Priest Praises Israeli Treatment of Pows

An American Catholic priest has returned from a special mission to Israel with high praise for its compassionate treatment of Syrian prisoners captured in the Yom Kippur War. The Reverend Joseph Konrad, Pastor of St. Matthias Church, Queens, New York, said that he “was favorably impressed by the good care and privileges Israel gives the Syrian POWs, the type of care and privileges apparently not received by Israeli soldiers captured by Syria.”

Father Konrad visited Israel as co-chairman of the Catholic-Jewish Relations Committee (CJRC) co-sponsored by the Catholic Diocese of Brooklyn and the Anti-Defamation League of B’nai B’rith. He was appointed to the post by Bishop Francis J. Mugavero, spiritual leader of the largest Catholic diocese in the United States. Father Konrad interviewed the Syrian war prisoners together with Rabbi Bruce K. Cole, community consultant of the League’s New York regional office and co-secretary of the Catholic-Jewish Relations Committee.

Father Konrad said that they spoke to a sizeable group of the 396 prisoners. “They seemed to have difficulty in understanding why a U.S. Catholic priest and rabbi had come to see them. We had the feeling that they looked at us as official emissaries of the U.S. government because they kept asking how soon would we permit them to go home.” He told them that it wasn’t up to the United States, that they could go home as soon as Syria agreed to a prisoner exchange.

POWS IN EXCELLENT CONDITION

While the Syrian POWs complained that their treatment could be better, Father Konrad said they lived in large, clean dormitory facilities, had ample exercise areas, received weekly mail from their families in Syria and were permitted to send home weekly postcards.

According to Father Konrad, the prisoners appeared to be in excellent physical condition, well-fed and healthy. He said he saw a modern dental clinic, a first aid clinic for medical treatment, and that hospital care in nearby cities was available for those prisoners needing it. The prisoners, he went on to say, appeared well clothed. Besides the army food rations allotted to each prisoner by Israel, they were also permitted to accept donations of food sent by the five Arab mayors of nearby Israeli towns.

“Our overall objective,” Father Konrad said, “was to express in a dramatic way the concern of the three million Catholics and Jews in Brooklyn and Queens for the Israeli prisoners of war in Syrian hands.”

This concern had been expressed in a CJRC statement released before the priest and rabbi left for Israel which noted recorded mistreatment of captured Israelis and called upon Syria to abide by internationally recognized conventions for the treatment of prisoners of war and the repatriation of the sick and seriously wounded. Shortly after their return to New York, the Syrian government released the names of Israeli prisoners and permitted visits to the prison camps by the International Red Cross.