June 1993, Page 64

Jews and Israel

By Sheldon Richman

Pro-Israel Leaders Back Packwood

Republican Sen. Bob Packwood, under fire for allegations that he sexually harassed several women, is finding support among Jewish leaders because of his long record of support for aid to Israel. The New York Jewish weekly Forward reports that Jewish leaders are making "substantial donations" to a fund to pay legal expenses incurred in defending himself against the charges before the Senate Ethics Committee. Contributors named by Forward were Lester Pollack, chairman of the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations, and four former presidents of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee. More than a third of the total of $64,410 raised has been donated by pro-Israel activists.

Some Jewish women, however, are unhappy about the support for Packwood. Ann Lewis, an active Democrat and chairwoman of the American Jewish Congress's Commission for Women's Equality, said she was "deeply troubled at the persistent pattern [of] disregarding the values and self-respect of Jewish women. This Is not a question of innocence or guilt. He was elected to one of the highest offices in the United States and has acknowledged performing a series of acts distasteful to vulnerable women.

"That people so prominent in the Jewish community, most of whom know him because of their work in the community, would represent so significant a portion of his legal support really raises this very troubling question as to what extent women are taken seriously as one-half of the Jewish community."

Packwood has long been regarded as a friend of Israel and has spearheaded Senate opposition to arms sales to Arab countries.

AIPAC's Turbulent Conference

Praise for the Clinton and Rabin administrations and the presence of Secretary of State Warren Christopher left some delegates to the American Israel Public Affairs Committee conference upset. According to Forward, those delegates openly doubted the value of the Mideast talks and opposed admission of Americans for Peace Now into the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations. (APN subsequently was voted into the Conference of Presidents by the conference board of directors.) Forward said the dissenting delegates were most enthusiastic during a speech by Jan Willen Van Der Hoeven, director of the International Christian Embassy in Jerusalem. Van Der Hoeven attacked Rabin as soft at the peace talks and the U.S. State Department as soft on Muslim fundamentalism.

ADL Employees May Face Felony Charges

Employees of the Anti-Defamation League (ADL) could face felony charges in connection with what authorities characterize as a huge spy ring run by the major Jewish civil-rights organization. (See "It's Now the ADL Spy Case," on page 17 of this issue.)

ADL officials defended the organization's monitoring of groups allied with the Palestine Liberation Organization and the Muslim group Hamas in light of what they described as an "Arab terrorist threat" in the United States, a reference to the bombing of the World Trade Center. But ADL national director Abraham Foxman complained about the way the story was being played, saying that ADL's adversaries were trying to harm the organization.

"This is not the first time that those who wish us out of existence have tried to manufacture opportunities to see if they can destroy our operation and our effectiveness," Foxman said. Foxman also denied that his group has spied on "thousands" of Arab Americans, Forward reported. "We do not have wholesale files on Arab Americans. We do follow the organized activities of Arab Americans. People tend to forget very quickly that there are organizations [in America] that have been affiliated with the PLO, with the PFLP [Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine], and with other groups."

Foxman disparaged the police report about undercover operations, saying that "what we have is relations with police departments across the country. " Intelligence-gathering, he told Forward, "is a central mission of the ADL" He said, however, that the operation's procedures would be reviewed.

Forward commented that" it is certainly no secret in press and law enforcement circles that the ADL gathers information on a wide range of groups. It regularly releases reports to the press on subjects ranging from Black anti-Semitism to Hamas activities in America. Though the ADL's information-gathering activities are being painted by some in the press as revelatory, it is also widely known that the ADL-like other organizations that monitor extremist organizations ... often uses informants to obtain information."

The case is complicated by the charge that the ADL employed Roy Bullock, who has been accused of passing information to South Africa, Forward reported. Foxman said the ADL is not responsible for Bullock's activities. "The ADL is not spying on behalf of South Africa," he said. "Yes, Mr. Bullock worked for us. He was one of our investigators. But I don't have the slightest idea who else he worked for. "

Emigration Office Closed

The North American Aliyah Movement (NAAM), an organization promoting Jewish-American emigration to Israel, has had its funding cut off by the World Zionist Organization's Israel Aliyah Center, in a bitter dispute that has featured charges of cultural imperialism by the Americans and insubordination by the Israelis. The American group maintains that it should control emigration from the United States, but the World Zionist Organization has charged NAAM with misusing money. WZO's North American Aliyah Delegation chief Yossi Kucik fired NAAM's executive director, Alex Wolf, for "gross misconduct," according to Forward. "We have always run NAAM, and the World Zionist Organization has always funded it," said Kucik.

Sheldon Richman is a Washington, DC-based regular contributor to the Washington Report.