1968_4_arabisraelwar

194 / AMERICAN JEWISH YEAR BOOK, 1968
community to the Israeli-Arab war. In July, more than a month after the
event, an official statement of the Cultural and Social Union was released to
the press. Of course, it is not known whether this statement was made under
duress or whether it expressed the feelings of the Jewish Communist elite.
Speaking in the name of the Polish Jews, the union's presidium expressed
full solidarity with the anti-Jewish position of the Polish Communist party
and its first secretary, Gomulka. The union failed to mention such matters
as Nasser's massing of troops and the blockade of the Strait of Tiran. But
it "unequivocally" condemned "the aggressive actions of the ruling circles
of Israel," particularly of "militarists of the Dayan type and the ultra-reactionaries
headed by Menahem Beigin" as "alien to the real interests of the
people of Israel." The statement expressed the union's "full solidarity with
the position of our party and the government of our fatherland, Poland," and
requested the Israeli army to "leave the Arab territories and return to the
frontiers which existed before June 5, 1967," and concluded: "We most decisively
reject every type of nationalism and chauvinism, and condemn every
type of nationalism" (Folks-shtimme, Warsaw, July 15, 1967). No signatures
were appended to this document, but it was known that Hersh Smoliar, editor
of Folks-shtimme, the writer David Sfard, and the well-known Communist
militant J. Mirsky, sat on the presidium.
LEON SHAPIRO
Czechoslovakia
Czechoslovakia closely followed the Soviet lead before, during, and after
the six-day war. On June 10 the Prague government broke off diplomatic
relations with Israel. On June 15 the official Communist party organ Rude
Prdvo accused Israeli diplomats in Prague of having engaged in ideological
and propaganda activities among "some of Czechoslovakia's citizens." Later
in June Vladimir Koucky, a party secretary and member of its Presidium,
visited Egypt, accompanied by Deputy Chief of Staff Lieutenant General
Miroslav Smoldas. Their conferences and discussions in Cairo were officially
described as having centered on the "situation in the Middle East after Israel's
aggression and on the future economic cooperation between the United Arab
Republic and Czechoslovakia." At the same time, Prague's Deputy Foreign
Minister Vaclav Pleskot visited Syria. The Soviet Union and Czechoslovakia
had been and continued to be the main suppliers of modern arms to the socalled
progressive Arab states of the Middle East.
On August 12, 1967 the New York Times reported that Ladislav Mnacko,
a writer of international renown and Communist party member had gone.to
Israel in defiance of a travel ban to protest antisemitism in Czechoslovakia
and the government's support of the Arab states. Mnacko had attracted attention
before with his book, Delayed Reports (AJYB, 1966 [Vol. 67], p. 386),
which dealt with the Stalinist purges in Czechoslovakia and their anti-Jewish