Peru’s Jewish Community Dismayed over That Country’s Vote for UN Assembly’s Anti-israel Resolution

The Jewish community of Peru has expressed its “profound dismay” over that country’s vote in favor of the United Nations General Assembly resolution of February 5 condemning Israel for annexing the Golan Heights and demanding punitive sanctions against Israel and its total isolation from the world community.

A statement released here by Leopoldo Kahn, president of the Asociacion Judia Del Peru, noted that in supporting “the Communist-Arab initiative,” Peru isolated itself “from the other democratic nations of the Western and Christian world, as well as the Latin American family, including those fellow nations of the Andean Pact.” The latter, Chile and Argentina, abstained. The United States and Western European countries joined Israel in voting against the measure which was overwhelmingly supported by the Communist bloc and Third World countries.

The statement observed that the resolution “far from being a call to negotiations leading to the search for peace in the Middle East and the opening of dialogue between the parties involved, gave unusual support to Syria and the Arab nations of the ‘rejection front’ who maintain a permanent state of belligerence towards Israel, refusing to recognize her right to exist as a nation.”

PARTICULAR CONCERN EXPRESSED

The statement also found fault with “the reservations expressed by our Foreign Ministry — post factum” which “do not in essence modify the condemnatory ” vote.” Particular concern was expressed over that part of the Foreign Ministry’s statement which found “morally and politically indispensable” the participation of “foreign powers” in the Middle East peace, process.

This was seen as “referring implicitly to the Soviet Union, a country which has no diplomatic relations with Israel and whose international policy has been questioned world-wide because of the intervention in Afghanistan and the recent events in Poland.”

The statement concluded: “The Peruvian Jewish community, like other important personalities and members of the press, expresses the hope that our foreign policy be a faithful reflection of the democratic thinking by which our nation lives. We feel protected by the conviction that the historic friendship between friendly nations — such as Peru and Israel — will be strengthened and increased when nourished by common streams that emanate from a solid, pacifist, pluralist, and democratic vocation.”