PART 10:THEY DARE TO SPEAK OUT PEOPLE AND INSTITUTIONS CONFRONT ISRAEL'S LOBBY, NOT ALL JEWS TOE THE LINE

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


Chapter 10 

Not All Jews Toe the Line 

In its efforts to quell criticism of Israel, the pro-Israel community's first goal is to still Jewish critics. In this quest it receives strong support from the Israeli government. 

Every government of Israel gives high priority to maintaining unity among U.S. Jews. This unity is regarded as a main line of Israel's defense-second in importance only to the Israeli army-and essential to retaining the support Israel must have from the United States government. 

American Jews are made to feel guilty about enjoying safety and the good life in the United States while their fellow Jews in Israel hold the ramparts, pay high taxes, and fight wars. As Rabbi Balfour Brickner states: "We hide behind the argument that it is not for us to speak our minds because the Israelis have to pay the price." 

For most Jews, open criticism of Israeli policy is unthinkable. The theme is survival-survival of the Zionist dream, of Judaism, of Jews themselves. The fact that the Jewish community in the United States has produced little debate in recent years on Middle East questions even within its own ranks does not mean that all its members agree. 

In private many American Jews hold positions in sharp disagreement with official Israeli policies. The differences are startling. A 1983 survey by the American Jewish Committee revealed that about half of U.S. Jews favor a homeland for the Palestinians on the West Bank and Gaza and recommend that Israel stop the expansion of settlements in order to encourage peace negotiations. Three-fourths want Israel to talk to the Palestine Liberation Organization if it recognizes Israel and renounces terrorism. Only 21 percent want Israel to maintain permanent control over the West Bank. On each of these propositions, the plurality of American Jews takes issue with the policies and declarations of the Israeli government. 

A plurality also holds that American Jews individually, as well as in organized groups, should feel free to criticize Israeli policy publicly. Of those surveyed, 70 percent say U.S. Jewish organizations should feel free to criticize. On this question, even Jewish leaders say they welcome criticism: 40 percent say organizations should feel free to criticize; 37 percent disagree. This means that only one-third of the leaders say they want to stifle organizational criticism of Israel. The vote by individual Jews for free and open debate is even stronger. Only 31 percent declare that American Jews individually should not criticize Israeli policy publicly; 57 percent disagree. On this question, leaders and non-leaders vote exactly alike. 

The results of the survey are not easily reconciled with the facts about public dissent. While American Jews say they strongly oppose some Israeli policies and believe that organizations and individuals should feel free to criticize these policies openly, the simple fact is that public criticism is almost non-existent. The views expressed in the survey must be regarded more as a "wish list" than a statement of principles which the people surveyed actually try to carry out. 

In public, Jewish organizations in the United States support Israeli policies with a unanimity that is broken only in rare circumstances. They either give open support or remain silent. The leaders of B'nai B'rith and the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (A.I.P.A.C) expressed guarded support for President Reagan's Middle East peace plan immediately after it was announced in September 1982, but these expressions occurred before the Israeli government had stated its position. Once Israeli opposition was known, these organizations dropped the subject. 

''Trampled to Death" 

Of the more than 200 principal Jewish organizations functioning on a national scale, only the New Jewish Agenda and its predecessor, Breira, have challenged any stated policy of the Israeli government. 

In return for their occasional criticism of Israel's policies, the two organizations were ostracized and kept out of the organized Jewish community. Breira lasted only five years. Organized in 1973, its peak national membership was about 1,000. Named for the Hebrew word meaning "alternative," it called on Jewish institutions to be "open to serious debate," and proposed "a comprehensive peace between Israel, the Arab states, and a Palestinian homeland that is ready to live in peace alongside Israel." Prominent in its leadership were Rabbis Arnold Jacob Wolf, David Wolf Silverman, Max Ticktin, David Saperstein, and Balfour Brickner. 

The counterattack was harsh. The National Journal reports that Briera was "bitterly attacked by many leaders of the Jewish establishment" and that a Breira meeting was "invaded and ransacked" by members of the militant Jewish Defense League. Some members of Breira came under intense pressure to quit either the organization or their jobs. Jewish leaders were warned to avoid Breira or fund raising would be hurt. 

Israeli officials joined rabbis in denouncing the organization. Carolyn Toll, a reporter for the Chicago Tribune and formerly on the board of directors of Breira, quotes a rabbi: "My bridges are burned. Once you take a position like this [challenging Israeli positions], the organized Jewish community closes you out." Officials from the Israeli consulates in Boston and Philadelphia warned Jews against attending a Breira conference. 

Breira came under attack from both right and left within the Jewish community. A pamphlet branding some of its members as "radicals" was quoted by Jewish publications and later distributed by A.I.P.A.C. Breira was accused of being allied with the radical U.S. Labor Party. An unsigned "fact sheet" suggested that it really was a group of Jewish radicals supporting the P.L.O. The Seattle Jewish Transcript said it was run by a "coterie of leftist revolutionaries" who opposed Israel. 

Irving Howe, speaking at the final national conference of Breira in 1977, said the tactics used to smear the organization were an "outrage such as we have not known for a long time in the Jewish community." At the same meeting, retired Israeli General Mattityahu Peled, who was often boycotted by Jewish groups while on U.S. lecture tours, said, "The pressure applied on those who hold dissenting views here [in the U.S.] is far greater than the pressure on us in Israel. I would say that probably we in Israel enjoy a larger degree of tolerance than you do here within the Jewish community." Breira disbanded shortly afterward. 

In December 1980, 700 American Jews gathered in Washington, D.C., to found another organization of dissenters, the New Jewish Agenda. Composed mainly of young liberals, it called for "compromise through negotiations with the Palestinian people and Israel's Arab neighbors" and opposed Israeli policies in the West Bank and Lebanon. 

It was soon barred from associating with other Jewish groups. In June 1983, its Washington, D.C., chapter was refused membership in the Jewish Community Council, a group which included 260 religious, educational, fraternal and social service organizations. The council members voted 98 to 70 to overturn the recommendation of the group's executive board, which had voted 22 to five for admission. Irwin Stein, president of the Washington chapter of the Zionist Organization of America charged that the group was "far out" and "pro-Arab rather than pro-Israel." Moe Rodenstein, representing the Agenda, said the group would like to be a part of "the debate" and added, "We're proud of what we're doing." 

"It Is a Form of McCarthyism" 

Like the Jewish organizations, individual Jews rarely express public disagreement with Israel policies, despite the broad and fundamental differences they seem to hold. The handful who have spoken up have had few followers and even fewer defenders. To Carolyn Toll, the taboo against criticism is powerful and extensive: 

I believe even Jews outside the Jewish community are affected by internal taboos on discussion-for if one is discouraged from bringing up certain subjects within the Jewish community, think how much more disloyal it could be to raise them outside! 

Toll laments the "suppression of free speech in American Jewish institutions-the pressures that prevent dovish or dissident Jews from organizing in synagogues, Jewish community centers, and meetings of major national Jewish organizations" and denunciations of American Friends Service Committee representatives as "anti-Semitics" and "dupes of the Palestine Liberation Organization" for insisting that "any true peace must include a viable state for the Palestinians." 

A successful Jewish author suffered a different type of "excommunication" when she wrote a book critical of Israel. In The Fate of the Jews, a candid and anguished history of U.S. Jewry and its present-day dilemma, Roberta Strauss Feuerlicht explains that Zionism has become the "religion" for many Jews. This is why, she writes, that "opposition to Zionism or criticism of Israel is now heresy and cause for excommunication," adding that the idealism attributed to Israel by most supporters has been marred by years of "patriotism, nationalism, chauvinism and expansionism." She declares, "Israel shields itself from legitimate criticism by calling her critics anti-Semitic; it is a form of McCarthyism and fatally effective." 

A year after its publication in 1983 by Times Books, the book was still largely ignored. The Los Angeles Times was the only major newspaper to review it. The publisher undertook no advertising, nor even a minimal promotional tour. Feuerlicht, the author of fifteen successful books, was subjected to what Mark A. Bruzonsky, another Jewish journalist, described as a "combination of slander and neglect." When copies sent to prominent "liberal Jews, Christians, civil libertarians and blacks" brought no response, Feuerlicht concluded, "It would seem that with universal assent, the book is being stoned to death with silence." 

Other Jews who dare voice guarded criticism of Israel encounter threats which are far from silent. Threatening phone calls have become a part of life for Gail Pressberg of Philadelphia, a Jewish member of the professional staff of the American Friends Service Committee. In her work she is active in projects supporting the Palestinian cause. She reports that abuse calls are so frequent that "I don't pay any attention anymore." One evening, after receiving several calls on her unlisted telephone in which her life was threatened for "deserting Israel," in desperation she left the receiver off the hook. A few minutes later the same voice called on her roommate's phone, also unlisted, resuming the threats. 

In my 22 years in Congress, I can recall no entry in Congressional Record disclosing a speech critical of Israeli policy by a Jewish member of the House or Senate. Jewish members may voice discontent in private conversation but never on the public record. Only a few Jewish academicians, like Noam Chomsky, a distinguished linguist, have spoken out. Most, like Chomsky, are protected in their careers by tenure and thus are able to become controversial without jeopardizing their positions. 

"Dissent Becomes Treason" 

Journalism is the occupation in which Jews most often and most consistently voice criticism of Israel. Richard Cohen of the Washington Post is a notable example. 

During Israel's 1982 invasion of Lebanon, Cohen warned: " ... The administration can send Begin a message that he does not have an infinite line of credit in America-that we will not, for instance, approve the bombing of innocent civilians." 

In a later column, Cohen summarized the reaction to his criticism of Israeli policy: "My phone these days is an instrument of torture. Merely to answer it runs the risk of being insulted. The mail is equally bad. The letters are vicious, some of them quite personal." He noted that U.S. Jews are held to a different standard than Israelis when they question Israel's policies. 

Here dissent becomes treason-and treason not to a state or even an ideal (Zionism), but to a people. There is tremendous pressure for conformity, to show a united front and to adopt the view that what is best for Israel is something only the government there can know. 

In a world in which there are plenty of people who hate Jews, it is ridiculous to manufacture a whole new category out of nothing more than criticism of the Begin government. Nothing could be worse for Israel in the long run than for its friends not to distinguish between when it is right and when it is wrong. 

Mark Bruzonsky, a persistent journalistic critic of these Israeli excesses, concludes, ''There's no way in the world that a Jew can avoid a savage and personal vendetta if his intent is to write a truthful and meaningful account of what he has experienced." 

Being Jewish did not spare the foreign news editor of Hearst newspapers from similar problems. In early 1981 John Wallach produced a television documentary, "Israel and Palestinians: Will Reason Prevail?" funded by the Foundation for Middle East Peace, a nonprofit institute established by Washington lawyer Merle Thorpe, Jr. His goal was a fair, balanced presentation of the problems confronting Israel in dealing with the Palestinians on the West Bank and Gaza. Public television broadcast the program without incident in Washington, D.C., New York and other major cities, but Jewish leaders in Los Angeles demanded an advance showing and upon seeing the film put up such a strong protest that station KCT inserted a statement disclaiming any responsibility for the content of the documentary. 

Wallach received many complaints about the presentation, the most common being that it portrayed Palestinian children in a favorable light-some were blond and blue-eyed, and all attractive-a departure from the frequently negative stereotype of Palestinians. Before the film was produced, Israeli Ambassador Simcha Dinitz called Wallach, urging him to drop the project. When Wallach persisted, invitations to receptions and dinners at the Israeli embassy suddenly stopped. For a time he was not even notified of press briefings. 

Wallach found himself in hot water again in 1982 when controversy erupted after a formal dinner he had organized to recognize Ambassador Philip Habib's diplomatic endeavors in Lebanon. Several cabinet officers, Congressmen and members of the diplomatic community attended the dinner. During the program, messages from several heads of government were read. Wallach asked Senator Charles Percy, chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee, to read the one from Israel's Prime Minister Menachem Begin to the audience. On Wallach's recommendation, Percy did not read these two sentences: 

In the wake of the Operation Peace in Galilee, Phil Habib made great efforts to bring about the evacuation of the bulk of the terrorists from Beirut and Lebanon. He worked hard to achieve this goal and, with the victory of the Israel Defense Forces, his diplomatic endeavors contributed to the dismantling of that center of international terrorism which had been a danger to all free nations. Moshe Arens, the Israeli ambassador, was furious. 

He sent an  angry letter to Percy expressing his shock and stating, "Although I realize that you may not have agreed with its contents, ... this glaring omission seems to me to be without precedent." He also wrote to Wallach, complaining of "unprecedented discourtesy" and calling the omission an attempt to "cater to the ostrich-like attitude of some of the ambassadors from Arab countries." Arens also wrote protest letters to the management of Hearst Corporation, which had picked up the tab for the dinner. 

Wallach told another journalist the next day why he had recommended the omission: "I thought it was insulting to the Arabs [who were present] to have a message about war and terrorism at an evening that was a tribute to Phil Habib and peace." 

Wallach said, "The irony was that, while I got lots of harsh, critical mail from those supporting Begin, I got no words of support or commendation from the other side. It makes one wonder-when there is no support, only criticism, when one risks his career." 

Similar questions are raised by Nat Hentoff, a Jewish columnist who frequently criticizes Israel and challenges the conscience of his fellow Jews in his column for the Village Voice. During the Israeli invasion of Lebanon in 1982 he lamented: 

At no time during his visit here [in the United States] was [Prime Minister] Begin given any indication that there are some of us who fear that he and Ariel Sharon are destroying Israel from within. Forget the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations and the groups they represent. They have long since decided to say nothing in public that is critical of Israel. 

Hentoff deplored the intimidation that silences most Jewish critics: 

I know staff workers for the American Jewish Congress and the American Jewish Committee who agonize about their failure to speak out, even on their own time, against Israeli injustice. They don't, because they figure they'll get fired if they do. 

The threat of being fired was forcefully put to a group of employees of Jewish organizations in the United States during a 1982 tour of Lebanon. Israel's invasion was at its peak, and a number of employees of the Jewish National Fund-a nationwide organization which raises money for the purchase and development of Israeli land-were touring Lebanese battlefield areas. Suddenly, while the group was traveling on the bus, Dr. Sam Cohen of New York, the executive vice president of the J.N.F, stood up and made a surprising announcement. A member of the tour, Charles Fishbein, at the time executive for the Washington office, recalls, "He told us that when we get back to the United States, we must defend what Israel is doing in Lebanon. He said that if we criticize Israel, we will be terminated immediately." 

Fishbein said the group was on one of several hastily arranged tours designed to quell rising Jewish criticism of the invasion. In all, over 1,500 prominent American Jews were flown to Israel for tours of hospitals and battlefields. The tours ranged in length from four to seven days. The more prestigious the group of visitors, the shorter, more compressed the schedule. Disclosing only Israeli hardship, the tours were successful in quieting criticism within the ranks of Jewish leadership and also inspired many actively to defend Israeli war policies. 

'The Time May Not Be Far Off" 

Peer pressure does not always muffle Jewish voices. A man who pioneered in establishing the state of Israel and helped to organize its crucial underpinnings of support in the United States later became a frequent critic of Israeli policy. 

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Nahum Goldmann is a towering figure in the history of Zionism. He played a crucial role in the founding of Israel, meeting its early financial problems, influencing its leaders, and organizing a powerful constituency for it in the United States. His service to Zionism spanned nearly fifty years. During World I, when Palestine was still part of the Ottoman Empire, Goldmann tried to persuade Thrkish authorities to allow Jewish immigration. In the 1930s he advocated the Zionist cause at the League of Nations. During the 1h1man administration, he lobbied for the United Nations resolution calling for partition of Palestine and the establishment of Israel. 

After the 1947 U.N. vote for the partition, unlike most Jews who were eager to proclaim the state of Israel, Goldmann urged delay. He hoped that the Jews would first reach an understanding with the Arab states and thereby avoid war. 

He lamented the bitter legacy of the war that ensued. He wrote, '"'The unexpected defeat was a shock and a terrible blow to Arab pride. Deeply i1\iured, they turned all their endeavors to the healing of their psychological wound: to victory and revenge." To the Israelis, 

The victory offered such a glorious contrast to the centuries of persecution and humiliation, of adaptation and compromise, that it seemed to indicate the only direction that could possibly be taken from then on. To brook nothing, to tolerate no attack, cut through Gordian knots, and shape history by creating facts seemed so simple, so compelling, so satisfying that it became Israel's policy in its conflict with the Arab world. 

When the fledgling nation was struggling to build its economy, Not All Jews Toe the Line 273 Goldmann negotiated with West German Chancellor Konrad Adenauer the agreement under which the Germans paid over $30 billion in compensation and restitution to Israel and individual Jews. 

Yet he was bitterly condemned by some Israelis for his efforts. Philip Klutznick of Chicago, Goldmann's close colleague in endeavors for Israel, recalls the tremendous opposition, particularly from such extreme nationalists as Menachem Begin, to accepting anything from Germany. ''At that time many Jews felt that any act that would tend to bring the Germans back into the civilized world was an act against the Jewish people. Feelings ran deep." 

Goldmann's disagreement with Israeli policy toward the Arabs was his central concern. To those who criticized his advocacy of a Palestinian state, he responded, 

If they do not believe that Arab hostility can some day be alleviated, then we might just as well liquidate Israel at once, so as to save the millions of Jews who live there .... There is no hope for a Jewish state which has to face another 50 years of struggle against Arab enemies. 

Goldmann respected the deep commitment to the Jewish people of Israel's first prime minister, David Ben Gurion, but he regretted that Ben Gurion was "organically incapable of compromise" and that his "dominant force" was "his will for power." Goldmann's essential optimism and his instinctive striving to temper hatreds and seek compromise were qualities that distinguished him from so many of his contemporaries-on both the Arab and Israeli sides of the conflict. 

"Goldmann might have been prime minister of Israel," Stanley Karnow wrote in 1980, "but he chose instead to live in Europe and act as diplomatic broker, frequently infuriating Israeli officials with his initiatives." Seeking an end to the Arab-Israeli conflict, he attempted to visit Cairo at the invitation of Egyptian President Nasser in 1970. But the Israeli government headed by Golda Meir resented his maverick ways and blocked the mission. 

Goldmann was sharply critical of the Israeli government of Menachem Begin. He decried what he saw as Israel's denial of the original Zionist vision. He rejected the claim of some Israelis that they must occupy "Greater Israel" because it was promised to them by God. He called this thesis "a profanation." 

Goldmann understood the need for U.S. support. He lived in the United States for more than 20 years and knew American Jewry well. In 1%9 he wrote approvingly of Zionist political action in the United States: "It is not fair to single out Zionist pressure for censure. Democracy consists of a mutiplicity of pressure-exerting forces, each of which is trying to make itself felt. " 

Near the end of his life, however, Goldmann's views of the pro Israel lobby changed. In 1980 he warned: 

Blind support of the Begin government may be more menacing for Israel than any danger of Arab attack. American Jewry is more generous than any other group in American life and is doing great things. . . . But by misusing its political influence, by exaggerating the aggressiveness of the Jewish lobby in Washington, by giving the Begin regime the impression that the Jews are strong enough to force the American administration and Congress to follow every Israeli desire, they lead Israel on a ruinous path which, if continued, may lead to dire consequences. 

He blamed the Israeli lobby for U.S. failures to bring about a comprehensive settlement in the Middle East. "It was to a very large degree because of electoral considerations, fear of the pro-Israel lobby, and of the Jewish vote." 

He warned of trouble ahead if the lobby continued its present course. "It is now slowly becoming something of a negative factor. Not only does it distort the expectations and political calculations of Israel, but the time may not be far off when American public opinion will be sick and tired of the demands of Israel and the aggressiveness of American Jewry." 

In 1978, two years before he wrote his alarmed evaluation of the Israeli lobby, New York magazine reported that Goldmann had privately urged officials of the Carter administration "to break the back" of the lobby: "Goldmann pleaded with the administration to stand firm and not back off from confrontations with the organized Jewish communityas other administrations had done." Unless this was done, he argued, "President Carter's plans for a Middle East settlement would die in stillbirth." 

His words were prophetic. The comprehensive settlement Carter sought was frustrated by the intransigence of Israel and its U.S. lobby. 

President Ronald Reagan revived the idea of a comprehensive Middle East peace just four days before Goldmann's death in September 1982. A state funeral was conducted in Israel. As Klutznick, Israeli Labor Party leaders Shimon Peres, Yitzhak Rabin and others stood on Israel's Mount Herzl awaiting the great Zionist leader's burial alongside the five other former presidents of the World Zionist Organization, the conversation centered on the Reagan plan, which Prime Minister Begin had already rejected. 

Symbolic Qf organized Jewry's reaction to Goldmann's life was the response of the Israeli government to his death. Begin gave permission for the burial but did not attend. In a strikingly empty commentary on the life of a man who had done so much to bring Israel into being and give it strength, Acting Prime Minister Simcha Ehrlich said only, "We regret that a man of so many virtues and abilities went the wrong way." It was a callous epitaph for one of Israel's great pioneers. 

"You Must Listen When We Speak Ill" 

At 7:45 A.M. the towering John Hancock Building in Chicago's downtown loop area was just beginning to come to life. On the fortieth floor were the offices of Philip Klutznick-attorney, developer, former U.S. secretary of commerce, president emeritus of B'nai B'rith, organizer and former chairman of the Conference of Presidents of Major Jewish Organizations, president emeritus of the World Jewish Congress. At that hour only Philip Klutznick was at work. 

He was on the phone, seated on a sofa at one end of his spacious office, his back to a panoramic view of the building across the street where he and his wife make their home. On the walls were autographed photographs of the seven presidents of the United States under whom he has served. 

This morning, in the fall of 1983, he was talking with Ashraf Ghorbal, Egypt's ambassador to the United States and a friend of many years. Ghorbal was preparing for a visit to the United States by his leader, Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak. He wanted to make sure the right people would be available to meet with him. The right people included Klutznick. 

Klutznick's vigorous appearance and unrelenting pace belie his seventy-six years. His deep, rich voice echoes around the near-empty offices. His eyes smile through heavy glasses, and his firm, confident manner is that of a man in the prime of life. 

But his apparent confidence about the flexibility of U.S. Jews belies his own experience working within-and outside-the establishment for sixty years. A visitor sharing coffee and conversation would never guess that this short, handsome, optimistic man-whose persistence and spirit helped to create Israel, pay its bills and provide its arms-had become, in the eyes of many Jews, a virtual castaway. 

Measured by offices held and services rendered, his credentials in the Jewish establishment are impeccable. But in the eyes of most Jewish leaders, he is gUilty of a cardinal sin: daring publicly to challenge Israeli government policy. This puts him at odds with the very Jewish organizations he did so much to bring into being. 

He speaks from a base of confidence that includes business success, public office in both Democratic and Republican administrations, and high honors in the Jewish community. Mter seeing his savings 276 They Dare to Speak Out wiped out by the Great Depression, he recovered, became a successful community developer, a millionaire, a leader of the Jewish community, and a diplomat. 

In early years he worked to bring strength and unity to the Jewish community, a quest that took on urgency in 1942 when word arrived of Adolf Hitler's barbaric program to annihilate European Jews. Henry Monsky, an Omaha lawyer and president of B'nai B'rith, convened a meeting in Pittsburgh, inviting the membership of 41 major Jewish organizations. This gathering, identified as the American Jewish Conference, marked the first serious effort to unite U.S. Jews against the Holocaust. 

"You know, we are an unusual group of people," Klutznick chuckles. "We fight over anything." This time the fight was over whether Jews would back the establishment of a national homeland. Monsky. the first committed Zionist to head B'nai B'rith, pulled the organization from its neutral stance into advocacy. When the conference met in early 1943 and cast its lot with Zionism, two of the largest Jewish organizations-the American Jewish Committee and the Jewish Labor Committee-walked out in protest. 

"Anyway," Klutznick continues, "that meeting started a movement that stayed alive for four years." It also brought him for the first time in close association with Nahum Goldmann. 

Klutznick and Goldmann wanted the American Jewish Conference to be permanent. In this effort, Klutznick battled to win the support ofB'nai B'rith. "It was an enormous fight, and we lost," Klutznick recalls. 

The bruises were still felt ten years later when Klutznick became president of B'nai B'rith. His first decision put him at odds with Goldmann, who wanted him to help re-create the American Jewish Conference. Despite his earlier effort, Klutznick now felt it would be divisive. "I looked him square in the eye and said, 'I'm not going to do it. If I tried it now it would split B'nai B'rith right down the middle. At this moment B'nai B'rith is too weak. I need these people together.'" 

Klutznick told him he would "go all the way" on a program for a Jewish homeland, but he had what he believed to be a better plan for coordination of American Jews, an organization consisting of just the presidents of the major organizations. For one thing, the leaders needed to get acquainted with each other. "Believe it or not," Klutznick recalls, "many had attained these high positions without even meeting the presidents of other major organizations." Klutznick told Goldmann: "If we really want to do something, the presidents are the powerhouses." Goldmann agreed to the plan. 

Klutznick's recalls changes: "The fact is during the 1950s people Not All Jews Toe the Line 277 weren't as intense as they are now." As an example, he cites the Jewish response to the Eisenhower Doctrine, which pledged U.S. help to any nation in the Middle East threatened by international Communism. Israeli Prime Minister David Ben Gurion opposed a commitment that sweeping, arguing that it could lead to U.S. support for nations hostile to Israel. The Conference of Presidents of Major Jewish Organizations decided to support the U.S. position. 

Klutznick recalls the confrontation. "I presided at that meeting, and we took the position that we should not oppose the president of the United States, and we didn't. In those days," he said after a long pause, "we could have those arguments. There was mutual tolerance." 

Dealing with Israeli officials sometimes tested Klutznick's tolerance. In 1955 the U.S. was horrified at the Israeli massacre of Arab civilians in the Gaza raid, and Klutznick, as president of B'nai B'rith, reported the reaction to Jerusalem. He told Israeli Prime Minister Moshe Sharett: "Moshe, it was terrible. It wasn't the fact Israeli forces were defending Israel. It was the overwhelming response. It looked like a disregard for the value of human life." 

After a pause, the prime minister answered quietly, "You know. Phil, I did not even know this was taking place. He [Defense Minister David Ben Gurion] did this on his own. I hope you will tell him what you told me." Klutznick met Ben Gurion the next day. "It wasn't long before he said, 'Phil, what was the reaction to the Gaza raid?' It was exactly the same question Sharett had asked, and I gave exactly the same answer." 

Klutznick was astonished at Ben Gurion's responsl : 

He stood up. He looked like an angry prophet out of the Bible and got red in the face. He shouted, 'I am not going to let anybody, American Jews or anybody else, teU me what I have to do to provide for the security of my people. ' 

When the prime minister stood up, Klutznick stood up too. Ben Gurion asked, "Why are are you standing up?" Klutznick answered, "Well, obviously I have offended you, and I assume that our discussion is over." Ben Gurion said, "Sit down. Let's talk about something else." Klutznick recalls, "That's the way it happened. So help me God. That's just the way it happened, and we had a wonderful talk." Klutznick says Ben Gurion could be as "tough or tougher than Begin," but when he had made his point he could go back to "being friends." 

Klutznick had a similar experience years later with Prime Minister Begin. In the wake of the Camp David Accords, President Carter called in Klutznick and seven other Jewish leaders. The president said. "Look, I need some help. I think I can handle Egyptian President Sadat. We have an understanding, but I am not sure that I can convince  the Prime Minister Begin." One of the group interrupted and changed the subject: "Mr. President, Israel is upset because there will be arms sent to Arab countries. There is already a bill pending, as you know." Then the next man said, "Can't you do something to make it more comfortable for Israel?" Several men in a row spoke in a similar vein. 

Klutznick noted Carter's irritation and undertook the role of peacemaker: 

Mr. President, I don't think we've quite got your message. There are all of these requests for arms. I think what my colleagues are trying to say, if I may interpret them, is whether there is some way to defer these requests until the negotiations are over. I don't think it is for us with our limited knowledge to tell you who should get arms and who should not. 

He recalls, "I said that if the questions of arms sales had to be answered during the Camp David negotiations, whichever way the president answered them would be difficult." Klutznick says he added, "And I am not here representing anybody except you, Mr. President. Our country has to back you as fairly as it can." 

Klutznick's remarks got the discussion back on the track Carter wanted, but they were badly twisted in a news report published the next day in Israel, where Klutznick was quoted as having told Carter that he was at the White House meeting representing Egypt, not Israel. He had, of course, said nothing of the kind and sent a cable to Begin denying the story. The next day when reporters asked about the incident, Begin said simply, "I have received a cable from President Klutznick of the World Jewish Congress. He denies any such statement was made, and that's the end of it." 

But that was not the end of it. Klutznick flew to Israel in a few days for previously scheduled meetings, including an appointment with Begin. Klutznick recalls the frosty scene. It was the first time Begin did not stand up and greet him with an embrace. Klutznick spoke first: 

Look, Menachem, I know you are angry, but I'm the one that's angry and entitled to be. When you told the press you got a cable from Klutznick and he denies it and that's the end of it-is that the right thing to say? I say no. If someone had said that about you to me, I would have said, 'I had a cable from the Prime Minister, and the Prime Minister denies it. And I've known the Prime Minister for a long time, and his word is good enough for me.' 

Begin turned to his assistant and said, "Get that cable." He read a cable from his ambassador to the United States which gave an inaccurate account of what Klutznick had told Carter, and asked, "What would you have done?" Klutznick responded, "I would have fired the ambassador. In his cable he wasn't writing about Phil Klutznick. He was writing about the president of the World Jewish Congress. If he had any such information his first duty was to call me, not you. He never called me." Overcome with emotion, Begin stood and embraced his visitor. 

Despite such shows of affection, Klutznick did not pull punches in his criticism of Begin's later policies and his recommendations on what the U.S. government should do. In 1981 he deplored the Israeli air attacks, first on the Iraqi nuclear installation and then in Lebanon. Later that year he traveled to the Middle East with Harold Saunders, a former career specialist on the Middle East who served as assistant secretary of state for Near Eastern and South Asian affairs under President Carter, former diplomat Joseph H. Greene, Jr., and Merle Thorpe, Jr., president of the Foundation for Middle East Peace. On returning, Klutznick  joined in the group's conclusion that the Camp David peace process was not enough and that the Palestine Liberation Organization should be brought into negotiations. 

Later in the year, when Saudi Arabia announced its "eight-point peace plan," Klutznick called it "useful" and argued that Israel at least "should listen to it." 

All of these positions, of course, were violently opposed by Israel and its U.S. lobby. But Klutznick was not deterred. In mid-1982 in the Los Angeles Times and other major newspapers Klutznick wrote: 

It is up to the Reagan Administration to face the realities of the Middle East as boldly as did the Carter Administration. The first step is to halt the conflict in Lebanon immediately and have Israel's forces withdrawn. This must be followed by an enlarged peace process that includes all parties to the conflict including Palestinians. Only by doing so without apology and with determination can America pursue its own best interests, promote Israel's long-term well-being and protect world peace. 

Despite public condemnation for these statements from the Jewish leadership in the United States, Klutznick privately received praise: "When I opposed the Iraqi raid, my mail from Jews was about four to one supportive, and about three to one when I proposed dealing directly with the PLO," he recalls. "But, you know, some of that support has to be discounted. There are people in the Jewish community who will assure me of their support even when they think I'm wrong." 

Many more believed him wrong and said so. Abbot Rosen, Midwest director of the Anti-Defamation League in Chicago, rejected Klutznick's proposal to bring the PLO into the peace process and to establish a state for the Palestinians as "pie in the sky." He reported to the Chicago Sun-Times one of the lobby's tired cliches, "Under the present political circumstances, another Palestinian state, adjacent to Israel and Jordan, would provide an additional Soviet foothold in the region." 

Robert Schniyer, chairman of the Public Affairs Committee of the Jewish United Fund of Metropolitan Chicago, joined the protest with another shibboleth: "Since no sovereign nation can be expected to negotiate its own destruction, Israel should not be pressured to negotiate with the PLO." 

The Near East Report, a weekly newsletter published by the American Israeli Public Affairs Committee, editorialized against Klutznick's views, and accused him of promoting a "sinister canard" in calling the Palestinians "a special people in the Arab world, in some ways like the Jews were in the West following World War II." 

The next year Klutznick took his crusade to Paris, where hejoined forces with his old, ailing compatriot, Nahum Goldmann, and Pierre Mendes-France, a Jew and a former prime minister of France, in a plea to end Israel's war in Lebanon. 

Klutznick's reason for going to Paris was to attend a meeting ofthe World Jewish Congress, but as soon as he landed, Goldmann, then living in Paris and critically ill, told him, "We've got to get fifty of the most distinguished Jews of the world to sign a statement to bring this war in Lebanon to an end." Klutznick responded, "But, first, let's see if we can write a statement." 

Goldmann agreed and took up the subject at lunch the next day with Mendes-France, Le Monde correspondent Eric Rouleau, and Klutznick, agreeing to consider a draft statement the next day. 

That night Klutznick, with the help of his aide, Mark Bruzonsky, wrote a brief statement which became the basis for the next day's discussion. 

Klutznick recalls the scene, "Mendes-France is one of the best editors I've seen in my life. He would look at a word in typical French fashion in several languages, turning it around every which way. Four hours later, after sitting there fighting over every word, we had a statement." 

Its conclusion was forceful: 

The real issue is not whether the Palestinians are entitled to their rights, but how to bring this about while ensuring Israel's security and regional stability. Ambiguous concepts such as 'autonomy' are no longer sufficient, for they too often are used to confuse rather than to clarify. Needed now is the determination to reach a political accommodation between Israel and Palestinian nationalism. 

The war in Lebanon must stop. Israel must lift its siege of Beirut in order to facilitate negotiations with the PLO, leading to a political settlement. Mutual recognition must be vigorously pursued. And there should be negotiations with the aim of achieving co-existence between the Israeli and Palestinian peoples based on self-determination. 

When it was finished, Klutznick asked, "What do we do with the damned thing?" Goldmann said, "We've got to get those other fellows. Branch out and find them." Klutznick protested that there was not enough time and suggested that Goldmann and Mendes-France issue it in their own names. The former prime minister said, "I've never done anything like that. I don't sign statements with other people." Goldmann and Rouleau added their encouragement, and, finally, MendesFrance said, "I'll sign provided you can get an immediate answer from Yasser Arafat." 

Isam Sartawi, a close associate of Arafat, was in Paris at the time and arranged this response by the PLO leader: 

Coming at this precise moment from three Jewish personalities of great worth, worldwide reputation, and definite influence at all levels, both on the international scene and within their own community, that statement takes on a significant importance. 

Klutznick took the podium at the meeting of the World Jewish Congress, then underway in Paris, to explain the declaration. The atmosphere, he recalls, was anything but cordial: 

Heated is not the right word. If it had been heated it would have been better. It was sullen, solemn and bitter. I tried to have the delegates understand why we spoke up as we did. I told them it was the first such statement Mendes-France had ever made. And I said they also should know that Nahum Goldmann does what he thinks is right. And he's not been condemned just once. He's been condemned many times in the past by those who later chose to follow him. 

The declaration brought headlines around the world, wide discussion, and some editorial praise. But it received little support among leading Jews and was largely rejected by Jewish organizations as "unrepresentative and unhelpful." It was Goldmann's last public statement. He died within a month, and a month later Mendes-France also died. 

A few Jews helped Klutznick defend the statement. Newton N. Minow, a prominent Chicagoan who served in the Kennedy administration, praised Klutznick's "exemplary lifetime of leadership to Jewish causes and Israel" and "his independence and thoughtful criticism" in a column published in the Chicago Sun-Times. "As an American Jew pondering past mistakes, I believe that the American Jewish community has made some serious blunders in the past few years by choosing to remain silent when we disagreed with Israeli government policy." 

Shortly after the Paris declaration, the world was horrified by the massacre 'of hundreds of civilians in the Sabra and Shatila Palestinian camps at Beirut. After four months of silence, Klutznick spoke at a luncheon in New York in February 1983. He launched a new crusade, pleading for the right of Jews to dissent: 

We cannot be one in our need for each other, and be separated in our ability to speak or write the truth as each of us sees it. The real strength of Jewish life has been its sense of commitment and willingness to fight for the right [to dissent) even among ourselves. 

In November, Klutznick took his crusade to Jerusalem, attending, along with forty other Jews from the United States and fifteen other countries, a four-day meeting of the International Center for Peace in the Middle East. Klutznick drew applause when he told his audience, which included several Israelis: "If you listen to us when we speak good of Israel, then you must listen to us when we speak ill. Otherwise we will lose our credibility, and the American government will not listen to us at all." 

Despite his proven commitment to Israel, his leadership in the Jewish community and his unquestioned integrity, Philip Klutznick today is rejected or scorned by many of his establishment contemporaries. Two professionals in the Jewish lobby community, for example, say simply that Klutznick is not listened to any longer. One of them adds sadly, "I admire Phil Klutznick but he is virtually a non-person in the Jewish community." The other is harsh and bitter, linking Klutznick with other critics of the Israeli government as "an enemy of the Jewish people." 

Charles Fishbein, for 11 years a fundraiser and executive of the Jewish National Fund, provides a partial explanation for the treatment Klutznick has received: 

When you speak up in the Jewish community without a proper forum, you are shunted aside. You are dismissed as one who has been 'gotten to.' It's nonsense, but it is effective. The Jewish leaders you hear about tend to be very very wealthy givers. Some give to Jewish causes primarily as an investment, to establish a good business and social relationship. Such people will not speak up for a non-conformist like Klutznick for fear of jeopardizing their investment. 

These thoughts echo that of Klutznick himself: "'try to understand. See it from their standpoint. Why should they go public? They don't want any trouble. They are a part of the community. They have neighbors. They help out. They contribute." He pauses, purses his lips a bit, then adds, ''They have standing. And they want to keep it." 

Klutznick smiles. "They say to me, 'You are 'absolutely right in what you say and do, but I can't. I can't speak up as you do.'" Another pause. "Maybe I would be the same if I hadn't gotten all the honors the Jewish community can give me." 

He sees Washington policy as a major obstacle to reforming the lobby's tactics: "Let's not underestimate the damage that our own government does. Our government has been writing blank checks to Israel for a long time. As a result Begin would come over here for a tour, then go back home and say, 'What are you complaining about? I go to the United States, where the government supports me and all the leaders of the Jewish community applaud and support me.' .. 

"A Growing Gap in 

Our Liberal Tradition" 

"Jews never had it so good as they've had in the United States," muses I. F. Stone, one of America's most respected Jewish journalists who calls himself a radical. Famous for his periodical, I. E Stone's Weekly, which he issued for 19 years, and for his independent views, he discontinued the weekly because, as he says with typical self-mockery, he became "tired of solving the problems of the entire world every week." 

Seventy-six years old and with eyesight so weak he has difficulty reading even large type, he is anything but retired. He is still a hero on campuses across the country and in liberal circles for his views on non-Middle East topics. Indeed, on those themes his following is enthusiastic. A recent lecture series on the trial of Socrates was a sellout. 

"Israel is on the wrong course," he says sadly, peering through the thick lenses of his eyeglasses. "This period is the blackest in the history of the Jewish people. Arabs need to be dealt with as human beings." 

"I am gloomy about the future," he says. He can name no one with the promise to lead Israel out of its disastrous policies. 

The conversation drifts to American Jews who dissent, and Stone recalls the day a publisher invited him to lunch and asked him to delete from a book he had written a passage recommending major changes in Israeli policy. The book, Underground to Palestine, deals mainly with Stone's experiences traveling with Jews from Nazi camps as they made their way through the British blockade to what is now Israel. The offending part was Stone's recommendation of a "bi-national solution, a state whose constitution would recognize the presence of two peoples, two nations, Arab and Jewish," to encompass all of Palestine. Stone refused to delete it, and as he wrote in the New York Review of Books, "that ended the luncheon, and in a way, the book. It was in effect proscribed. " 

According to Jewish journalist Carolyn Toll:, From then on, Stone, who might have been a hero on the synagogue lecture circuit as the first American newsman to travel with Holocaust survivors, was banned in any Jewish arena by leaders determined to close the debate on bi-nationalism and statehood. 

In Israel, where Jews establish their identity by birth rather than membership in an organization, Stone would be a full-fledged dissident. But in the American climate of insecurity about non-Jewish majority views, such arbitrary loyalty tests have not been challenged by the same Jews who vehemently champion others' rights to speak freely. 

Two years later, Stone's book was published in Hebrew-in Israel-with the offending passage intact and read widely in the Middle East. 

While he objects to the "excesses" of the lobby, Stone understands the motivations: 

The Jewish people are apprehensive, fearful. They are afraid about the future. They feel they are at war, and many of them feel they have to fight and keep fighting. 

He adds, after a pause, "When people are at war it is normal for civil liberties to suffer." 

Stone sees a dangerous gap growing in this liberal tradition: 

I find myself-like many fellow American intellectuals, Jewish and non-Jewish-ostracized whenever I try to speak up on the Middle East, [while) dissidents, Jewish and non-Jewish, in the Soviet Union are, deservedly, heroes. . 

But in the United States they are anything but heroes: 

It is only rarely that we dissidents on the Middle East can enjoy a fleeting voice in the American press. Finding an American publishing house willing to publish a book which departs from the standard Israeli line is about as easy as selling a thoughtful exposition of atheism to the Osservatore Romano in Vatican City. 

Those who speak up pay a price, says Stone, noting that journalists with long records of championing Israeli causes are flooded with "Jewish hate mail, accusing them of anti-Semitism" if they dare express "one word of sympathy for Palestinian Arab refugees." 

In an essay in the Washington Post on August 19, 1977, Stone voiced his concern over "Bible diplomacy," particularly the effort to cite the Bible as the justification for Israel's continued control over the West Bank: 

In the Middle Ages, as everyone knows, the Bible was under lock and key. The clergy kept it away from the masses, lest it confuse them and lead to schism and sedition .... Maybe it's time to lock the Holy Book up again, at least until the Israeli-Arab dispute is settled.

"Anti-Zionist Jews" 

Two American Jews, Elmer Berger and Alfred M. Lilienthal, Jr., have much in common. From the very beginning they warned against Zionism, forecasting grave danger to Judaism in the establishment of a Jewish state. Without apparent trepidation they separated themselves from what has become the mainstream of Jewish thinking and devoted their lives to a lonely, frustrating and controversial crusade to alter the policies of the state of Israel. Long after Israel was established, broadly recognized and supported by the world community, they continued to make a case against the Jewish states. Both are often scorned as "self-hating Jews." 

Both Lilienthal and Berger persist in their crusades despite attacks. The two are constantly on lecture tours, write extensively and appear at forums. They are as well known in the Arab world as in the United States, and more honored there than here. 

In personality, the two have little in common. Lilienthal began as a lawyer, Berger as a rabbi. Lilienthal is a hard-hitting advocate in manner and speech. His mood shifts rapidly. Thoughtful and subdued one moment, he can be challenging the next. Berger, by contrast, is calm and unruffled, a patient listener. Even when his words thunder, his delivery is that of the soothing cleric. 

Each has his audience, but neither has many outspoken disciples. The people who read the Lilienthal newsletter, "Middle East Perspective," and follow his activities may not be numerous, but his books are found in public and personal libraries throughout the country and are frequently cited in speeches and articles. 

Rabbi Elmer Berger's circle may be smaller still-international audiences are hard to measure-but it appears loyal. When he sponsored a two-day seminar in May 1983 at the Madison Hotel in Washington, D.C., the gathering attracted over 200 people, principally journalists, scholars, clergy, public officials and diplomats. All had at least two things in common: an interest in the Arab-Israeli dispute and affection for Elmer Berger. 

Lilienthal began his crusade against Israel soon after the government came into being in 1948 and at the age of seventy had not let up when I interviewed him in 1984. His 1949 Readers Digest article, "Israel's Flag Is Not Mine," warned of the consequences of Zionism. His first book, What Price Israel? in 1953 was followed by There Goes the Middle East in 1957 and The Other Side of the Coin eight years later. 

In 1978 Lilienthal published his largest and most comprehensive work, The Zionist Connection, which focuses on the development and activities of the Zionist movement within the United States. An impressive 872-page volume studded with facts, quotations, anecdotes and, here and there, colorful opinions and interpretations, it was described by Foreign Affairs quarterly as the "culminating masterwork" of Lilienthal's anti-Zionist career. 

By 1984, his crusade had taken Lilienthal to the Middle East twenty-two times and across the United States twenty-six times. 

For all his longstanding and vigorous endeavors for the peaceful reconciliation of Jews and Arabs, Lilienthal remains a lonely figure, often shunned in the United States, even by those whose banner he carries the highest. 

Lilienthal says some people kid him as being the "Man from LaMancha." And true to the characterization, he frequently brings audiences to their feet by quoting from the song which had Quixote "reaching for the unreachable stars." 

His greatest accomplishment, he says, is getting "some Christians to have the guts to speak up on this issue." Formally excommunicated from the Jewish faith by a group of rabbis in New York in 1982, Lilienthal scorns the action: "Only God can do that. I still feel very much a Jew." 

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Beyond the Banks of the Potomac