Forty Jewish Groups Vs. The Bill of Rights, Palestinians, and You

"Jewish activists were jubilant over the administration's decision this week to close the Washington office of the PLO. But their success in prodding a deeply-divided State Department to take the unprecedented move came at the price of an agreement to forswear support for a congressional campaign to close the PLO's New York office as well. Some 40 Jewish organizations pledged their commitment to that deal at a Monday night meeting in New York that was a key factor in the State Department's willingness to take the plunge."—Larry Cohler, Washington Jewish Week, Sept. 17, 1987.

The sordid "deal" described so accurately above boils down to this: Members of 40 American-Jewish organizations are determined that their fellow American citizens may hear only one side of the Israeli-Palestinian dispute. The reason is clear. When Americans are asked whether Palestinians, like Israelis, should have a homeland of their own, those who answer yes always outnumber those who answer no. That means some day Americans are going to realize that for the Palestinians to have that homeland, the Israelis must move out of it—specifically, the West Bank and Gaza. When the Israelis do, and Jerusalem is internationalized, the Arab-Israeli dispute will be over. No more excuse to ask the US taxpayer to keep a non-viable Israel living at the standards to which it has become accustomed. Israelis will have to integrate their economy into that of the Middle East and start pulling their own weight, or the world Jewish community (meaning, of course, American Jews) will have to make up the difference. Those 40 Jewish organizations would much rather have things stay as they are, with American taxpayers making up the difference. That's why, with the PLO unambiguously talking peace at last, its information office in Washington had to go.

"I have great faith that the courts of this country have the ability to withstand temporary political pressure. I will challenge this action at every opportunity in the court system."

It was to be done through Congress, but presidential candidates and other congressional supporters of Israel were overzealous. They introduced bills that also included closing the PLO Observer Mission in New York. That would involve the US telling the UN who could and could not become a member. The world organization wouldn't stand for it, and neither would the majority of the American people if they ever found out what was going on. Thus the disgraceful "deal" with State—"pre-emptive capitulation," as one diplomat called it. The State Department, which had long refused to grant the Palestine Information Office the foreign mission status that would entitle it to diplomatic privileges and State Department protection, suddenly granted it that status. And then, exercising its right to regulate foreign missions, State ordered the PLO to close within 30 days.

Flanked by an attorney from the American Civil Liberties Union on one side and representatives of Arab-American groups on the other, PLO Director Hasan Abdel Rahman, an American citizen, illustrated the ridiculousness of the order at an overflowing press conference the next day:

"If I stand on the sidewalk and tell people that the PLO wants peace, that's all right. If I come into this office, pick up the telephone, and tell anyone the same thing, that's not."

He vowed not to break the law, but instead to contest the legality of the State Department order. When a shrewd journalist asked whether he thought some 40 Arab or Muslim countries would close US information centers in their countries, he ignored the question. Perhaps he knows that's exactly what those 40 Jewish organizations want: misunderstanding, hatred, violence and eventually isolation of Americans everywhere in the Middle East—except Israel.

How ironic that these "mainstream" Jews, weak and struggling for their rightful place in the American system as recently as 50 years ago, now seem determined to close that system entirely to a newer and weaker group, the Arab Americans, even if they pervert the American system and weaken or destroy America itself in the process.

Hasan Abdel Rahman spoke calmly and rationally, and seemed less angry than the US-born Americans flanking him. Perhaps that's because it's an American, not a Middle Eastern issue. It's our First Amendment, our constitutional freedom of speech and association. We are the people who believe that so long as one group is deprived of its rights, no group is secure.

"It is shameful to watch American politicians cower before the threat of financial retaliation by the Israeli lobby, politicians who often stand toe to toe with the president of this most powerful country."

We plan to exercise those rights zealously on this very question in subsequent issues of the Washington Report. We'll start, however, by letting the PLO director speak for himself. Below is the verbatim text of a September 16 statement released by Mr. Abdel Rahman when he received the State Department order:

"I have tried in every way possible to analyze what has happened here, to rationalize it, but no matter how I try to view it, the answer is the same. The United States government has taken an unprecedented action.

"It has ordered the closing of an office which is being run by an American citizen—an office which has been, and is now, operating in a legal manner, totally within the Constitution and the laws of the United States.

"This office is an information office whose purpose is to distribute and disseminate information about the Palestinian diaspora and the Palestinian Liberation Organization, which is both the de jure and de facto representative of the millions of Palestinian people in their diaspora.

"There has been no allegation by anyone in authority that this office has been engaged in anything except constitutionally and legally sanctioned activity. I challenge anyone to find one shred of evidence that any of our activities are violent, criminal, or in any way in violation of US law.

"I must say, however, that politically motivated allegations have been made, mostly ambiguous and vaguely stated, generated by the Israeli government, through its Lobby here in the United States, that in some non-specific way the closing of this office will eliminate terrorism. It is strange, indeed, that rumor and innuendo can seek to accomplish what truth cannot. It is even more strange—even tragic—that this country , which I consider to be the greatest and most powerful country in the world, can be transformed into a banana republic, subject to the political whims and the influence of an outside power, ready in an instant to abandon its own constitutional principles to cater to those whims.

"It is shameful to watch American politicians cower before the threat of financial retaliation by the Israeli lobby, politicians who often times stand toe-to-toe in political combat with the president of this most powerful country, politicians who concern themselves with the human rights of even one person locked away in the Soviet Union, who can spend months, even years championing the right of free speech of Soviet refuseniks, of South African dissidents. But the shame is that these politicians will lend their names to a McCarthy-type effort to silence even the tiniest voice of the Palestinian people.

"There is a broad assault on Palestinians and on Palestinian political activity, from the harassment of the Palestinian students in the well-known Los Angeles case, to the Immigration Service's plan to create concentration camps for Arabs, to this attempt to close this information office.

"What these political manipulators, acting under orders from the Israeli government, seek to accomplish is not to prevent terrorism, as they say, because there is no terrorism here, but to deal a death blow to any chance of peace and reconciliation in the Middle East conflict. The conflict is really between Israel, which occupies Palestinian lands, homes, and people, and the Palestinians. Since the Palestinians have been prevented from having their own governmental structures, they have been required to organize themselves politically in a way that will allow their voice to be heard. They have chosen as their representative the Palestine Liberation Organization. It is the embodiment of Palestinian Nationalism. It is the political arm of the diaspora, and it is also the military arm, formed out of necessity to defend the diaspora from those who seek to kill and maim and wound defenseless Palestinian men, women and children so that their lands can be permanently taken from them.

"The closing of this information office has the effect of denying the American public their right to hear, unfettered, another side of the Middle East conflict—one which has rarely been heard. It is the fulfillment of the Israeli dream—to limit the flow of information to the American public to only that information which the Israelis want heard.

"One would expect such tactics in a dictatorship, but it seems a betrayal of every principle America stands for to allow such a stifling of free speech here.

"If the United States wants to be an honest broker in bringing about a peaceful resolution of the Arab-Israeli conflict, it cannot then act as a surrogate for Israel and expect the Palestinians as well as the other Arab countries to trust its intentions. Its action will prevent, rather than foster, a peaceful settlement. We understand that this is Israel's intention, but it is less than rational to expect the United States to take such a position. Rather than becoming a broker, it is becoming a participant, a partisan, that betrays its stated intent.

"Closing of these offices seeks to deprive the Palestinian people of a voice, however small, through which they seek to express their desires, their aspirations, and their frustrations. It is merely an extension of the Israeli political strategy of trying to make the Palestinian diaspora invisible, so the injustices committed against them, the crimes of which they have been made victims, the massacres, the killings, the outrages will not be noticed by the civilized world. For Israel to attempt this is a clever strategy. For America to succumb to it, is only a disgrace.

"But if these fearful politicians have no dignity, I must try to maintain mine. This attempt to stifle my right of freedom of speech is illegal and unconstitutional. I do not intend to stand by silently to allow this to be done. I have great faith that the courts of this country have the ability to withstand temporary political pressures. I will challenge this action at every opportunity in the court system. I will seek political support from every segment of American society that believes in the right of free speech, of political expression. I will point out that if my constitutional rights are endangered then the rights of every American are endangered. You cannot have freedom for some, or for only the powerful, or the rich. It is not a sometime thing. It is, in this instance, absolute, and must be kept that way."

Since we couldn't have said it better ourselves, we won't try. We will, however, remind Israel's 40 wheeling and dealing mainstream American Jewish organizations of what happened when the Soviet Union and its stooges built a wall around an isolated outpost of free speech in West Berlin. An American president stood inside that wall and told the world:

"I am a Berliner."

Jewish Americans seeking to wall of Palestinian Americans behind blocks of fear and ignorance, held in place with venality, may find a great majority of Americans ready to proclaim:

"We are all Palestinians."

—Richard Curtiss