President Chaim Herzog appeared at the official opening of the Rakah (Communist) Party’s four-day convention last week, becoming the first President of Israel ever to extend that courtesy to the pro-Moscow, anti-Zionist faction. But his gesture to Rakah, a party represented in the Knesset but which is anathema to most Israelis, brought him only a rebuff from the Soviet delegate.
The latter, Michael Menashev, said Friday that Herzog’s presence would not influence Kremlin policy on Soviet-Jewish emigration nor would it advance the renewal of diplomatic ties with Israel, broken since 1967. The man from Moscow suggested, however, that the President’s attendance reflected Rakah’s “growing influence in Israeli political life.”
The party has four seats in the present Knesset, the same as in the previous one. It polled 3.4 percent of the vote in the last elections.
The head of the Polish Communist Party’s delegation to the convention, Tadeus Czechovicz, said his country would establish diplomatic ties with Israel only after the Israelis recognized the rights of the Palestinian people. He drew a distinction, however, between diplomatic and other forms of relations, noting that Poland and Israel have had cultural and economic contacts since the end of World War II.
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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.
