basic issue of why Israel has moved all the way to Ileirut instead of stopping at the 40-kilomctcr line as it originally had indicated it would. Other questions include the issues of civilian casualties, the alleged violation of agreements on the use of American arms, and the so-called division among Jews over the war. The folder also Instructs B'nai B'rith members on how to make their views known to government ofMain Slrtfl in SIdon on Ihr beach front. Shows selective bombing by Israel. Missile lite in ficials and the public at ri.Oorcu|il«l rmidence destroyed. Mosque and adjoining structure untouched. Photo large. courtesy of ,\nll-l>rfamnllonl*agiieofirnal B'rith. (Miter photos on pages. In a covering letter, B'nai
Selective bombing
B'rith president Jack Spitzer and executive vice president Dr. Daniel Thrusz inform members that the organization"a leadership "vigorously" supports Israel's roll in the current crisis and endorses the
Israeli-American peace plar that calls for the reestablishmerit of a central Lebanese government, guaranteed security of Israel's northern border and the removal of all foreign forces from I-ebanon.
Israeli hospitality Uack and front covers of a leaflet in Arabic distributed In Tyre and SIdon inviting Lebanese mothers and their small children to be guests of Israeli families under the ausplcies of Na'amat, Israel's largest women's organization. The leaflet, from Na'amat's "Unit for the Aid to the Civilian Population of Southern Lebanon," concludes by saying: "Let us hope that your visit will establish a bridge of undmtanding among our peoples." In the United States, Pioneer Womrn-Na'amat is the sister organization of Israel's major women's group and Is helping to fund the hospitality program.
The real story of Lebanon Kdilw* Note: A fttory on Ihr N'rw llrpubllc magazine'* attack on Amrrlran mrdla for ho»tllily toward l*rarl wan carried in part In lant wrrk't IMUF of thr Jewish Pro*. The conclusion follows: "In both major coastal cities, hours before the Israeli -ilUick, leaflets had been dropped, catling on the inhabitants to flue to the beaches, which would be guaranteed by the Israelis as open or war-free zones. Thai's what the cities could have been had the PI/) entrenched (hcmwlvrs in the hills and'not in the cities. In Sidnn, I was told by u local merchant, the I'LO. fir<rl)iiml>c<l a street <if shops to emphasize its intent that people not leave." Pointing out lA'banon lias not had a census for more1 that i\ generation, I'm-t/. wrote that the PLO will not allow the Unite! Nations to do a count of the refugees in the camps lest allocations be reduced. "As on Chicago's voting rolls, old peoplcdon't really die in the camps. Their food rations go on forever. The populaton of Lebanon is roo.ooo new refugees in the south transparent
since that is roughly the total number of inhabitants of the war zone — from the Mediterranean in the west to the Syrian front in the cast. Even the scaled-down number of 300,000 refugees defies logic ond one's eyes. A number that never seemed to change is of those in West Beirut. Although for weeks correspondents have described — and I saw — long lines of cars laden with people and belongings leave the PLOhcId sector, there always were 500,000 people left. The Israelis' guess is between 200,000 and 250,000." "Given the impossibility of accurately judging the number of the living, It is not surprising that sloppincss and propaganda determine the number of the dead," Perctz snid. "In the beginning the high toll seemed to carry the cachet of international relief agencies" but "the source was never actually the International Hod Cross or any UN agency, though they have been widely cited. The numbtfrs came from the Palestinian Red Crescent of which Yassir Arafat's brother is president. Some early Ix'banese estimates were close to his. But the numbers from Beirut about the deaths in the south also defy logic -iind experience, This past winter there were alrplane__ crashes in Washington and Boston; it took more that a
week to know exactly how many were dead. But test month in Lebanon, we received and accepted precise daily figures — and not even from authorities on the spot but from Israel's enemies in besieged Beirut — and elsewhere. The New York Times even called Prof. Edward Said (a member of the PLO council who teaches at Columbia University) in New York to check casualty figures. Chancellor Bruno Krcisky of Austria, joining the litany for the 10,000 dead, said his source was UNICEF. Hut in Geneva, a spokeswoman for UNICEJf declared 'we have not reported any casualty figures at all.' A stronger denial came from UNICEF headquarters in New York." "This leaves the International Red Cross, which seems absolutely beside itself to deny responsibility for the casualty numbers." The ICKC director in Iz:banon, 'Francesco'Noseda, said 'he Red Cross1 only numbers wore 47 dead and 247 wounded in Tyre, including civilians frorri refugee camps. Israelis reported some 250 dead in Sidon and ten civilian dead in Nabatiye." 'The refugee estimates also have been brought into perspective," PercU wrote. "Many of the refugees, in fact, arc those returning to their homes in the south, (Continued on Page 2)