Mrs. Golda Meir, Israel’s Foreign Minister, today blamed the Government of Morocco for the sea disaster in which 43 Moroccan Jewish men, women and children were drowned en route to Israel.
Speaking in the Knesset, Israel’s Parliament, she called on the nations of the world for support against the “tyrannv” imposed on Morocco’s 250,000 Jews who, she said, were living under a regime practicing discrimination and in an atmosphere of constant threats.
Declaring it was the duty of the Government and people of Israel to extend every aid to co-religionists, Mrs. Meir in a moving speech cited the prevention of free movement and migration of Jews from Morocco and the ban on postal and telegraphic communication with families in Israel. She called the sea disaster another in a series of tragedies of Jews seeking a way to the homeland.
CHARGES MOROCCO WITH DEPRIVING JEWS OF HUMANITARIAN RIGHTS
Mrs. Meir asserted that the victims had been forced to use clandestine means to leave because normal migration and transport facilities were denied them. She charged that Morocco was contravening its formal obligations to the United Nations with regard to civic rights for all citizens by depriving Jews of fundamental human privileges.
Mrs. Meir made her statements in reply to a motion for general debate on the situation of the Moroccan Jews. She concluded with a plea that the Knesset refrain from discussion in order not to aggravate the situation. She proposed instead that the question be submitted to the Knesset Committee for Security and Foreign Affairs, a proposal which was accepted.
The Rabbinical Council proclaimed tomorrow as a day of special prayers and a semi-fast period in support of Moroccan Jewry. Before the proclamation, Sephardic Chief Rabbi Yitzhak Nissim reported on the situation of the community, eulogized the victims and offered condolences to the bereaved.
(In Washington, B’nai B’rith president Label A. Katz today expressed “deep concern” over the fate of Moroccan Jewry and termed the recent sea tragedy, in which 43 Jews were drowned, a consequence of Morocco’s denial of exit visas to permit individuals to join families in Israel. He expressed hope that Morocco will take action “consistent with its repeated assurances of equal treatment for the Moroccan Jewish community.” He said Moroccan policy “violates a principle of the United Nations Human Rights Declaration to which Morocco is a signatory.”)
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