Anger over the public hangings and spy trials continued to reverberate today.
New York police clashed today with demonstrators protesting the hangings in front of Iraq’s UN mission and arrested four. The clash occurred while a crowd estimated at 2,000 held a protest rally and memorial service sponsored by the Young Israel movement in Dag Hammarskjold Plaza. The incident took place when police forcibly removed a demonstrator from a tree which he had climbed to fix a hangman’s noose. Three other demonstrators were dragged away when they sought to prevent the tree climber’s arrest.
In Washington. Sen. Democratic Majority leader Mike Mansfield of Montana said today that the hangings were “a reprehensible act” but he feared there was “nothing we can do.” Appearing on the ABC-TV program “Issues and Answers.” Sen. Mansfield said he was “glad Israel has shown restraint” because “I do not favor this tit-for-tat policy for reprisal.”
Jews could be evacuated by Air India from Baghdad, the Indian Government was told today by Rep. Seymour Halpern, New York Republican. In a statement. Rep. Halpern, ranking Republican on the House sub-committee on international finance, called on India, the major beneficiary of a huge foreign development bill pending before his sub-committee, to use its good offices toward that end as Iraq’s diplomatic representative in the U.S. When Iraq severed relations with the U.S. during the June, 1967 Arab-Israel war, it named India to represent its interests in Washington.
Rep. Halpern said that India, which has received billions of dollars in various form of U.S. aid and loans, is the largest beneficiary of the proposed new four-year U.S. commitment to the International Development Association pending before his unit. The Association is a U.S.- sponsored program to aid developing nations. He said India should “show a measure of compassion for the Jews of Iraq” by prevailing on Baghdad to permit an emergency airlift evacuating the estimated 2,500 remaining Iraqi Jews.
According to Rep. Halpern’s estimate. Air India could evacuate Iraqi Jewry in less than one week of shuttle flights. He said, “Other airlines could rush to lend planes to Air India just as the airlines of the world sped to the assistance of Arab aviation companies” after Israeli commandos destroyed 13 Arab commercial aircraft at Beirut Airport on Dec. 28. He said India could be compensated for expenses involved including air fares by Jewish philanthropies, and that special visas could be issued by the U.S. Government under immigration provisions providing emergency sanctuary for refugees from political or religious persecution.
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