State Dept. Report on Human Rights Praises Israel As an Open Society but with Human Rights Problems

The State Department’s ninth annual report on human rights throughout the world again praises Israel as an open society with a democratic government, but with human rights problems because of its control of the West Bank and Gaza.

“Each year we note that despite the tremendous security threat against Israel, it maintains a very vigorous democracy,” Elliott Abrams, Assistant Secretary of State for Human Rights and Humanitarian Affairs, told a press conference today.

Abrams said that the Department’s Country Report on Human Rights Practices for 1984 finds that the problems for Israel on the West Bank are the result of its having a military government rule there rather than a democratically elected one. He added that there was an increase in violence in the territories in 1984, but it was occupants against other occupants — apparently a reference to the Jewish and Arab residents — and not the military government against the residents.

The 1,450-page report, covering 164 countries, was submitted earlier to Congress. It is the fifth such report submitted by the Reagan Administration.

The section on Israel stresses that “Israel is a parliamentary democracy which guarantees by law and respects in practice the civil, political, and religious rights of its citizens.”

MOST SIGNIFICANT HUMAN RIGHTS PROBLEM

But it notes, “as in 1983, the most significant human rights problems for Israel continued to derive from the strained relations between Israeli authorities and the Arab inhabitants of the occupied territories. These problems were exacerbated as a consequence of the activities of Jewish settlers in those areas. During the year, Israeli leaders expressed concern over the potential growth of extreme views and violent actions and their effect on Israeli society.”

One problem in Israel itself pointed out by the report is that of the Israeli Arabs who, while having equal rights under the law, “are relatively powerless and tend to feel alienated. Despite some governmental and private efforts to bridge the gap, there is little social interaction with Israeli Jews. Israeli Arabs assert that they are denied equal access to education, housing and other services, and that they are discriminated against in such areas as employment and appointment to government positions.”

NO EVIDENCE OF TORTURE OF ARABS

While Arabs have frequently charged that Israel tortures Arab prisoners, the report states that “torture is forbidden by Israeli law and there is no evidence that torture is condoned by the Israeli authorities. Several Israeli border and national policemen were convicted of abusive use of force against Arab prisoners during 1984.”

The report also notes that U.S. representatives received reports of “cruel or degrading” treatment from several U.S. citizens under arrest, one of them an Arab and the others supporters of Rabbi Meir Kahane, and succeeded in getting conditions improved for them.

The report asserts that while living standards in the occupied territories have “risen substantially since 1967,” Israel’s economic problems began to affect them last year with less Palestinians working in Israel and a drop in business in the territories.

In addition, the report charges that Israel has hampered economic development on the West Bank, and that the taking of land for settlements or military use has hurt Arab agriculture.

Abrams said there was no way to generalize about human rights conditions in the Arab countries since the level of abuse ranged from Jordan and Egypt, where there was little abuse, to Syria and Iraq which had complete one-man rule. However, he noted that Egypt is the Arab country with the greatest trend toward liberalization. “Egypt is a developing country moving toward political liberalization and greater freedom of expression,” the report said.

Several of the accounts of countries gave the conditions of Jews there. In Egypt, the report simply notes that most Jews “emigrated many years ago and those few who remain appear to practice their faith without restriction or harassment from any source.”

In Iran, the report, as it did last year, states that the persecution of Jews that existed in the early days of the Khomeini revolution has abated as it has for Christians and Zoroastrians. “They continue to have problems with the regime over religious practices, and some members of all three groups suffer officially-sanctioned job discrimination,” the report added.

Iraq’s Jewish community “is believed to have decreased from 150,000 following World War II to about 400,” the report notes. “It was severely persecuted in the past, but there is no evidence of recent persecution. In 1983 and in late 1984 Western journalists visited the last known synagogue in Baghdad and confirmed that it is still functioning. Only a handful of people, mostly older men, were seen attending services led by two rabbis.”

In Syria, “the 3,000-4,000 Jews are free to practice their religion,” according to the report. “The situation of the Jewish community has improved in recent years, despite continuing uncertainty over the community’s future, and today it enjoys a relatively good standard of living, access to higher education and entrance into the professions.”

However, the report notes that only Syrian Jews are routinely required to post a bond of $250 to $10,000 if they want to travel abroad. “In recent years, Jews have found it somewhat easier to travel overseas, although an official ban on their emigration has continued. The government continues its policy of not issuing passports to all members of a Jewish family at the same time, although there have been some recent exceptions.”

SITUATION IN NORTH YEMEN AND MOROCCO

In the Yemen Arab Republic, from where most of the once-large Jewish community emigrated to Israel, “the small number of remaining Jews live in peace with the Moslem majority,” according to the report. “They practice their religion freely, suffer no unusual economic hardships” and while they maintain contact with Jews from outside Yemen, they may not do so with those in Israel.

The report puts the number of Jews in Morocco at 11-14,000, most of them in the major cities. “The Jewish community operates schools and social institutions, as well as 20 major synagogues,” the report said. “Publications in Hebrew are permitted,” and “the Jewish community has close ties to communities in other nations including Israel.”

In Ethiopia, the report noted the “considerable illegal emigration” by Jews during 1984 since legal emigration is restricted for Jews and other Ethiopians. The report points out that access to the Jewish villages of the Gondar region by foreign Jews and Israelis, which was allowed in 1983, was shut off for most of 1984, although re-opened to some extent in December. “Ethiopian authorities apparently suspected that foreign Jewish and Israeli visitors provided Ethiopian Jews money and encouragement to leave the country,” the report said. “They may also hope to prevent the outside world from learning of the frictions that continue to mark government relations with the Ethiopian Jewish community, resulting from government efforts to prevent emigration, lack of Hebrew instruction, and the resistance of Ethiopian Jews to Marxist-Leninist indoctrination.”

The report added that while the Ethiopian Jews, because of where they live, are frequently caught in the cross-fire between government troops and insurgents “stories of ‘genocidal’ actions by Ethiopian authorities, or highly brutal behavior, appear unfounded.”

SOVIET JEWS FACED VERY DIFFICULT YEAR

The human rights report, as in other recent State Department reports, charged that in the Soviet Union, “the Jewish community faced an exceptionally difficult year in 1984 which saw a sharp increase in anti-Semitic propaganda thinly veiled as anti-Zionism” as well as increased discrimination against Jews. The report speculated that there may be “pressure from some quarters to end Jewish emigration completely.”

Abrams said that he did not believe that the urging by Reagan Administration officials at their meetings with Soviet officials for improvement in human rights conditions of Jews and others in the USSR has so far had any effect, but “it is hard to measure,” he said.