DEAR EDITOR
Dear Editor Israeli Illusion Thanks for a rare treat-objective reporting about Israel. Eliahu Salpeter's "The Shock in Israel" (NL, January 11) explained more in two pages than all the daily...
...But the Arabs have rejected the policy of butter-books-and-ballot for a century...
...On the feast day of the Smolensk Icon of the Blessed Virgin, the little chapel shown in the photograph accompanying the article was consecrated by Alexei, Metropolitan of Leningrad and Novgorod...
...Arabs do sit in the Knesset, and they unhesitatingly flaunt seditious sentiment...
...Your readers might be interested to learn about some later developments concerning the restoration work on Smolenskoye Cemetery...
...Unless Jews make a stand, there will soon be a 23rd Arab state and not a single Jewish state...
...Fully...
...These Arabs retain an eighth-century desire to take over...
...The Jews owe the Arabs nothing...
...Zionist improvements in what was supposed to be the Jewish homeland attracted numerous Arabs, who then pressed Britain and Germany to close the gates of Palestine to Jews and open the gates of Dachau...
...The recent rioting among Israeli Arabs should not have surprised informed individuals...
...New York City Joseph Maztn Author's Query For a biography of Princess Catherine Dashkova (1743-1810), I would be grateful to hear from anyone who has relevant material-other than the currently available biographies, memoirs, etc.-in English, French, Russian, German, or Dutch...
...Two years ago nobody in the USSR would have dreamt any of this could happen...
...Eliahu Salpeter's "The Shock in Israel" (NL, January 11) explained more in two pages than all the daily newspaper and television coverage of the past two months...
...New York City Richard H. Shulman Leningrad Update I recently read with great interest Anna Husarska's article "Midsummer Leningrad Dreams" (NL, September 7, 1987), which among other subjects described the work of independent ecological groups in Leningrad...
...Appointing them to the Cabinet, as Salpeter suggests, would be suicidal...
...The Arabs' defiance and bigotry have grown bolder as they have sensed official ambivalence and appeasement...
...Few Western journalists seem able to comprehend Middle Eastern mores as well...
...In the end, though, even Salpeter bases hope on illusion...
...During the ceremony neither Metropolitan Alexei nor any of the clergy delivered a speech or sermon or addressed the people...
...Although acknowledging the failure of this approach, Salpeter urges its continuance...
...Israel has sought their tolerance by raising their living standard above those in Arab states...
...Nevertheless, the consecration was an extraordinary affair, not least because even the Leningrad Science Film Studio shot a sequence on the chapel for a documentary...
...Nobody was allowed inside the chapel itself, whose interior decoration is not completed...
...While they could not oust the Palestinian Jews, the Arab states did expel their native Jews...
...There were many people present at the consecration of the chapel, but less than might have been expected, since the date of the event and the very fact that it was to take place were not generally known: The Church has no effective means of mass communication...
...Today it approximates that of Sephardic Jewry...
...On the other hand, Israeli Arabs are exempt even from nonmilitary national service, gain further competitive advantage by evading taxes with impunity, build thousands of houses on seized public land, and have immigrated illegally by the tens of thousands...
...Some Jews subsidize Arabs out of unwarranted feelings of guilt...
...That can't be in a Jewish state, where Jewish immigration, the national anthem and the control of sensitive posts must take priority...
...The volunteer Sunday cleaning and renovation effort organized by the unofficial Leningrad Council of Cultural-Democratic Movements, with financial support from the Russian Orthodox Church, is now completed...
...Guy Daniels 315 East 86th St...
...Salpeter claims Arab equality is underachieved but "fully" guaranteed...
...11 L-E) New York, N. Y. 10028...
Vol. 71 • February 1988 • No. 3
