About 45 young people–most of them high school students–participated today in a Betar-sponsored demonstration across the street from the United Nations to protest the recent Security Council resolution which criticized and called for a halt to Israel’s development program in East Jerusalem. Carrying Israeli flags and posters stating “No Berlin In Jerusalem” and “Jordanian rule-destruction, Israeli rule-reconstruction,” the demonstrators stood before the Isalah Wall and sang Hebrew songs. Many wore small buttons showing an Israeli flag and bearing the inscription: “Keep Jerusalem.”
Moshe Amirav, a former president of the National Union of Israeli Students who is in this country to help organize Betar activities among high school and college students, explained in an interview with the JTA that the supporters of the Security Council resolution want Jerusalem divided. The viewpoint of the demonstrators, he said, is that one Jerusalem belonging to Israel will be free for all faiths. “Only now,” he said, “the city is free and peaceful.” Amirav said the Jews’ connection with Jerusalem is “longer than any other nation to its capital” or of any other group to Jerusalem. He called the resolution a “foolish” one because it is “foolish of the UN to think that after 2,000 years we would abandon this city. (Jerusalem).” Betar describes itself as a militant, Zionist national youth movement. The demonstration was supported by several Jewish college groups.
The Archive of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency includes articles published from 1923 to 2008. Archive stories reflect the journalistic standards and practices of the time they were published.
