Israel’s Defense Minister, Gen. Moshe Dayan, was singled out for sharp attacks in the Soviet press this week. Yuri Kuznetzov, writing in the Soviet Communist Party organ, Pravda, assailed his speech before students in Tel Aviv, warning that Israel must strengthen its position in the occupied Arab territories. Vadim Ardatovsky took Gen. Dayan to task for the same speech in an article in Selskaya Zhizn. The press attacks, which included a denunciation of Foreign Minister Abba Eban’s nine-point peace proposals before the General Assembly Oct. 8, and an indictment of the United States for its “decision to sell Israel 50 long-range bombers of the Phantom type,” were excerpted at length in the “Review of the Soviet Press,” a bulletin distributed here by the Soviet Mission to the United Nations.
The Pravda article said, “It goes without saying that…these bellicose statements by Dayan and his ‘plan of settlement’ circulated in the Israeli press, which envisages a long occupation of the lands on the western bank of the Jordan, decidedly contradict the resolution of the Security Council which demands withdrawal of the Israeli troops from the occupied territories…The plans nurtured in Tel Aviv contradict the existing possibilities of peaceful settlement, the absolutely clear demand of public opinion of the whole world to put an end to Israeli aggression and liquidate its consequences.”
Mr. Ardatovsky, described as “an observer of the Novosti Press Agency,” the Soviets’ external news-propaganda agency, accused Israel of exacerbating the situation in the Jordan Valley and wrote, “Tel Aviv does not seem to tolerate even a short calm, to allow any reduction in tension.”
The Archive of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency includes articles published from 1923 to 2008. Archive stories reflect the journalistic standards and practices of the time they were published.
