Foreign Minister Abba Eban and Defense Minister Moshe Dayan said yesterday that Israel would do everything possible to save the lives of surviving Iraqi Jews and that Israel would try to mobilize the moral forces of the world to that end. But it would not take any action that could put Iraqi Jews in even greater jeopardy, they declared. Military spokesmen denied as absolutely false a Baghdad claim today that seven Israeli jets had attacked Iraqi troop concentrations in Jordan. Iraq claimed a plane was shot down.
A Foreign Ministry spokesman said Israel would complain to the UN Hman Rights Commission in Geneva, as Jews observed a day of prayer and fasting for their executed co-religionists. Sephardic Chief Rabbi Itzhak Nissim said he attached “great importance” to Pope Paul VI’s denunciation of the hangings. The Pontiff saw “racial prejudice” as a factor in the executions. The Chief Rabbi of Iraq, Sasson Kadouri, defended the Baghdad trials in an interview broadcast by Radio Baghdad today and claimed that “Jews in Iraq have full liberty.” Rabbi Kadouri said the three-man military tribunal that condemned 14 Iraqis, nine of them Jews, was a just court. He denied reports that his son was among those executed.
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