The Mapam party’s secretary general, Elazar Granot, returned from a 10-day visit to China claiming, “We have opened the door and taken the first step.”
Granot was the first member of a Zionist party ever invited to the People’s Republic of China. He was accompanied by Marck Gefen, editor of the Mapam newspaper Al Hamishmar, They were the guests of the Association for Improving International Relations, an organization formed by the Chinese Communist Party in 1981. China has no diplomatic relations with Israel.
Granot said they had been “treated like kings” and with exceptional warmth.
Meanwhile, Mapam Knesset member Victor Shemtov announced his retirement from the Knesset Monday, ending a 26-year career as a party###enta### in and government minister. His Knesset seat will be taken by Gad Yatziv, a Jerusalem sociologist and former Mapam political secretary.
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.
