Speech #1010161167

Chairman. at a Washington press conference this past Sunday. Soviet President Gorbachev issued an ominous threat to Soviet Jews and one which needs to be responded to as urgently as possible. and this is the first legislative opportunity to do that in the United States Congress. The Soviet President suggested that the Soviet Government may curtail the issuance of emigration visas for Soviet Jews unless the Government of Israel prevents Soviet emigres from settling in the occupied territories. In making this threat. Mr. Chairman. the President of the Soviet Union has played into the hands of radical Arab leaders who have sought to create an atmosphere of belligerence and of hysteria and of extraordinary misrepresentation in the Arab world and beyond over the issue of the emigration of Jews to Israel. This is not an issue of where Jews are settling in Israel. Less than onehalf of 1 percent of Soviet Jews who have emigrated to Israel have. in fact. chosen to settle in the West Bank or in Gaza. The fact is. and I trust that the President of the Soviet Union well understands this fact. the Government of Israel has no policy of encouraging Soviet emigres to settle in the West Bank. The Government of Israel has repeated that time and time again and has made it very. very clear that there simply is no Israeli Government policy of encouraging Soviet Jews to settle in the West Bank and Gaza. Let us be clear. The Arab campaign that is being mounted internationally against Soviet Jewish emigration is directed against all Soviet Jewish emigration to Israel. and the fact of the matter is that this outrageous. pernicious campaign is altogether too reminiscent of a very similar Arab campaign that was too successfully waged some 50 years ago at a time when Jews in danger throughout Europe were prevented from moving to Palestine when their lives were in mortal danger. If the United States did not take the lead as we have done now over the course of the past 20 years to do everything we can to encourage this flow of emigration and results that were at all similar to those of the 1930s and 1940s in any way were to occur. the United States. I believe. would find to its eternal regret that inaction. Mr. Chairman. I believe the U.S. Congress will want to go on record today in this senseofCongress amendment to this amendment opposing any restrictions on the emigration of Soviet Jews and underscoring the support for the policy of allowing Soviet Jews to emigrate to Israel. Mr. Gorbachevs statement heightens the danger for Soviet Jews who are trapped between growing antiSemitism in the Soviet Union and the Arab campaign to block them from going to Israel. I hope that we will go on record overwhelmingly on this floor at this time suggesting to Mr. Gorbachev that he not implement the threat that he put on the table last Sunday and that the emigration of Soviet Jewry continue to expand as it has in the course of the past several months. We welcome that expansion. We want to see it continue.