A Talk with Israel's New UN Ambassador
SAMUELS, GERTRUDE
IN A TIME OF CHANGE ATalkwith Israel's New UN Ambassador Gertrude samuels Yehuda Z. Blum, 47-year-old international lawyer and professor at Hebrew University in Jerusalem, took up his duties as...
...So obviously, they have learned that by denouncing Zionism explicity they provoke public opinion in the free world, and they want to avoid that kind of provocation...
...That was in 1948...
...It is universal peace, social justice, equality of man, the dignity of the human being—all concepts that were first proclaimed in Jerusalem some 3,000 years ago...
...Samuels: Who are" they...
...Blum: I didn't speak Hebrew fluently at the time...
...It had become quite common to refer to the "Sadat peace initiative...
...Blum: As 1 understand it, the Secretary-General's position is that he traditionally does not congratulate Nobel Prize winners on their awards...
...This is largely a reflection of the current attitude here toward Israel, not the fact that in style the slightly-built, quiet-spoken, deeply religious diplomat (who has made special arrangements for kosher meats in the delegates' dining room) differs sharply from his predecessor, Chaim Herzog...
...And we have stated so publicly...
...Blum: Well, Egypt had close relations with the Soviet Union a few years ago...
...There was no party, no dinner afterward, obviously...
...Do you call it "officialese...
...Blum seemed less isolated as various delegates came over to exchange a few words, and more relaxed as we adjourned to the UN 'sStudio Oneforour talk...
...lowed, sooner or later...
...Ambassador, if a peace agreement is concluded, how soon afterward can I expect to hear the Israel Philharmonic Orchestra in Cairo...
...Samuels: Why were you released...
...As a survivor of the Nazi camps, and as an international lawyer, would you comment on that...
...We see across our border a persecuted, defenseless minority, exposed to the whims of an occupation army...
...When the British mandate terminated in May 1948, the resolution had already been overtaken by events...
...Samuels: Why German...
...Blum: Part of it was a halachik dissertation—an interpretation of a difficult Talmudic passage...
...Theye're not called for at this point...
...Ours was one of the very few groups released by the Germans and sent to Switzerland during the War...
...Samuels: Is your relationship here at the UN with the Egyptians close, do you meet them face-to-face...
...Blum: Well, it ceased to be a "peace-deterrent" force a long time ago...
...Samuels: Do you agree with your predecessor, who culled theanti-lsrael, automatic majority anti-Semitic...
...But what I would say is that many of them are still in the grip of this misguided sense of group solidarity...
...Samuels: What did you speak on...
...Blum: Referring to the Christian population of Lebanon in general...
...No one else recognized the move...
...But my mother's immediate family was virtually wiped out...
...Blum: You see, there is a misconception about how these camps were organized...
...They were the traditional phylacteries and a watch...
...Blum: Well, the Camp David framework calls for a transition period of between six and nine months—the first phase of Israeli withdrawal...
...These items would be better left for future peace negotiations...
...there are some outside the Arab camp...
...Samuels: Referring to the Christian villages...
...Because if you do not thicken existing settlements, you are in fact giving them up...
...And clearly the PLO stands to lose by the establishment of peace in the Middle East, because it is an organization that thrives on violence and bloodshed and war...
...Blum: Well, as 1 said, some of the statements made after Camp David with regard to the so-called linkage problem—that is, the future status of Judea and Samaria and even the question of Jerusalem—have not been helpful...
...I don't think it is an exaggeration to say that Lebanon finds itself under de facto Syrian occupation these days...
...Historically, of course, Jerusalem has been the capital of the Jewish people for close to 3,000 years...
...Are you concerned...
...Sometimes it uses language thai is clearly opposed to the peace-making efforts...
...Do you share his concern...
...His press officer notes that Blum "doesn't want to attack and provoke at this time in Middle East history...
...Israeli Arabs are in the same situation as Israeli Jews, from the legal point of view...
...Blum: Well, thank God, my parents, brother and sister all survived the War...
...Blum: The bar mitzvah speech was also attended by the SS guards—and that was my bar mitzvah...
...Ambassador, do you think the United Nations has a future...
...Samuels: When you speak of your "group," what are you referring to...
...It all started, of course, with the civil war in Lebanon, where the true face of that organization became quite clear to the rest of the world...
...Blum: The United States and other powers established their diplomatic missions in Tel Aviv because they believed in the viability of that part of the 1947 partition resolution that would have internationalized Jerusalem...
...Ambassador, to the background you bring to your mission here...
...Samuels: One columnist has accused President Carter of trying to revert to a "comprehensive peace scheme" which would possibly bring the Soviet Union back into these Middle East peace efforts...
...Samuels: What do you mean by that...
...In this informal setting official postures are frequently put aside...
...But as you know, the '47 partition resolution was killed by the Arabs, in 1947 and 1948, when they invaded Israel and prevented it from being implemented...
...Obviously, what happens across our border is of interest to us for security reasons...
...I believe that by virtue of the Law of Return, the same right applies to any Jew who wishes to come and settle there, and become an Israeli national, even though he is not an Israeli national at the moment...
...Samuels: Why do you make that distinction—Israelis and Jews...
...It is not being spelled out in so many words...
...The special unit is now publishing a bulletin on Palestinian rights that has reproduced all the anti-Israel speeches made in recent months...
...The spirit of Camp David has not been reflected in the deliberations here at the UN...
...Blum: The group I referred to is known in the Holocaust literature as the "Kastner group...
...Sadat on the prize...
...It was my first public appearance, I suppose...
...The Storting has corrected that view and placed the whole issue in its proper historical perspective...
...When that is completed, diplomatic relations are to be established betweeen the two countries...
...even while in exile, the Jewish people always regarded Jerusalem as its capital...
...The Jewish camp management made me a present of a loaf of bread, which was really a very precious gift under those circumstances...
...I think that's the official designation —peace-deterrent force...
...But let me point out one interesting and significant fact: The attempt to equate Zionism with racism, to denounce Zionism again, is being carried out in an indirect and backhanded way this time...
...By stepping up verbal tensions in this building, by pulling out more of the cliches and rhetoric of the past years against Israel, they hope at least to obstruct if not to stop completely the peace-making process in the Middle East...
...Without question, I think the UN has these days become the chief public relations agent for the PLO—at the expense of the world body's tax-paying members...
...When Hitler subsequently learned of our release, he flew into one of his well-known fits of rage, but by then we were already in Switzerland, fortunately for us...
...Even within the Arab world, as the peace process has advanced, the PLO has steadily lost prestige and standing...
...Such statements prejudge the issue that has to be negotiated...
...I understand you had your bar mitzvah in the Bergen-Belsen camp...
...It consisted of some 1,300 people who were released by the Germans in December 1944, and sent to Switzerland...
...Yet I'm not aware that we ever referred to East Jerusalem or the West Bank as being Jordanian-occupied prior to the 1967 war...
...This is something that not only the Secretariat but the membership as well ought to reconsider...
...Samuels: I would like to turn the discussion for a moment, Mr...
...Of course, I knew nothing of her in 1944...
...Begin and Mr...
...Ambassador, as a journalist I have been conscious of the fact that the Carter Administration and the media in general still use such terms as "Israeli-occupied East Jerusalem...
...Blum: Well, it's difficult to call it a celebration...
...Blum: For example, the Soviet Union and some of its allies...
...Blum: Definitely...
...If not for the UN, the PLO would have been relegated to oblivion by now...
...I had Hebrew preparation, but I couldn't speak everyday Hebrew, and the audience wouldn't have understood me...
...They've been engaged, in fact, in persecuting and massacring the Christian minority in Lebanon...
...IN A TIME OF CHANGE ATalkwith Israel's New UN Ambassador Gertrude samuels Yehuda Z. Blum, 47-year-old international lawyer and professor at Hebrew University in Jerusalem, took up his duties as Israel's newly-appointed ambassador to the United Nations on the day last September that the Camp David accords were announced...
...In 1950, when Jordan purportedly annexed Judea and Samaria and Eastern Jerusalem, only two states recognized the annexation: Pakistan and Great Britain, with London excluding Eastern Jerusalem from the scope of its recognition...
...Egypt led the Arab world into war in 1948, and again in 1967 and in 1973...
...Why not Hebrew...
...Would you agree...
...Samuels: How did you manage to leave the camp...
...Ambassador, did the initial spirit of Camp David reach into the corridors of the UN...
...Samuels: Even though Syria has close relations with the Soviet Union...
...We wouldn't want to see our front with Syria, which is a hostile country and one of the leading re-jectionist states, extended beyond what it is...
...Since they have not yet been fully normalized, our relations here haven't reached that stage either...
...we couldn't talk to them...
...He has been a visiting professor at the law schools of New York University and the University of Texas, Austin, is law editor of the Encyclopedia Hebraica, and his books include Secure Boundaries and Middle East Peace (1971...
...Because, you see, the philosophy underlying the United Nations Charter is basically the philosophy of the Jewish prophets...
...Definitely...
...All these rejectionists are apparently attempting to use the UN to subvert and sabotage the spirit of Camp David, the peacemaking process...
...Samuels: Was there a rabbi to instruct you...
...Even the member states of the Arab League didn't recognize it, and were sufficiently angered to threaten Jordan with expulsion from the League...
...There were also rabbis in our group...
...Ambassador, there has been much discussion and debate about the joint award of the Nobel Peace Prize to Prime Minister Begin and President Sadat...
...In his effort to establish direct contact with the Americans, he thought that a gesture of this kind would be helpful...
...I hope the philosophy of the UN will be respected by the UN—and, if so, that the U N does indeed have a future...
...Blum: Yes, indeed...
...Last year the UN set up a special unit on Palestinian rights, with a budget of close to $1 million that is being wasted on so-called scholarly studies of the history of the Palestine conflict— which, of course, are biased PLO reports...
...Samuels: Are you suggesting that Israel, if pushed hard enough, would go into Lebanon with force...
...So I would say that the same right applies to them as well...
...Now this was an unholy alliance, and some of the African stales ha\e since discovered that the bargain they struck with the Arabs was not worth pursuing...
...Samuels: For example...
...Blum: It is part of the ongoing campaign to subvert Camp David...
...Samuels: Syria still has a standing force of some 30,000 soldiers in the neighboring, war-torn state of Lebanon...
...This is what the autonomy plan and the Camp David framework is about...
...Samuels: To get back to your speech...
...Blum: Historically, I believe it's accurate to say that wherever Egypt has led, the other Arab states have fol(.ii Him ni Swui is' novel about tin-cm...
...warm I cbaiton, OITXivid and l;\a: A 1 o\cSlor\, lia\ iti\t hccnI'liblnheil...
...Rezso kastner, a controversial figure in Israel, was involved in Jewish rescueoperalions and managed to wrest concessions from Na*i executioner Adolf Eichmann...
...We could only see the Dutch inmates...
...Blum: I would hope so...
...They also contain an interpretation that is heavily tilted toward the Arab side...
...Samuels: With Syria also...
...Blum: Because Himmler [head of the SS] at that time was contemplating a separate peace with the Western Allies...
...The one place where it has not lost prestige, oddly enough, is in the UN...
...Samuels: Speaking of Jerusalem, Mr...
...are acting out of a misguided sense of group solidarity...
...Samuels: Thank you very much, Mr...
...Samuels: On the issue of Israeli settlements, which seems to be such a sensitive and sticking point in the peace negotiations: Why the insistence on strengthening—the Israeli word for it is "thickening"—them at this time...
...In retrospect, it would also appear that the Zionism racism resolution of 1975 was a kind of trade-off for the support by the Arab states of ami-apartheid resolutions sponsored by the African states...
...on the contrary, we made it clear at Camp David and afterward that the thickening would have to go on...
...Samuels: Mr...
...Blum: Well, I would say that at the moment, relations between our two countries are evolving...
...Ambassador, do you feel there is a serious attempt here at the UN to rebuild the PLO...
...The whole family now lives in Jerusalem...
...They are not courageous enough to say what they really mean...
...Would you comment on this...
...Blum: I would ask the spokesman for Mr...
...It was denounced then by the majority of the members of the UN, including the United States, which termed it "the highest type of international violation of the law...
...Born in Bratislava, Czechoslovakia, a survivor of the Ber-gen-Belsen concentration camp, he recalls arriving in Palestine on September 2, 1945...
...Blum: My father instructed me, and some of our friends...
...Quite to the contrary...
...Samuels: Assuming the eventual conclusion of a peace treaty between Israel and Egypt, what impact do you feel this will have not only on Israel's future relationship with Egypt but with the rest of the Arab world...
...And these are concepts the Jewish people have been standing for during these three millennia...
...Blum: No, I won't go beyond what I have just said: That we could not remain indifferent to the fate of such a minority...
...Blum: I would say that both Israel and Egypt owe a debt of gratitude to the United States and to President Carter for all their efforts to bring about the two framework agreements reached at Camp David...
...the word Zionism doesn't appear in all these draft resolutions...
...Samuels: Mr...
...Samuels: What of the loss of family in the camp...
...Samuels: The British press, notably the Daily Telegraph, has said that the Syrian Army in Lebanon can no longer logically be called a "peace-keeping force...
...From what I later learned, Anne Frank must have been a distance of about a hundred meters from where I was...
...the draft resolutions do not mention the word Zionism, but do invite the membership to lake note of the final documents of the Geneva conference—one of which contained two clauses condemning Zionism and the State of Israel...
...So we owe our survival to his obsession about the power Jews wield in American public life...
...There were tens of thousands of people in Bergen-Belsen, but our group was isolated from the rest of the Belsen inmates, and so were the others...
...Eventually, though, I think more of them will take an independent stand on quite a number of international issues...
...Now, Judea and Samaria, in addition to being vital to our security, are the heart—the heartland—of the Jewish State...
...her eight brothers and sisters, their husbands and wives, as well as their children and grandchildren—all wiped out...
...We believe that Israelis and Jews are in Judea and Samaria by right, even if we do not...
...For the sake of peace, we agreed not to press these claims and these demands...
...Blum, who received his doctorate in international law from the University of London, is well-known to Western legal scholars...
...I definitely would not term all of the members of the automatic majority anti-Semitic...
...Nevertheless, as his prepared speeches in the Security Council and the General Assembly have already demonstrated, he can be a tough man to daunt...
...The future status of Judea and Samaria is a matter to be negotiated between us and the other negotiating partners...
...Samuels: Shimon Peres, the leader of Israel's opposition Labor Party, said at a meeting recently that he was "uneasy" about President Carter's continuing, strong presence in the Middle East peace negotiations, and particularly about the attempted linkage of the accords to the West Bank settlements and to Jerusalem...
...Blum: Outside the UN, this terrorist group known as the PLO has suffered a considerable loss of its former standing in the international community, particularly during the past two years or so...
...Why don't other countries recognize that it is the capital city of the State of Israel...
...There was a Dutch group, a Polish group, a Hungarian group—and each was separated from the others by barbed wire and by the SS guards...
...You see, the Jordanians originally invaded what is now called the West Bank —that is, Judea and Samaria, including the eastern part of Jerusalem—in 1948...
...Samuels: Israeli Arabs, too...
...It is also preparing the film on the Palestinians that has been the subject of great controversy because of its blatant bias...
...Blum: 1 think the decision by the Norwegian Storting was a significant one...
...Blum: Basically the Arab states, supported by allies outside the Arab world—the Communists, yes, definitely the Communist countries, and even some Third World countries...
...What is your view...
...There is nothing permanent in politics—except the interests of states...
...Samuels: Has Secretary-General Kurt Waldheim had anything to say about either the accords or the Nobel Peace Prize awards...
...Blum: Unfortunately, no...
...Blum: Because I believe that it is not only Israelis who have a right to go to Judea and Samaria, and to settle there...
...I think the question ought to be addressed to those countries, although I would add that inertia plays an important role here...
...I remember the precise date so well," he says, "because it was the day Japan surrendered to America...
...Samuels: Mr...
...I speak of the legal aspect: We could make a better case for Israeli sovereignty in Judea and Samaria than any other country could do in respect to any alternative claims...
...What was it like, that traditional celebration, inside a Nazi death camp...
...We did not undertake to stop thickening existing settlements...
...The other afternoon, preliminary to an exclusive interview Ambassador Blum granted The New Leader, we met in the delegates' lounge, where members and the press were taking their cocktails-and-coffee breaks...
...What we have is a series of references to documents...
...Waldheim why the Secretary-General did not sec fit to congratulate Mr...
...Blum: We believe that Israel's rights to Judea and Samaria are certainly unsurpassed by the claims of any other state...
...It brought out something many of us have lost sight of during the past year: that the peace initiative in the Middle East has, throughout, been a joint Israeli-Egyptian venture...
...Blum: Well, you have touched on one of the ironies of the situation that has prevailed in the case of official jargon...
...Although the ambassador is no stranger to the UN, having served with the Secretariat in the '60s and been a unesco Fellow at the University of Sydney (1968), he often finds himself somewhat isolated in its splendid meeting halls and corridors...
...My parents also promised me some bar mitzvah gifts, and they duly delivered them on our arrival in Switzerland...
...There is no reason why the Israel Philharmonic should not then go to Cairo and play there...
...Blum: An event as revolutionary as the conclusion of the first peace treaty between Israel and the lead Arab state should reverberate across the region and one day be felt in countries like Syria, too...
...I would say that a number of countries—the so-called rejectionists, and 1 don't confine myself to the Arab rejectionists...
...But we have never said that we are willing to consider ourselves as foreigners in Judea and Samaria...
...The invasion was in flagrant violation of the UN Charter and of international law in general...
...and his vigorous off-the-cuff rebuttals to "unfounded charges" are peppered with pointed anecdotes and irony...
...With the help of my father and some friends, I prepared my bar mitzvah speech, which lasted for about 50 minutes...
...But quite apart from that, there is the humanitarian dimension...
...Ambassador, the anti-Sadat Arabs, and especially the Palestine Liberation Organization, the PLO, are attempting to revive the anti-Zionist resolutions calling Israel racist and guilty of genocide...
...So we are treated to an ironical situation: While two nations of the Middle East are conducting peace talks and one would expect the outside world to be encouraging them, the foremost world organization allegedly dedicated to the promotion of international peace and security is not encouraging these efforts...
...Blum: Well, we undertook at Camp David to freeze the establishment of new settlements during the three-month period that expires December 17...
...So for us, it is quite inconceivable that a Jewish state—the state of a people who have themselves been a persecuted and defenseless minority throughout the ages—could remain indifferent to the fate of that Christian minority...
...Samuels: Mr...
...At the same time, quite a number of statements made in the wake of the Camp David accords, relating to the future status of Judea and Samaria and even East Jerusalem, have been highly unhelpful...
...I spoke in German, my native tongue...
...Blum: Well, certainly there is a strong anti-Semitic undercurrent within that automatic majority...
...So they're having second thoughts...
...So in that respect, I would say the less said at this stage, the better it is for the prospects of peace...
...Egypt led the Arab world into accepting armistice agreements with Israel in 1949, and disengagement agreements in 1974...
...Samuels: Do you consider him a prisoner of the Third World...
...So it is our hope that, with Egypt now leading the way on the road to peace, the other Arab states will in time follow its example and we will have a comprehensive peace in the Middle East...
...Samuels: Mr...
...Dr...
...So the first time the international community seems to have discovered Jordanian "rights" in Judea and Samaria and East Jerusalem was in June 1967, after the Jordanian occupiers were physically removed from those territories...
...But some of them, it would seem to me...
...And I imagine that the Middle East conflict will be among these issues...
...The UN is helping it to escape that fate...
...For we are dealing with an attempt to delegiti-matize a member state—namely, Israel—and, at the same time, to glorify a terrorist organization which has vowed to destroy that member state...
...Samuels: Finally, Mr...
...Samuels: Why do you suppose the United States and other countries have never moved their embassies from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem, the capital of Israel...
...These included rescues from Bcrgen-Belsen transpons, and some thousands of Swedish and Sw iss protective passports...
Vol. 61 • December 1978 • No. 25
