Over the last several years, library subscriptions to MERIP Reports have expanded steadily. We are very pleased at this development, and we are anxious to encourage an even higher rate of growth in library subscriptions. In particular, we would like to see more subscriptions at public libraries, where the Reports are still poorly represented. Library subscriptions are particularly important in bringing MERIP Reports to many readers who might not otherwise see it. For this reason, we ask our readers to request subscriptions at their local public library and/or their university library. Thanks to a donation from a friend of MERIP, we are able to offer a half-price introductory subscription to the first 20 libraries that request it in 1985. We would be glad to send a special promotional packet designed for librarians. Please contact our New York office at PO Box 1247, NY, NY 10025. We would also like to hear a report on your efforts and what the response of the library was.
“Terrorism” has been the watchword of the Reagan administration for any instance of militant political opposition to its policies, especially in Central America and the Middle East. Much of the vocabulary and syntax has been borrowed liberally from the government of Israel. We wonder what the administration’s response will be to the recent establishment of Keren Hebron, a tax deductible “charity” set up here to raise funds for terrorists in Israel. Two members of the Israeli Knesset, Deputy Speaker Meir Cohen-Avidov (Likud) and former science minister Yuval Ne’eman (Tehiya) recently spent five days in New York and Miami, where they raised $70,000 to support members of the Jewish terrorist underground now awaiting trial in Israel for bomb attacks against Palestinian mayors and other crimes. The money is funnelled through Keren Hebron. Discussing his trip with the Jerusalem Post, Cohen-Avidov said he compared the actions of the terrorists with “the Martin Goetz [sic] vigilante subway shooting.” “Should the suspects be convicted and sentenced, I know that I can go back to those same American Jews and ask them to mount a mass campaign to ask for a presidential pardon here or at least leniency.”
There are other ways to contribute financially to Israeli terrorists. For American evangelical Christians who wish to hasten the second coming of the Messiah, there is the Los Angeles-based Jerusalem Temple Foundation established by Terry Reisenhoover, an Oklahoma oil and real estate tycoon. Its “international secretary,” in Jerusalem, is Stanley Goldfoot, a South African by birth who worked in intelligence for the terrorist Stern Gang in the 1940s. Goldfoot, in a California fundraising address in 1983, proclaimed that the “heart” of Jerusalem was “still under alien control.” The foundation has reportedly channeled at least $50,000 to Goldfoot. Reisenhoover asserts that the “liberation” of the Temple Mount will be accomplished by peaceful means?by buying out “the Muslims” and transferring the present structures “stone by stone” to Saudi Arabia. In fact, some of these funds have been used to set up a legal defense fund for Jewish zealots caught trying to dynamite the present shrine and mosque.
Around midnight on Friday, March 1, some 100 Israeli troops carried out “Operation Punch”: they rounded up Birzeit University officials and then broke into university buildings. The soldiers carted off hundreds of books and cultural artifacts, such as embroidery, which students had assembled for an exhibit. They also stole pictures of Sharaf Tibi, a student killed in cold blood by the army on November 21. Israeli authorities then closed down the university for two months. The Palestine Human Rights Campaign asks that letters of protest be sent to Prime Minister Shimon Peres in Jerusalem and Secretary of State George Shultz in Washington.
Individuals and organizations active in the campaign against US military intervention in Central America and the Middle East have come together to form the Vietnam Tenth Anniversary Committee. April 30 marks the decade since the US withdrew its troops from Vietnam, and the international popular movement that helped to end the war deserves to celebrate this accomplishment. The Anniversary Committee is planning a commemorative event in early May in New York City that will stress normalized relations with Vietnam, an end to the trade embargo and other hostile acts, and the importance of preventing further US military intervention around the world. For further information, contact the committee at PO Box 303, Prince Street Station, New York, NY 10012, or telephone (212) 286-0396.
