Premier Yitzhak Rabin rejected today the version that the Soviets had cancelled the trade agreement with the U.S. because it was linked to Jewish emigrations. In a statement delivered at the weekly Cabinet session, Rabin said he was convinced there was no foundation for that theory.
However, whatever the reasons for the Soviet move were, Rabin promised that the political campaign for the right of Soviet Jewry to emigrate, and not to be harassed, would continue to be one of the central issues in the life of world Jewry.
Rabin expressed the belief that eventually the Soviet government, too, would understand the need to allow emigration. “The struggle of Soviet Jews for aliya preceded all agreement on trade,” he said. Israel would, therefore, continue to support Soviet Jews who wish to emigrate, “because of our elementary conviction that it is the basic privilege of every Jew wherever he is to come to his homeland, Israel,” Rabin declared.
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