Sharansky Proposes That the West Offer the USSR Quid Pro Quo for Easing Emigration Restrictions

Natan Sharansky proposed that the West offer the Soviet Union quid pro quo for easing emigration restrictions for Soviet Jews. For Jewish emigration of 10,000 a year, Moscow would be rewarded with a broadening of scientific and cultural ties.

If 50,000 Jews are allowed to leave a year, the U.S. should cancel the Jackson-Vanik amendment which links Jewish emigration to Most Favored Nation trade status for the USSR, Sharansky told some 1,500 North American immigrants at a meeting Sunday organized by the Association of American and Canadian Immigrants to Israel and the Soviet Jewry Education and Information Center.

The event, billed as “an evening with Natan Sharansky,” coincided with the 10th anniversary of his arrest in Moscow, allegedly for spying for the United States. Sharansky, who came to Israel in February 1986 after nine years in the Soviet Gulag, said he though it would be “dangerous precedent” for Israel to ask the United States to abolish special refugee status for Jews leaving the Soviet Union.

“I have no doubt that the best place for a Jew to live is in Israel, but I don’t want anyone brought here against his will,” Sharansky said. In this he is at odds with Premier Yitzhak Shamir and other Israeli leaders who have been urging the U.S. to abolish refugee status in order to make it more difficult for Soviet Jewish emigres to go to the U.S. instead of to Israel.

Sharansky also believes that direct flights from Moscow to Tel Aviv “are not an issue” or an answer to this problem. He said the Soviets have built it up as a bargaining device to extract concessions. It is an example of how Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev “fixes his own price,” Sharansky said.

THE MOST SERIOUS PROBLEM

He also thought the new Soviet emigration regulations that took effect January I pose the most serious problem for Soviet Jews since they were forced in 1972 to pay for the free education they received in the USSR before leaving. The new regulations restrict family reunification to only the closest kin — parents or siblings.

The new law automatically reduced the number of potential emigrants to a mere 30,000, Sharansky said. He criticized the Israel government for “taking several months” before it lodged a protest.

Sharansky said there was not necessarily a “direct linkage” between the possible resumption of diplomatic relations between Israel and the Soviet Union and relief for Soviet Jews. Renewed relations should be based on the understanding that “the problem of Soviet Jewry is Israel’s problem,” he said.