Лев Гунин - ГУЛаг Палестины

role after the war in the Austrian DP camps. Wiesenthal is of the same

ilk as Elie Wiesel: a secular saint, he can make the most absurd claims

without fear of exposure.

Now the question that I would like to add to the ones that I have already addressed

to you is the following: How did it come to pass that in 1994 a reputable investigative

journalism show featured as its star witness someone who is widely known to be - shall

we say - a "fabulist"?

And from this question springs a second one: How does it come to pass today that a

reputable investigative journalism show, having learned that it has been victimized by

a "fabulist," refuses to take any corrective action?

Yours truly,

Lubomyr Prytulak

cc: Ed Bradley, Steve Kroft, Morley Safer, Lesley Stahl, Mike Wallace, Simon Wiesenthal

HOME DISINFORMATION PEOPLE JORDAN 1763 hits since 23May98

Bleich Letter 8 23May98 Please substantiate or retract

If your 60 Minutes testimony concerning violent attacks on Jews by Ukrainians and

motivated by anti-Semitism is true, then it behooves you to substantiate it and in so doing

to remove the doubt which surrounds it. If your 60 Minutes testimony is false, then it

behooves you to retract it. Either option will constitute a step toward restoring your

standing in the eyes of the Ukrainian community, and in ameliorating Ukrainian-Jewish

relations.

Silence is an option only if you are prepared to encourage the conclusion that you spoke

impulsively and irresponsibly, and that you subsequently lacked the courage and integrity

to admit your error.

May 23, 1998

Rabbi Yaakov Dov Bleich

29 Shchekavytska Street

Kiev 254071

Ukraine

Dear Rabbi Bleich:

In your appearance on the 60 Minutes broadcast "The Ugly Face of Freedom" of 23

October 1994, you offered some startling testimony concerning the existence of

anti-Semitism in contemporary Ukraine. In your own words:

There have been a number of physical attacks. In a small town, two

elderly Jews were attacked at knifepoint and stabbed because they are

Jews and because of the myth that all Jews must have money hidden in

their homes. The same thing was in west Ukraine, the Carpathian

region. These are very, very frightening facts, because it's - again

that stereotype that we mentioned before, when that leads someone to

really - to - to stab an older couple and leave them helpless, and

you know? - they left them for dead. That means that we have serious

problems.

In the mind of the typical 60 Minutes viewer, your statement would constitute a

substantial proportion of the Ugly Face of Freedom's evidence for the existence of

anti-Semitism in today's Ukraine, and the only evidence at all for the eruption of this

anti-Semitism into violence.

However, I cannot help noticing that your statement is devoid of detail. You do

not disclose the names of the victims, nor the places and dates of the attacks. Nor do

you indicate the source of your information - did you hear about these attacks on the

radio, see them on television, read about them in the newspapers, receive personal

communication, or what? This lack of detail is particularly troubling in view of four

considerations:

(1) that your non-specific testimony occurred in the middle of a broadcast which

was dominated by misrepresentation and disinformation;

(2) that it came from the mouth of an individual recognized in the Ukrainian

community for holding anti-Ukrainian views, and for spreading anti-Ukrainian hatred, as

I think I have demonstrated in my seven previous letters to you of 6Jan95, 26Sep97,

27Sep97, 28Sep97, 29Sep97, 29Sep97, and 30Sep97, in which letters are discussed such

issues as that of your reciting every Saturday in the capital city of Ukraine the

Khmelnytsky curse;

(3) that Jewish interests have sometimes employed exaggerated, or wholly-imagined,

or even self-inflicted anti-Semitic acts to achieve such aims as heightened group

cohesion or increased emigration to Israel; and

(4) that Jewish groups in Ukraine who monitor anti-Semitic incidents report being

unaware of the two attacks that you describe.

Specifically with respect to point (4) above, an open letter to Morley Safer and

the 60 Minutes staff from I. M. Levitas, Head of the Jewish Council of Ukraine as well

as of the Nationalities Associations of Ukraine, as published in the Lviv newspaper Za

Vilnu Ukrainu (For a Free Ukraine) on December 2, 1994, included the following

observations, which I translate from the original Ukrainian. In the portion of the

letter that I quote below, Mr. Levitas argues that the attacks you describe may have

been simple robberies devoid of anti-Semitism. More importantly, Mr. Levitas provides

us with reason to wonder whether the attacks occurred at all:

You reported that two Jews were robbed and beaten. This might have

happened, but most likely not because they were Jews. I imagine that

in Lviv, Ukrainians are also robbed (and significantly more often!),

and yet nobody draws from this the sort of conclusions concerning

ethnic hostility that you draw from the robbing of these two Jews.

Our Jewish Council constantly receives news concerning Jews in

Ukraine, but during the past five years, we have received not a single

report of anyone being beaten because he was a Jew. However, it must

be admitted that such a thing may have occurred without it coming to

our attention - there are plenty of miscreants in every country.

The above speculations lead us once again to the questions of whether your

orientation toward the Ukrainian state is supportive or destructive, responsible or

irresponsible, restrained by reason or fired by emotion. A step toward answering such

questions would be taken by your responding to the points below:

(1) Would you be able to provide the names of the two sets of Jewish victims that

you alluded to (that is, the victims of the knife attack, and the similar victims in the

"Carpathian region"), and the places and dates of the attacks? If by "a number of

attacks" you mean more than two, I would appreciate receiving such documentation for the

other attacks as well. If in addition you are in possession of corroborative evidence

such as videotapes, newspaper clippings, or letters, I would appreciate receiving copies

of these as well.

(2) If the attacks did occur, then there follows the question of what motivated

them. Mr. Levitas suggests that if the knife attack occurred, then it was more likely

driven by economic motives than anti-Semitic ones. You, on the other hand offer that

the attack occurred "because they are Jews," and "because of the myth that all Jews must

have money hidden in their homes," and because "it's - again that stereotype." But for

you to know that the motivation was predominantly anti-Semitic, the perpetrators of the

attacks must have been caught and must have confessed and disclosed their motivation,

unless there exists some alternative evidence pointing to the same conclusion. In any

case, whatever the nature of the material that you relied upon to conclude that the two

attacks had been motivated by anti-Semitism, I wonder if you would be able to provide me

with a copy of it.

(3) I myself was unaware of any Ukrainian "myth that all Jews must have money

hidden in their homes." This strikes me not so much as a myth believed by Ukrainians

about Jews, as a myth believed by yourself about Ukrainians. I wonder if you could

inform me of what evidence you have that Ukrainians are so primitive in their thinking

as to entertain the fantastic myth that "all Jews must have money hidden in their

homes."

If your 60 Minutes testimony concerning violent attacks on Jews by Ukrainians and

motivated by anti-Semitism is true, then it behooves you to substantiate it and in so

doing to remove the doubt which surrounds it. If your 60 Minutes testimony is false,

then it behooves you to retract it. Either option will constitute a step toward

restoring your standing in the eyes of the Ukrainian community, and in ameliorating

Ukrainian-Jewish relations.

Silence is an option only if you are prepared to encourage the conclusion that you

spoke impulsively and irresponsibly, and that you subsequently lacked the courage and

integrity to admit your error.

Yours truly,

Lubomyr Prytulak

cc: Ed Bradley, Jeffrey Fager, Don Hewitt, Steve Kroft, Andy Rooney, Morley Safer,

Lesley Stahl, Mike Wallace.

HOME DISINFORMATION PEOPLE SAFER Safer > 815 hits since 24May98

Morely Safer Letter 1 28Dec94 Please explain silence

December 28, 1994

Morley Safer

51 W 52nd Street

New York, NY

USA 10019

Dear Mr. Safer:

I have been wondering which of the following three reasons best explains why 60 Minutes has not yet broadcast a

correction, a retraction, and an apology for "The Ugly Face of Freedom":

(1) The amount of disinformation in the broadcast was so large that a considerable amount of research and

introspection are necessary before a full and just response can be formulated - but one will soon be forthcoming.

(2) 60 Minutes' researchers and consultants have concluded that none of the objections to the broadcast are

valid, and a full rebuttal of these objections will shortly be made available.

(3) Whether the Ukrainian objections are right or wrong is irrelevant what is relevant is that CBS views

Ukrainians as too weak to force CBS to suffer any loss of face.

As time passes with no response from 60 Minutes, Ukrainians are increasingly pulled toward the third of these as

the correct explanation.

Yours truly,

Lubomyr Prytulak

HOME DISINFORMATION PEOPLE SAFER 669 hits since 24May98

Morely Safer Letter 2 19Mar96 Contempt for the viewer

March 19, 1996

Morley Safer

60 Minutes, CBS Television

51 W 52nd Street

New York, NY

USA 10019

Dear Mr. Safer:

I have been resisting occasional impulses to expand and amplify "The Ugly Face of 60 Minutes," which as you know

is my December 1994 critique of 60 Minutes broadcast "The Ugly Face of Freedom" - as it presently stands, this

critique covers the main points adequately, and I do not have time to polish it. Occasionally, however, some defect

or other of the 60 Minutes broadcast presents itself from a new angle, and I find myself wondering if adding a

description of this freshly-viewed defect to my critique would not strengthen it. For example, just now I thought of

adding:

Mr. Safer tells us of the Lviv reunion of Galicia Division veterans that "Nowhere, not even

in Germany, are the SS so openly celebrated," and yet does not pause to explain how it can be

that in this most open of all celebrations of the SS, not a single portrait of Hitler can be

seen, not a single hand is raised in a Heil Hitler salute, no Nazi marching songs are being sung

or played, no Nazi speeches are recorded, not a single swastika is anywhere on display - not even

a single "SS" can be discovered anywhere among the many medals and insignia worn by the

veterans. So devoid is this reunion of any of the signs that one might expect in any open

celebration of the SS that one wonders what led Mr. Safer to the conclusion that that is what it

was. Perhaps it is the case that Mr. Safer was so carried away by his enthusiasm for the