PART 4: THEY DARE TO SPEAK OUT PEOPLE AND INSTITUTIONS CONFRONT ISRAEL'S LOBBY

THEY DARE TO SPEAK OUT
PEOPLE AND INSTITUTIONS 
CONFRONT ISRAEL'S LOBBY 
by Paul Findley


Chapter 4 

The Lobby and the Oval Office 

On a Sunday afternoon, just a few days before the presidential election in 1960, John F. Kennedy, the Democratic candidate, parked his car in front of the residence at 4615 W Street, just off Foxhall Road in a fashionable section of Washington. He was alone, unencumbered by the Secret Service officers soon to be a part of his life. 

He wanted to get away from campaign pressures and have a chat with Charles Bartlett, a journalist and a close friend of many years. Their friendship had remained firm since they became acquainted in Florida immediately after World War II, and it was Bartlett who first introduced Kennedy to his future bride, Jacqueline Bouvier. 

The night before, Kennedy had gone to dinner with a small group of wealthy and prominent Jews in New York. An episode of the evening troubled him deeply. Describing it to Bartlett as an "amazing experience," he said one of those at the dinner party-he did not identify him by name-told him he knew his campaign was in financial difficulty and, speaking for the group, offered "to help and help significantly" if Kennedy as president "would allow them to set the course of Middle East policy over the next four years." It was an astounding proposition. 

Kennedy told Bartlett he reacted less as a presidential candidate than as a citizen. "He said he felt insulted," Bartlett recalls, "that anybody would make that offer, particularly to a man who even had a slim chance to be president. He said if he ever did get to be president he would push for a law that would subsidize presidential campaigns out of the U.S. Treasury. He added that whatever the cost of this subsidy, it would insulate presidential candidates in the future from this kind of pressure and save the country a lot of grief in the long run." 

Just what Kennedy said in response to the proposition, Barlett did not know. "Knowing his style, he probably made a general comment and changed the subject." 

After learning of the event from Bartlett, I talked with one of the people attending the dinner, Myer Feldman, a Washington attorney who worked closely in the Kennedy campaign in 1960 and later became assistant to the president with special responsibilities for liaison with the Jewish community. I hoped he could supply further details. As a freshman Congressman in 1961-62, I had had several friendly encounters with Feldman over wheat sales to the Soviet Union. 

He recalled the gathering which, he said, was held at the apartment of Abraham Feinberg, chairman of the American Bank and Trust Company in New York and influential in national Jewish affairs and the Democratic Party. Those attending, Feldman recalled, were "ambiguous about Kennedy." They weren't sure "which way he would go" on Middle East policy and therefore not sure they would support him. The candidate was "peppered with tough and embarrassing questions." Asked for his opinion about moving the U.S. embassy in Israel from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem, Kennedy had replied, "Not under present circumstances." He said Kennedy answered all questions directly and made a good impression on his hosts. Feldman said he was unaware of the proposition that "insulted" the future president. 

It was not the first time Middle East politics intruded forcibly into presidential campaigns. Bartlett says that when he related the episode to Roger L. Stevens, head of the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts in Washington, D.C., Stevens responded, "That's very interesting, because exactly the same thing happened to Adlai [former U.N. Ambassador Adlai E. Stevenson] in Los Angeles in 1956." Stevenson was then the Democratic candidate for president, opposing the re-election of Dwight D. Eisenhower. 

Ethnic group pressure is an ever-present part of U.S. partisan politics, and because the president of the United States is the executor of all foreign policy, and the formulator of most of it, pressures naturally center on the people who hold or seek the presidency. When the pressure is from friends of Israel, presidents-and presidential candidates-often yield. 

Lobby pressure on the White House is applied at several different levels. The most direct-person-to-person-varies greatly, depending on the inclinations of the person who is president at the time. 

Some of those applying pressure are close personal friends whose influence is limited to just one presidency, an example being Harry S. Truman's close friendship with Ed Jacobson, his former haberdashery partner and an ardent Zionist. Mr. and Mrs. Arthur Krim, Jewish leaders from New York, maintained a close relationship with Lyndon B. Johnson. A White House official of the period recalls: "Arthur Krim stayed at the LBJ Ranch during crucial moments before the 1967 war and his wife, Mathilde, was a guest in the White House during the war." White House logs show that Mrs. Krim talked frequently by telephone with Johnson. 

Other Jewish leaders maintain a relationship from one administration to another. Abraham Feinberg of New York, who hosted the dinner for Kennedy in October 1960, kept close White House ties over a period of years. He was a frequent visitor at the White House during the Johnson years, and as late as 1984, during the pre-convention presidential campaigning, brought the leading Democratic contenders, Walter Mondale and Gary Hart, together for a private discussion at his New York apartment. Philip Klutznick of Chicago, former president of B'nai B'rith, kept close relations throughout the Truman, Eisenhower, Kennedy, Johnson and Carter administrations. 

Sometimes Israeli diplomats have a personal relationship which gives them direct access to the president. Ephraim Evron, then deputy chief in the Israeli embassy and a friend since Senate days, sometimes talked privately with Johnson in the Oval Office. 

The second level of pressure comes through officials close to the president-his adviser on relations with the Jewish community or others among his top aides. President Kennedy told a friend, with a chuckle, that he learned that when he was away from Washington, Myer Feldman, his adviser on Jewish matters, would occasionally invite Jewish leaders to the White House for a discussion in the Cabinet Room. 

The third level for pressing the presidency is within the top levels of the departments-the State Department, Defense Department and National Security Council-where Israeli officials and groups of U.S. citizens who are pro-Israeli activists frequently call to present their agendas to cabinet officers or their chief deputies (see chapter five). 

"The Votes Are Against You" 

Zionists began pressing their case early in the administration of Harry S. Truman and intensified their efforts in 1947 when Truman initially expressed opposition to the establishment of a Jewish state in Palestine. Jewish leaders bought newspaper advertising designed to transform public shame and outrage over the Holocaust into popular support for the idea of a Jewish national homeland. Both Houses of Congress passed resolutions urging presidential support. 

When Truman continued to resist and publicly urged citizens to avoid inflaming "the passions of the inhabitants of Palestine," a group of New Jersey Jews wired: "Your policy on Palestine, has cost you our support in 1948." With election day approaching, it was a reminder of the grim political facts of life. Two-thirds of American Jews lived in New York, Pennsylvania and Illinois, and these states would cast  110 electoral votes in the presidential voting. Considered the underdog in the upcoming election despite his incumbency, Truman knew he must have those votes to win. 

With a proclamation announcing the new state of Israel expected soon, Truman assembled his Middle East ambassadors to get their views. Their spokesman, ambassador to Egypt Pinkerton "Pinky" Tuck, advised against immediate recognition. He told Truman the decision should be delayed long enough to carry out the consultation with Arab states that Truman's predecessor, Franklin D. Roosevelt, had promised the king of Saudi Arabia. 

Truman replied, "Mr. Tuck, you may be right, but the votes are against you." In deciding to recognize Israel immediately, Truman rejected not just Tuck's advice but that of all his military and diplomatic advisers. He chose instead the recommendation of his close friend and former associate in the haberdashery trade, Ed Jacobson. In fact, pro Israeli partisans today generally view Truman's immediate recognition of Israel as a prime example of effective lobbying through a "key contact" rather than the usual pressure tactics. Jacobson's pro-Zionist view was shared by Truman's political advisers, particularly Clark Clifford. 

Secretary of State George C. Marshall opposed the decision so strongly that he bluntly told Truman soon after his recognition announcement that if the election were held the next day he would not vote for him. Sentiments were of course much different in Israel. During a 1949 White House visit, the chief rabbi of Israel told the president, "God put you in your mother's womb so you would be the instrument to bring about the rebirth of Israel after 2000 years." 

In partisan political terms, Truman's decision paid off. On election day he received 75 percent of the Jewish vote nationally, which helped him win a razor-thin upset victory-and a permanent place of honor on the face of Israeli postage stamps, as well as in the hearts of Zionists. 

"Dismayed by 

Partisan Considerations''  

Presidential behavior toward the state of Israel took a turn in the opposite direction when Truman's successor, Dwight D. Eisenhower, assumed office. He resisted pressures from the Israeli lobby and on three occasions forced Israel to abandon major policies to which it was publicly and strongly committed. 

In September 1953, he ordered a cancellation of all aid amounting to $26 million-until Israel stopped work on a diversion canal being constructed on the Jordan River in violation of the 1949 ceasefire agreements, a project which would help assure Israeli control of water resources which were important to all nations in the region. It was the first time a president actually cut off all aid to Israel. He also instructed the Treasury Department to draft an order removing the tax deductible status of contributions made to the United Jewish Appeal and other organizations raising funds for Israel in the U.S. 

Predictably, Eisenhower's decision kicked up a major storm. Dr. Israel Goldstein told an audience of 20,000 celebrating Jerusalem's 3,000th birthday at New York's Madison Square Garden: "Peace will not be helped by withholding aid as an instrument of unwarranted duress." New York members of Congress joined the bandwagon. Senator Robert Wagner called the decision "cruel and intemperate," and Congressman Emanuel Celler denounced it as a "snap judgment." All major Jewish organizations condemned the action. 

Eisenhower stood firm in withholding aid, and less than two months later Israel announced it was ceasing work on the river diversion project. The president had won a first round, the confrontation was postponed, aid to Israel was resumed, and the order ending the privileged tax status enjoyed by Zionist groups was not issued. 

Eisenhower faced the lobby again in October 1956, just days before his re-election as president. Israel had negotiated a secret deal with Britain and France under which the three nations would coordinate a military attack on the Nasser regime in Egypt, which had just taken over the Suez Canal. Israel would strike across the Sinai Desert and move against the canal, while British and French forces, after an air bombardment, would invade from the north. 

The allied governments assumed that the United States would not interfere; France and Britain believed that Eisenhower would avoid a public showdown with his wartime allies. Israel, with the U.S. presidential election just days away, counted on partisan pressures from its American lobby to keep candidate Eisenhower on the sidelines. All miscalculated. 

When Israel's invasion of Egypt began on October 29, Eisenhower immediately cancelled all aid to Israel. He permitted only the delivery of food already in transit, stopping all other forms of assistance, both economic and military. These measures created such pressure that Israel halted its attack. The British and French, also under heavy U.S. pressure, abandoned their invasion from the north. 

Despite partisan assaults on his Middle East policy, the president was, of course, easily re-elected. In fact, more American Jews voted for Eisenhower in 1956 (40 percent) than those who had supported him in 1952 (36 percent). 

But Eisenhower's problems with Israel were far from over. Even after the invasion was halted, Israel decided to keep occupying forces in the Egyptian-administered Gaza Strip, as well as the strategic village of Sharm el-Sheik at the access to the Gulf of Aqaba. Despite protests by the United States and six resolutions by the United Nations, Israel refused to withdraw. As weeks passed, lobby pressure against Eisenhower's position received support from Eleanor Roosevelt, former President Truman, and leaders of both parties in the Senate, Democrat Lyndon Johnson of Texas and Republican William Knowland of California. 

Informed that the United States might support U.N. sanctions against Israel, Knowland threatened to resign as a member of the U.N. delegation and warned Secretary of State John Foster Dulles, "This will mean a parting of the ways." Dulles was firm: "I think you should study this. We cannot have all our policies made in Jerusalem." Dulles told Henry Luce, owner of Time, Inc. and a supporter of Israel's position, "I am aware how almost impossible it is in this country to carry out a foreign policy not approved by the Jews. [But] I am going to try to have one. This does not mean I am anti-Jewish, but I believe in what George Washington said in his farewell address, that an emotional attachment to another country should not interfere." 

Eisenhower considered the issue vital. He summoned the bipartisan leadership of Congress to the White House to request their support. Unwilling to tangle with pro-Israeli activists, the group refused. That night the president wrote in his diary: "As I reflected on the pettiness of the discussion of the morning, I found it somewhat dismaying that partisan considerations should enter so much into life-or death, peace-or-war decisions." 

A determined president took his case to the American people in a televised address in the spring of 1957: 

Should a nation which attacks and occupies foreign territory in the face of the United Nations disapproval be allowed to impose conditions on its own withdrawal? If we agreed that armed attack can properly achieve the purposes of the assailant, then I fear we will have turned back the clock of international order. 

Letters and telegrams poured into the White House, but almost all of the communications came from Jews, 90 percent supporting Israel's position. Dulles complained, "It is impossible to hold the line because we get no support from the Protestant elements in the country. All we get is a battering from the Jews." 

Eisenhower persisted, declaring that the United States would support a U.N. resolution imposing sanctions if Israel did not withdraw from all of the Sinai peninsula and from Gaza and threatening to take away the tax privilege enjoyed by donors to Israeli causes. Faced with that prospect, Israel finally capitulated and withdrew from the occupied territory. 

"'Armed Shipments 

Are Ready to Go" 

Israel fared better at the hands of the next occupants of the White House. Presidents John F. Kennedy and Lyndon B. Johnson began to help Israel in its military activities, not hold it back. 

Although there is no evidence to suggest that Kennedy accepted the dinner party proposition-to exchange control of Middle East policy for campaign contributions,he fared well on election day in 1960, receiving 82 percent of the Jewish vote, topping even Harry Truman's 75 percent, and, as president, he made a decision vital to Israel's military plans. He approved for the first time the U.S. sale of weapons to Israel. 

But Israel's military fortunes received a still greater boost with the arrival in the Oval Office of President Lyndon B. Johnson. Johnson's sympathy for the underdog-in his view, Israel-made him responsive to the demands of Israel and its lobby in the United States. Friends of Israel with special influence included Arthur Goldberg, U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, Philip Klutznick of Chicago, and three New Yorkers, Abraham Feinberg and Arthur and Mathilde Krim. The latter often worked through the Rostow brothers, Walt Rostow, Johnson's national security adviser, and Eugene Rostow, assistant secretary of state for political affairs. 

In a September 1966 letter to Feinberg, Klutznick called for an improved relationship between Johnson and the American Jewish community. He did not want Jewish differences with Johnson over the Vietnam war and aid to private schools, for example, to complicate American support for Israel. He called on Feinberg to help establish a "sense of participation." The elements of a deal were present. At the time, Johnson desperately wanted public support for the war in Southeast Asia, and the Jewish leaders wanted assurance that the U.S. would stand by Israel in a crisis. [yeah because they were planning the 6 day war of 67 DC]

Aid levels were increased, clearances issued for almost any military item, and extensive credit extended. 

Lobby pressure may not have been needed to persuade Johnson to support Israel, but the pressure came nevertheless. Harold Saunders, a member of the National Security Council staff and later Carter's assistant secretary of state for the Near East and South Asia, recalls the avalanche of telegrams and letters that urged President Johnson to stand behind Israel when Egypt's President Nasser closed the Strait of Tiran in May 1967: "I had 150,000 telegrams and letters from the Jewish community in boxes in my office. I do not exaggerate. There were 150,000 pieces of paper sitting there. They all said the same thing. And Johnson decreed that every one of them should be answered." 

In early June, on the day that Israel attacked Egypt, the president received this urgent message from Rostow: "Arthur Krim reports that many armed shipments are packed and ready to go to Israel, but are being held up. He thinks it would be most helpful if these could be released." 

Israel was at war, and this time the president of the United States would cause no problems. Aid would go forward without interruption. and calls for sanctions against Israel in the United Nations would face adamant U.S. opposition. The United States would actively support Israel's military endeavors. Powerful new ties with Israel would lead the president of the United States to cover up the facts concerning one of the most astonishing disasters in the history of the United States Navy. the Israeli attack on the USS Liberty (see chapter five). 

Saunders recalls that after the Arab-Israeli war, pro-Israeli interests blanketed the White House with the basic demand that Israel not be forced to withdraw from territory it occupied until the Arab states agreed to a "just and lasting peace" with Israel. Under this demand. Israel could use occupied Arab territory as a bargaining "chip" in seeking Arab recognition, an option that President Eisenhower refused to permit Israel to use after the Suez crisis in 1957. 

Saunders adds, "This Israeli demand was accepted by President Johnson without discussion in the National Security Councilor other policy institutions. It has had a profound impact on the course of events in the Middle East since that time." According to another high official of that period, the policy was adopted because the lobby succeeded in "pervading the very atmosphere of the White House." 

Nixon's Order Ignored 

Although Johnson's successor, Richard M. Nixon, came to office with little Jewish help, he supported Israel so heavily in his first term as president that in 1972 re-election campaign Israel's ambassador to Washington, Yitzhak Rabin, openly campaigned for him. Nixon won 35 percent of the Jewish vote in 1972, up 20 points from four years before. 

In 1973 he came powerfully to Israel's defense when Arab states tried to recover territory seized in 1967 by the Israelis. During the conflict, the weapons and supplies Nixon ordered airlifted to Israel proved to be Israel's lifeline. His decision to order forces on a high state of alert worldwide may have kept the Soviet Union from undertaking a larger role. 

Privately, Nixon criticized Israel for failing to cooperate in a comprehensive settlement of issues with its Arab neighbors. On several occasions, he ordered Henry Kissinger, national security adviser and later secretary of state, to suspend aid to Israel until it became more cooperative. Three days before he resigned the presidency, Nixon instructed Kissinger to disapprove an Israeli request for "long-term military assistance." Kissinger writes in his memoirs: "He would cut off all military deliveries to Israel until it agreed to a comprehensive peace. He regretted not having done so earlier; he would make up for it now. His successor would thank him for it. I should prepare the necessary papers." Kissinger adds that Nixon did not return to the subject. Although "the relevant papers were prepared," according to Kissinger, they were "never signed." Nor did Kissinger see fit to carry out the orders. (In July 1984, Nixon verified the Kissinger account, saying it was accurate and adding that he "still believes that aid to Israel should be tied to cooperation in a comprehensive settlement.") 

Assuming the presidency in 1975, Ford took no action on the cutoff papers prepared for Nixon, but confronted Rabin, who by then had become the Israeli prime minister, over the same comprehensive peace settlement issue. In an effort to elicit greater Israeli cooperation, Ford announced in 1975 that he would "reassess" U.S. policy in the Middle East (see chapter three). Under lobby-organized pressure from the Senate, Ford dropped the reassessment, but this retreat did not win him votes when he sought a full term as president the next year. In '1976, 68 percent of the Jewish vote went to Democrat Jimmy Carter. 

Uncritical Support Is 

No Favor to Israel 

During the period between Carter's election in 1976 and his inauguration in January 1977, the Israeli lobby played a role in his decision on who would manage foreign policy. Carter decided to nominate as Secretary of State Cyrus Vance, a man of decency and fairness and possessing the right impulses on Middle East policy, but in doing so he passed over George W. Ball, a man who had all these same important qualities but who also possessed the experience, personal force and worldwide prestige Carter would need in upcoming crises in the Middle East and elsewhere. 

When I visited him at his Princeton, N.J., residence during the summer of 1983-seeking background facts on this period-Ball was well into writing his fourth major book. I found him at the end of a narrow corridor lined with cartoons and photographs of the political past, in a large high-ceiling room bustling with the activity of a city newsroom just before press time. Once a private art gallery, it is now filled with computers, papers, books and busy people. 

At the center of it all, pecking away at a word processor keyboard and surrounded by papers stacked high on a U-shaped table sat the former deputy secretary of state under two presidents, former U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, and former executive with one of Manhattan's largest investment banking firms. At 73, he was still busy trying to bring order out of a world in disarray. The Manchester Guardian characterized him as "an idealist facing chaos with dignity." 

I was armed with questions. What price had Ball paid for speaking out on Middle East issues? Had it hurt his law practice, spoiled his chances to serve in higher office? Ball took time to talk, but he was busy. He had just addressed the cadets at West Point and was midway in preparing an editorial piece for the Washington Post in which he would warn the Reagan administration of immense pitfalls ahead in its Lebanese policy. He was one of my heroes, especially for his courage on Vietnam policy, and I admired his brilliance as a writer. Eloquent and witty, he reminded me more of his colleague in the Johnson administration, former Secretary of State Dean Rusk, but their views on Vietnam were sharply at odds. 

"I'll be with you in a minute," Ball said, glancing up from the keyboard. He gave the computer keys a few more whacks, stood up, whipped out a diskette and told his assistant, Lee Hurford, "Print it alt." His six-foot two-inch frame exuded confidence and power. Making his way through the array of books and papers, he explained, "I'm addicted to this machine. I would never go back to a typewriter. I quit commuting to Manhattan," he added, gesturing down the corridor, "because I can slip down here evenings if I have some ideas to put down." 

Put them down he has. Over the years many diplomats have firmly criticized Israeli policies, but most have confined their advice to private circles. Those who have spoken out publicly usually have done so in muted tones. Close friends doubt that Ball has any muted tones. He has never pulled any punches. But while on government assignments Ball dutifully kept his advice private. 

Ball has paid a price for such candor on Israeli policy. He was one of only three people considered for appointment as secretary of state under President Carter, and except for his outspoken views on Middle East affairs, his nomination would have seemed inevitable. 

His political and professional credentials were immaculate. A lifelong Democrat, he twice campaigned vigorously for Adlai E. Stevenson for president. In 1959 he became a supporter of John F. Kennedy's presidential ambitions. His diplomatic experience and prestige were diverse and unmatched. He had served as number two man in the State Department under Presidents John F. Kennedy and Lyndon Johnson. In those assignments he dealt intimately with the Cuban missile crisis and most other major issues in foreign policy for six years. He took the job as ambassador to the U.N., a job he did not want, because, in his words, "L.B.J. had surrounded me." 

Ball challenged military policies forcefully within administration circles. On a proposed policy question Johnson would frequently go around the cabinet room for advice, then say, "Now let's hear what Ball has to say against it." 

Ball consistently argued against the buildup in Vietnam. The Washington Post described him as "the consistent dove in a hawkish administration." Journalist Walter Lippman, a close friend, urged him to resign in protest: "Feeling as you do, you should resign and make your opposition public." Ball declined, believing it important that criticism of the war be heard directly from within the administration, though Johnson usually rejected his advice. 

Ball was one of America's best-known and most admired diplomats, but he probably spiked his prospects of becoming Carter's secretary of state when he wrote an article entitled "The Coming Crisis in Israeli-American Relations" for the Winter 1975-76 issue of Foreign Affairs quarterly. It provoked a storm of protest from the Jewish community. 

In the article, Ball cited President Eisenhower's demand that Israel withdraw from the Sinai as "the last time the United States ever took, and persisted in, forceful action against the strong wishes of an Israeli government." He saw the event as as watershed. "American Jewish leaders thereafter set out to build one of Washington's most effective lobbies, which now works in close cooperation with the Israeli embassy." 

He lamented the routine leakage of classified information: 

Not only do Israel's American supporters have powerful influence with many members of the Congress, but practically no actions touching Israel's interests can be taken, or even discussed, within the executive branch without it being quickly known to the Israeli government. 

He bemoaned Israel's rejection of U.S. advice at a time when Israel's dependence on U.S. aid had "reached the point of totality." 

Yet he was not surprised that Israel pursued an independent course:

Israelis have been so long conditioned to expect that Americans will support their country, no matter how often it disregards American advice and protests and America's own interests. 

Despite such sharp criticism, candidate Carter for a time considered Ball his principal foreign policy adviser and selected him as one of three finalists for secretary of state when, as the president-elect, he took up the process of selecting his cabinet. The other two finalists were Paul Warnke, former assistant secretary of defense and, of course, Cyrus Vance. 

Zbigniew Brzezinski, Carter's national security adviser, wrote in his book Power and Principle that Ball was his preference for secretary of state during the period preceding election day although he later shifted to Vance. Asked for his views during the post election process at Plains, Georgia, Brzezinski told Carter that Ball would be "a strong conceptualizer but probably a poor organizer, an assertive individual but probably somewhat handicapped by his controversial position on the Middle East." He said Ball's appointment as secretary of state would be received "extremely well in Western Europe and Japan, probably somewhat less so in the developing countries, and negatively in Israel." 

A number of Jewish leaders urged Carter not to name Ball to any significant role in his administration. The characteristic which made Ball unacceptable to the Israeli lobby was his candor; he wasn't afraid to speak up and criticize Israeli policy. Carter dropped Ball from consideration. 

With Carter's cabinet selection process completed, Ball continued to speak out. Early in 1977 he wrote another article in Foreign Affairs, "How to Save Israel in Spite of Herself," urging the new administration to take the lead in formulating a comprehensive settlement that would be fair to the Palestinians as well as Israel. For a time Carter moved in this direction, even trying to communicate with the Palestine Liberation Organization through Saudi Arabia. When this approach floundered, Carter shifted his focus on attempting to reach a settlement between Egypt and Israel at Camp David, where Ball believes Carter was double-crossed by Begin. "I talked with Carter just before Camp David. We had a long dinner together. He told me he was going to try to get a full settlement on Middle East issues, and he seemed to understand the significance of the Palestinian issue. On this I have no doubt, and I think he desperately wanted to settle it." After Camp David, Israel frustrated Carter's goals, continuing to build settlements in occupied territory and blocking progress toward autonomy for Palestinians in the West Bank. 

Although not a part of the Carter Administration, Ball continued to be an all-time favorite on television interview shows. One of these appearances led to a public exchange with a Jewish leader. On a panel interview in late 1977 Ball said he felt the Jewish community in the United States had put United States interests "rather secondary in many cases." 

To Morris B. Abram, Manhattan lawyer and former president of the American Jewish Committee, these were fighting words. Enlisted the year before in support of the effort to make Ball the secretary of state, Abram wrote him a public letter, published in the Washington Post, charging that these comments established Ball "as one who is willing to accept and spread age-old calumnies about Jews." 

Responding in the Washington Post, Ball denied that he was suggesting that "even the most ardent Zionist consciously choose Israel over America." He explained, "I suggest rather that the effect of their uncritical encouragement of Israel's most excessive actions is not wholly consistent with the United States' interests." His correspondence with Abram was published in the Washington Post. Ball concluded, 

When leading members of the American Jewish community give [Israel's] government uncritical and unqualified approbation and encouragement for whatever it chooses to do. while striving so far as possible to overwhelm any criticism of its actions in Congress and in the public media, they are, in my view. doing neither themselves nor the United States a favor. 

During the Reagan administration, Ball became one of the few Democrats trying to take his party back to the Middle East morality of Eisenhower. Of Reagan, he said, 

He did not demand, as he should have done under the law, that we would exact the penalties provided unless the Israelis stopped murdering civilians with the weapons we had provided them solely for self-defense. Instead he bought them off by committing our own Marines to maintain order while we persuaded the PLO leaders to leave rather than face martyrdom. 

Ball did not let his business career, any more than his public career, soften his public expressions. He admitted that his plain talk about the Middle East "certainly hasn't helped" his business career: 

I'm sure that my partners at Lehman Brothers had to absorb a certain amount of punishment. But they were tolerant and understanding people. I never felt I lost anything very much by speaking out. I'm politically untouchable, but I am sure certain groups would rather shoot me than deal with me. 

While never shot at for his views, his encounters with the Israeli lobby were numerous and began early in his career. He recalls the day, during the 1952 presidential race, when a pro-Israel emissary visited Adlai Stevenson's presidential campaign headquarters in Springfield, Illinois. The emissary told Ball that his friends had gathered a "lot of money" but wanted to "discuss the Israeli question" before turning it over. Ball says Stevenson met with the group-"He met with any group"-but he "never made any of the promises expected." 

In more recent presidential campaigns, Ball experienced lobby pressure of a different kind. In early 1979, impressed with the early pronouncements of John B. Anderson, Ball announced that he planned to vote for the maverick Republican who was running for president as an independent. Upon hearing the news, an elated Anderson called Ball and promised to visit him at Princeton "soon." Anderson changed his mind. He never came. Convinced by his campaign staff that he had to cultivate the pro-Israeli community if he hoped to make progress as a candidate, Anderson made a ritual visit to Israel. He issued statements fully supporting Israel. He shunned Ball. 

The elder statesman had a similar experience in 1983. After testifying to the Senate Foreign Relations Committee one morning, Ball was approached by Senator John Glenn, who was already testing the presidential waters. Glenn invited Ball to call because he wanted his advice on foreign policy issues. After trying unsuccessfully to get calls through, Ball wrote him. He stated his willingness to help Glenn set up a panel of scholars and former diplomats who could help the candidate with ideas, statements and speeches during the hectic days of campaigning. Ball had done the same thing for Adlai Stevenson in 1956. Several weeks later a letter arrived from Glenn stating that he would take up the suggestions with his campaign staff. That was the end of Ball's relationship with Glenn. 

Despite the intimidating factors that led candidates Carter, Anderson and Glenn to avoid his help, Ball feels the lobby is overrated in the power it can deliver. While it controls many votes in strategically important states and provides generous financial support to candidates, he contends these are not the principal factors of influence. 

Ball believes the lobby's instrument of greatest power is its willingness to make broad use of the charge of antisemitism: "They've got one great thing going for them. Most people are terribly concerned not to be accused of being antisemitic, and the lobby so often equates criticism of Israel with antisemitism. They keep pounding away at that theme, and people are deterred from speaking out." 

In Ball's view, many Americans feel a "sense of guilt" over the extermination of Jews by Nazi Germany. The result of this guilt is that the fear of being called anti-Semitic is "much more effective in silencing candidates and public officials than threats about campaign money or votes."[Well I am not one of the Many Americans D.C]

He Was Not Consistent 

Although proceeding without the services of George Ball, Jimmy Carter, for a fleeting moment, gave every indication of being a president who would stand up to Israel and pursue policies based on U.S. interests in the Middle East. He came to the presidency determined to be fair to Arab interests, as well as Israel, and once in office even advocated a homeland with secure borders for the Palestinians (see introduction) . 

While this endeavor soon faded, Carter made great strides in foreign policy elsewhere. In addition to organizing the Camp David Accords, his administration marked the consummation of the treaty with Panama, normalization of diplomatic relations with China, a major reform in international trade policy, and the initial agreement with the Soviet Union on strategic arms limitation, But in overall Middle East policy he lacked consistent purpose and commitment. 

Carter was dismayed when Jews in the United States remained disgruntled with his administration despite his major role in achieving a long-sought Israeli goal, the peace treaty between Egypt and Israel. A senior diplomat whose career stretches back over twenty years, remembers the pressures Jewish groups brought to bear following the joint U.S.-Soviet communique of October 1977. Carter was trying to revive the Geneva conference on the Middle East in order to get a comprehensive settlement of the Arab-Israeli dispute. The American Jewish community strongly objected. The diplomat recalls, "I remember I really had my hands full meeting with protesting Jewish groups. I figured up one day, totaling just the people the groups said they represented, that I must have met with representatives of half the entire U.S. Jewish community." 

The groups came well briefed. All, he says, used the same theme: 

What a terrible unpatriotic act it was to invite the Russians back into the Middle East; it was anti-Israel, almost anti-Semitic. I would spend part of my time meeting Jewish groups on Capitol Hill in the offices of Senators and Congressmen. 

Other times I would meet with groups of 20 to 40 in my conference room at State Department. Meanwhile Secretary of State Vance would be meeting with other groups, and the President with still others. 

The pressure was too much. Carter yielded to lobby pressures and quickly dropped the proposal. Carter also learned, like Ford before him, that yielding to the lobby on relations with Israel did not pay dividends on election day. Many Jews deserted him when he sought reelection in 1980. 

"They Wouldn't Give Him a Dime" 

The same year, the pressures of pro-Israeli activists became decisive in the fortunes of a renegade Texas Democrat who turned Republican because he wanted to succeed Jimmy Carter as president. 

In October 1979, John Connally, who had been Democratic governor of Texas, came to Washington to give the first major foreign policy speech of his campaign for the presidency. The field of Republican aspirants to the White House was already crowded. Although Ronald Reagan had not yet formally entered the race, seven other Republicans had announced their candidacy. 

Connally's campaign theme was "leadership for America," and television advertisements showed him the "candidate of the forgotten American who goes to church on Sunday." This American, Connally believed, was looking for leadership. His speech to the Washington Press Club contained a section outlining a plan to resolve the Arab/Israeli conflict. It was part of a campaign strategy designed to present the former governor of Texas and secretary of the treasury as a decisive leader capable of talking man to man with powerful foreigners. He had served in several cabinet positions under President Nixon. From this wide-ranging political experience, he should have known the sensitivity of the Arab-Israeli question. 

Several Middle East peace plans had been advanced by sitting presidents, but the plan Connally outlined in his speech was the most ambitious ever presented by a candidate for the office. He argued that the Carter initiative at Camp David had stalled because of failed diplomatic leadership and that it was time for the United States to pursue a new Middle East policy, one "based not on individual Arab or Israeli interests, but on American interests." 

American interests demanded peace and stability in the region, Connally said, and this could best be achieved by a program whereby the Israelis withdrew from occupied Arab territories in return for Arab acceptance of Israeli sovereignty and territorial integrity. The Arabs would be obligated to "renounce forever all hostile actions toward Jews and give up the use of oil supply and prices to force political change." This would ensure an uninterrupted supply of Middle Eastern oil, which, Connally said, "is and will continue to be the lifeblood of Western civilization for decades to come." The United States would guarantee the stability of the region by greatly expanding its military presence there. 

Connally became the first prominent presidential candidate to declare his support for Palestinian self-determination. He said the Palestinians should have the option of establishing an independent state on the West Bank and Gaza or an autonomous area within Jordan. Palestinian leaders willing to work for a compromise peace settlement with Israel should be welcomed to discussions, he added, but "those extremists who refuse to cooperate and continue to indulge in terrorism should be treated as international outlaws by the international community." 

Connally also suggested that future American aid be conditioned on Israeli willingness to adopt a more reasonable policy on the West Bank. Noting the strain imposed upon the Israeli economy by the need for constant military preparedness, he said, "Without billions of dollars in American economic and military aid, Israel simply could not survive. Yet it is only candid to say that support for this level of aid, in the absence of greater willingness by Israeli leadership to compromise with their neighbors, is eroding." He criticized the Begin government's "policy of creeping annexation of the West Bank," quoting a group of American Jewish leaders who earlier in the year had denounced Israeli policy on the West Bank as "morally unacceptable and perilous for the democratic character of the Jewish state." 

Connally knew his speech would stir controversy, and indeed the criticism came quick and hard. Rabbi Alexander Schindler, president of the Union of American Hebrew Congregations, said Connally's call for withdrawal from the territories "is a formula for Israel's liquidation." The Washington Star quoted unnamed Israeli officials in Washington as calling his plan "a total surrender to blackmail by Arab oil-producing countries." Henry Siegman, executive director of the American Jewish Congress, said Connally's criticism of the Camp David peace process "gives encouragement to the Arab confrontation states who urge a violent solution to the Arab-Israeli conflict. It is disappointing, although perhaps not surprising, that Mr. Connally should emerge as the candidate of the oil interests." Connally's campaign manager later accused the Israeli embassy of orchestrating the attack. 

Few news commentators praised his speech. Christian Science Monitor columnist Joseph C. Harsch found Connally's peace plan remarkable for its candor. Harsch wrote that Connally "broke with and, indeed, defined the pro-Israel lobby." He "said things about Israel which no prominent American politician has dared to say for a long time, with the exception of Senator J. William Fulbright." Agreeing that the peace plan was really nothing new, Harsch pointed out that it "comes out of the book of official American foreign policy as stated since the 1967 war." What was unusual, Harsch wrote, was that this policy should be articulated by a candidate for president:

The immediate question is whether Mr. Connally can demonstrate that it is possible to take the official government position on Middle East policy and still survive in the present political climate. 

Writing in the Nation, Arthur Samuelson called Connally's plan "both wrong and dangerous," but went on to say that "Connally's candor is praiseworthy": 

For all too long, public debate over the Middle East has been characterized by a marked dishonesty on the part of aspirants for public office. Rather than put forward how they plan to break the impasse in American-Israeli relations that has remained constant since 1967, they fall over one another in praise of Israel's virtues. 

The Washington Post called Connally's speech "a telling measure of how American debate on this central issue is developing": 

No previous candidate for a major party's presidential nomination has staked out a position so opposed to the traditional line. Mr. Connally offers no deference to the 'Jewish lobby,' attacking the current Israeli government's policies head on. 

Within a few days of the speech, however, less friendly voices were heard. A Jewish Republican running for mayor of Philadelphia snubbed Connally by refusing to be photographed with him. Two Jewish members of Connally's national campaign committee resigned in protest. One of them, Rita Hauser, chairman of the Foreign Affairs Council of the American Jewish Committee, called the speech "inexcusable" and said it represented "the straight Saudi line." The second, attorney Arthur Mason, said he was fearful that Connally's speech might stir anti-Semitism. [So interesting here in 2017,the bad mouthing of S.Arabia by Jewish interests,yes indeed DC]

The bad news kept coming. The New York Republican Committee withdrew its invitation for Connally to speak at its annual Lincoln Day dinner, and traditional big givers boycotted a fundraiser in New York that was to feature Connally. The Washington Post quoted an unnamed source who said the speech had robbed Connally of support which his pro-business positions had won among some Jews: "Now they wouldn't give him a dime." 

Certainly the Connally candidacy suffered problems unrelated to his positions on the Middle East. The campaign experienced organizational difficulties, the forceful Texan came across to some as too "hot" on the "cool" medium of television, and he was undoubtedly hurt by his switch from the Democratic to the Republican party in 1973. 

But Winton Blount, Connally's campaign chairman, believes that none of these factors equaled the "devastating" effect of the controversial speech. Connally himself says there is "no question" that the speech hurt. Columnist William Safire, an admirer of Connally but also a pro-Israeli hard-liner, made a pained assessment of the speech's effect on the presidential race: 

Supporters of Israel-along with many others concerned with noisy U.S. weakness in the face of Soviet military and Arab economic threats-made a reassessment of Ronald Reagan and decided he looked ten years younger. 

Succumbing to Israeli Dictates 

In 1984, it was no contest at all on the Republican side of the presidential race, either for the nomination or in respect to policy toward Israel. Ronald Reagan had the field to himself and was not about to risk a confrontation like the one fatal to the candidacy of John Connally four years before. 

In late 1983, certain to be a candidate for re-election, Reagan was in a position to deliver, not just promise. He had encountered Israeli pressures in opposition to his September 1982 peace plan and his delay in delivering fighter aircraft in the wake of Israel's bombing of the Iraq nuclear plant. But he had avoided a major showdown with Israel, and, beginning in 1983, Reagan went all-out for the Jewish vote, pandering to the Israeli lobby while trying to keep the Middle East crisis on hold until after the election. 

Polls showed the need for repair work. In 1980 Reagan had received 40 percent of the Jewish vote-the largest ever by a Republican-but half of this support had since drifted away. In April 1983 Albert A. Spiegel, a longtime Reagan supporter, had quit as a special adviser to Reagan on Jewish affairs. Spiegel was upset over a newspaper story which said Reagan intended to press his Middle East peace plan despite Jewish opposition and felt he could be re-elected without Jewish votes. 

In December Reagan launched a broad bid for Jewish support. The first action was upgrading the position of White House liaison with the Jewish community, but his changes on the policy front were even more significant. After meeting with Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Shamir in December 1983, Reagan announced a dramatic increase in the level of aid. Instead of the old formula, under which Israel was required to pay back some of the funds advanced, the administration requested that in the future all aid be in the form of a grant. In addition, in a gesture to Israel's sagging industry, he agreed that $250 million in U.S. aid funds could be spent in Israel to help finance the manufacture of a new Israeli warplane. United States aircraft firms were dismayed, because they receive no similar government aid. (See chapter two.) 

Reagan proposed a new higher level of "strategic cooperation" in the military field and a free trade relationship which would make Israel the only nation with tariff-free access to both the European community and the United States. 

All of this won applause from the Israeli lobby. Near East Report, the A.I.P.A.C newsletter, declared editorially: "Reagan has earned the gratitude of all supporters of a strong U.S.-Israel relationship." 

In March, Reagan made further concessions to the lobby. He refused to intercede with Israel at the request of King Hussein of Jordan, whom he had been pressing to join the peace process. Aiming both to strengthen Yasser Arafat against more radical elements within the Palestine Liberation Organization, and to improve his own influence over the Palestinian cause, Hussein asked the president for help. He wanted Reagan to press Israel to permit Palestinians living on the West Bank and Gaza to attend the upcoming session of the Palestine National Council. In another message, Hussein asked the United States to support a U.N. resolution declaring illegal the settlements Israel has built in Arab territory it occupies, a position maintained for years by previous presidents. Reagan rejected both requests. Hussein told a reporter for the New York Times that "the United States is succumbing to Israeli dictates," and he saw no hope for future improvement. 

The leading contenders for the Democratic nomination, like Reagan, never missed an opportunity to pledge allegiance to Israel. 

"Conscience of the Democrats" 

The 1984 presidential contest often focused on the competition between former Vice-President Walter Mondale and Senator Gary Hart on the question of who was more loyal to Israel. Mondale accused Hart of being weak in supporting the removal of the U.S. embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem. Hart accused Mondale of trying to "intimidate and coerce Israel into taking unacceptable risks" while he was vice president under President Carter. 

Actually, Mondale was the principal pro-Israel force within the Carter Administration. During the 1980 campaign he responded to lobby pressure by helping to engineer a diplomatic maneuver that proved costly to the United States. When Donald McHenry, the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, cast a vote March 1 rebuking Israel publicly for its settlements policy-the first such rebuke of an Israeli action since the Eisenhower administration-Jewish circles were furious, and so was Mondale. McHenry's vote supported a resolution which offended the pro-Israel lobby on two points: it was critical of Israeli settlements on the West Bank, and it referred to East Jerusalem as "occupied territory." 

Mondale organized an immediate counterattack within White House circles. He persuaded Carter that the State Department had wrongly advised him. Late in the evening of the controversial vote the White House announced a ''failure in communications" between Washington and New York. It explained that McHenry had misunderstood his instructions and should have abstained. Three days later, Secretary of State Cyrus Vance personally took the blame for the "failure." Few believed him. 

Both the nation and the Carter-Mondale ticket would have been better off if Carter had ignored Mondale's demand for a vote reversal. For Carter the episode was an unrelieved diplomatic disaster. Arabs were outraged at what they viewed as a shameless withdrawal in the face of Jewish pressure. American Jews, urged to action by Israeli Defense Minister Ariel Sharon, doubted the honesty of the explanation and felt betrayed. Sharon told Jews in New York, "I do not like to interfere with internal United States affairs, but the question of Israeli security is a question for Jews anywhere in the world." To the world, the administration appeared out of control. 

Senator Edward Kennedy was the main beneficiary of Carter's embarrassment. Calling the U.N. vote a "betrayal" of Israel, he won the Massachusetts primary 2-to-1 over Carter and also carried New York and Connecticut, where earlier polls had shown Carter ahead. In New York, Jews voted 4-to-1 for Kennedy. A member of the Israeli parliament said: "The American Jewish community showed itself to have the leverage to swing a vote over the issue of whether the president is good to Israel." 

Mondale's measures did not placate the Jewish vote. In November Carter-Mondale became the first Democratic presidential ticket that failed to win a majority of the Jewish votes cast, exit polls showing it receiving, at the most, 47 percent. 

After losing on the Carter ticket to Reagan-Bush, Mondale devoted himself full-time to campaigning for the presidency, with uncritical support of Israel becoming a principal plank in his platform. Early in the campaign, he dismissed the idea that Saudi Arabia would "become a strong assertive force for moderation" and urged the prepositioning of high-technology U.S. military equipment in the custody of Israeli "technicians, an arrangement that would eliminate any possibility that the equipment could be used for purposes independent of Israeli wishes."

Later, Mondale and his campaign team carefully avoided any relationship with Arab interests, or even Arab American interests. In June 1984, this zeal led Thomas Rosenberg, Mondale's finance director in Illinois, to return five $1,000 checks to Chicagoans of Arab ancestry who had presented them as campaign donations. He explained that some of the comments they had made in a personal meeting with Mondale amounted to "an anti-Israeli, anti-Semitic diatribe," but one of the five, Albert Joseph, a lifelong Democrat and owner of Hunter Publishing company, denied the accusation, recalling, "We passed 45 minutes with [Mondale] in the utmost friendliness and respect." 

Joseph said that when the checks were returned he was informed by Joseph Gomez, at the time a member of the Mondale finance committee in Illinois, that Mondale's organization had decided to "take no more money from Arab Americans in the future." The Chicago publisher said he felt "insulted, betrayed and shocked." He told a reporter that Mondale was "disenfranchising a whole group of Americans." Upset by the decision to return the funds, Gomez, a Chicago banker and Hispanic leader, withdrew from the Mondale campaign. Gomez said the Mondale campaign decision confirmed his view that "people of Arab ancestry are the most persecuted group in America today." 

Candidate Gary Hart's record of support for Israel was as unblemished as Mondale's, and his campaign organization displayed a similar indifference to Arab American sensibilities. Upon learning that the First American Bank in Washington-where he had done personal banking for years-had been purchased by a group of Middle East investors in 1982, Hart immediately closed out a campaign loan of $700,000 and severed all ties with the bank. His special counsel explained, "We didn't know it was an Arab bank. We got Hart out of it as soon as we knew." Hart's competitor for the nomination, Jesse Jackson, denounced the act as a "serious act of racism." 

As a Senator, Hart voted for every pro-Israeli measure, opposed every initiative intended to provide arms to Arab states, and put his signature on every major letter and resolution helpful to the Israeli cause. When a few colleagues, like Senator John Glenn, condemned Israel's raid on the Iraqi nuclear installation, he deplored the condemnation. 

Senators Ernest Hollings of South Carolina and Alan Cranston of California and former Florida governor Reuben Askew-early dropouts in the Democratic competition-were similarly uncritical in their support of Israel. So was Senator John Glenn of Ohio, who had been expected by many observers to take a middle road position on Mideast policy. In the past he had criticized Israeli military actions, supported the sale of F-15 aircraft to Saudi Arabia, and even suggested talks with the PLO: "I don't think we should reject talking with the PLO, PLO terrorism is not unique in that area." 

Bitten by the presidential bug, Glenn shifted ground in 1983, effectively ruling out such talks and excusing his vote for F-15 sale on the grounds that Saudi Arabia would otherwise have bought planes from France with "no strings attached." 

In a speech to the Foreign Policy Association in New York, Glenn went much further, saying that the United States should recognize Jerusalem as the official capital of Israel once the terms of Camp David are completed or if negotiations break down completely. He characterized the PLO as "little more than a gang of thugs" and said the biggest obstacle to peace in the Middle East was Arab refusal to accept the legitimacy of Israel. 

Although the speech did not allay Jewish suspicion, it cost him the support of citizens who felt the next president must respond to Arab as well as Israeli concerns. One of Glenn's closest colleagues, an Ohio Congressman, reacted with alarm and distress: "Glenn caved in, and he didn't have to do it. I was so demoralized by that statement I delayed making some calls to labor people in his behalf." The speech caused a veteran diplomat of the Johnson administration, former Ambassador Lucius Battle, to refuse to serve as a Glenn foreign policy adviser. 

Only two candidates spoke up for a balanced policy in the Middle East: black civil rights activist Jesse L. Jackson and George McGovern, the 1972 Democratic presidential nominee. McGovern called for the creation of an independent Palestinian state and criticized Israeli military and settlement actions. His proposals were even more precise than those that brought John Connally's campaign to an end four years before. 

In a speech at a Massachusetts synagogue in February, McGovern asked, "Is it not both bad politics and bad ethics to brand as anti-Israel an American politician who is willing to apply the same critical standards to Israeli policies that are applied to United States policies?" McGovern said that even though during his 22 years in Congress he had voted "100 percent" for measures providing economic and military aid to Israel, he nevertheless opposed Israel's invasion of Lebanon: "I don't think one sovereign nation has the right to invade another." 

Neither McGovern nor Jackson had a serious prospect for nomination. In different ways, each presented himself in the role of "party conscience." The "Super Tuesday" primaries in March eliminated McGovern, and only Jackson's conscience remained in the campaign. 

Jackson became controversial with U.S. Jews four years before his presidential bid when he carried his human rights activism abroad to Lebanon and there met PLO leader Yasser Arafat. Until then the former disciple of the Reverend Martin Luther King had worked mainly for black rights through his organization, People United to Save Humanity (PUSH), a Chicago-based group that received substantial Jewish financial support. In Lebanon, he came face-to-face with the misery of Palestinians, describing them as "the niggers of the Middle East." 

Early in 1983, Jackson began traveling the country as a "non candidate" but already drumming up interest in a "rainbow coalition" of interest groups. At a time when prospective candidates often try to blur controversial statements made in the past, Jackson reiterated his recommendation that the United States open a dialogue with the Palestine Liberation Organization. In a statement over New York television he said the United States can best help Israel by supporting the creation of a Palestinian homeland. Until that happens, he said, Palestinians will engage in "more acts of terrorism, more acts of desperation. " He urged direct U.S. talks with the PLO to get the peace process moving, but he said our diplomats cannot even discuss this option, because "intimidation is so great" in the United States. These statements put him at odds with most Jewish leaders. 

By the time he became a candidate in October 1983, Washington Post editorial editor Meg Greenfield called Jackson one of the nation's two greatest political orators (sharing the honor with President Reagan). He immediately enlivened the political scene by flying to Syria where he negotiated the release of a U.S. Navy pilot held captive there. He proclaimed, "The temperature has been lowered somewhat between Syria and America. The cycle of pain has been broken." 

In the critical primaries beginning in March, he received impressive support in Illinois, New York and Pennsylvania, as well as southern states. In televised debates with Mondale and Hart, Jackson called for compassion in dealing with all people in the Middle East and rejected the "terrorist" labels so often attached to all Palestinians. While Mondale and Hart rejected Jackson's plea for a comprehensive Middle East peace involving a Palestinian homeland in the West Bank, the exchange was moderate in terms and expression, the first time that Palestinian rights had been discussed with civility in a presidential campaign. 

Jackson found himself on the defensive when a reporter disclosed that in private conversation he had referred to Jews as "Hymies" and New York as "Hymietown," a slip that led many to charge him with being anti-Semitic. He was encumbered by the endorsement of controversial black leader Louis Farrakhan, who called Judaism a "dirty religion" and Hitler a "wickedly great man." Inspired by attacks from Jewish leaders, the press never let up in pressing him concerning allegations of antisemitism and his relationship with Farrakhan. Even in his press conference in Cuba, where his endeavors brought the release of several U.S. citizens, the antisemitic theme dominated the questioning. In advance of the Democratic convention, the American Jewish Committee organized a campaign to keep Jackson from attaining prominence in the campaign of the expected nominee, Walter Mondale. 

Despite these problems, he rallied support broadly enough to remain a major factor through the convention. While no one expected Jackson to be on the presidential ticket, he emerged a winner even before the convention. 

He proved that a black man could be a credible candidate for the nation's highest office, even while supporting positions strongly opposed by the Israeli lobby. In doing so, he lifted the self-esteem of two ethnic groups often abused or neglected in U.S. society: blacks and Arab Americans. 

The winner of the presidential sweepstakes, Ronald Reagan, was left to wonder if his heroic endeavors for Israel had paid off at the polls. He received 31 percent of the Jewish vote, down from the 40 percent he received in 1980.

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