The Israel Cabinet today devoted its entire morning and afternoon meetings to hearing a report from Dr. Arieh Kubovi, Israel’s Minister to Czechoslovakia, on the proceedings of the Prague “purge” trial at which Israel was vilified.
(Eleven of the fourteen defendants at the trial were hanged in Prague this morning. Nine of them were Jews. All former Communist Party and Czechoslovak Government officials, they were convicted of “Zionist and Trotzkyite” plotting against the state. Three other defendants, including two Jews, were sentenced to life terms.)
Dr. Kubovi, who was summoned home by Premier David Ben Gurion to present a detailed report on the trial, which was strongly anti-Jewish, may not return to his post in Prague. The Cabinet will decide whether he should go back to Czechoslovakia, or whether the affairs of the Israel legation there should be conducted by a Charge d’Affaires.
CZECH LEGATION IN ISRAEL PUBLISHES PROVOCATIVE STATEMENT
In the meantime, great resentment was generated here today against the Czech Legation for publishing this morning a bulletin in Hebrew on the Prague trial in which it stated that “the testimony of the American spy, the Zionist Orenstein, discloses that the plot (to overthrow the Communist regime in Czechoslovakia) was based on a secret agreement between President Truman, U.S. Secretary of State Dean Acheson, Israel Premier David Ben Gurion and Henry Morgenthau, Jr.”
The statement apparently refers to S. Orenstein, an Israeli citizen now under arrest in Czechoslovakia. The bulletin put out here by the Czech Legation added: “It emanates from the agreement that a plan had been prepared containing conditions under which the United States Government agreed to support Israel in exchange for Israel’s supporting American plans for world domination through all Zionist organizations throughout the world.”
A conference of Israeli authors and poets convened in Tel Aviv to consider the effects of the Prague trial today protested the charges levelled at the Zionist movement by the Czech authorities at the trial. Expressing anxiety for the fate of the Jews in the Soviet satellite countries, the writers called on learned men throughout the world to check the “dirty wave endangering humanity.” They also voiced the hope that the Prague trial would serve as a “lesson” to all sections of Jewry on the need to united around the Zionist flag and Israel, “which is the only way for Jews.”
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