Chutzpah: A Morality Play

It's a story line right out of comic opera: The host is a kindly old gentleman who willingly shares the considerable wealth he has worked hard to attain. He has walked his wife's ne'er-do-well cousin to the latter's car. The ne'er-do-well and his family have just dined heartily at the old man's table, as they have regularly ever since the old fellow created, out of pity, a make-work job for the ne'er-do-well some 37 years ago. As one of the children gets into the car a sterling silver spoon falls out of his jacket pocket. His mother grabs for it and a matching knife and fork tumble out of her purse. Wordlessly, seeking to save them all embarrassment, the host stoops to pick up the fallen pieces of silverware, but the ne'er-do-well shouts at him: "You have no right to anything inside this car."

"Shouldn't we talk about this?" the old man says. "I've been missing silverware for several years now."

"Not here," the guest shouts. "You're embarrassing me in front of my family and my cousin, your wife."

"But it's your family that's carrying off my silverware, and my wife that keeps inviting you to dinner," the host protests.

"Now you've embarrassed them all in front of me," the guest shouts as he roars away with squealing tires.

All of the next week the guest fails to come to work, but he slips in and out on payday to collect his check. The host telephones his house.

"Can't we talk about this?" he asks.

"I'm too distraught," the ne'er-do-well grumbles. "I've gone to a psychiatrist because of the fuss you're making. I've sent his bill to your company."

"I accept your apology, which satisfies me completely," the host responds. "So now that I forgive you, could you just tell me how much you and your family have taken out of my house over the years so that I can file an insurance claim?"

"Since you are being so persistent," the guest shouts, "I will permit you to send my son, who works in your legal department, as your emissary so long as you accept whatever information I send you with no further discussion about the matter."

"But . . . "

"I already said there will be no further discussion except with my son. And you'd better authorize a lot of overtime for him. Our discussions may take several days. Meanwhile, goodbye until payday!"

Which is as good a place as any to interrupt this comedy to mention selection of State Department General Counsel Abraham Sofaer to negotiate the Jonathan Jay Pollard case with Israel. You may remember him as Judge Sofaer, the Hebrew-speaking Federal Judge whose New York courtroom was chosen a year ago by Ariel Sharon as the launch-pad for his comeback in Israeli politics. Sharon really didn't have a prayer of winning a libel judgement against Time magazine. Judge Sofaer, however, instructed the jury to break its verdict into three parts. That way, for two nights running, reporters could say a New York jury had found in favor of Sharon. Only on the third day did the jury bring in the verdict against Sharon on the key issue. By that time Sharon was claiming he had been vindicated in Judge Sofaer's courtroom.

Abraham Sofaer came to public attention again this October in his new job as State Department General Counsel. The Israelis had just used U.S.-supplied aircraft to bomb the PLO headquarters in Tunis, killing some 60 or 70 people in a country which the Reagan Administration had asked to take in the PLO in the first place. Use of U.S. weaponry for anything other than defensive purposes is a violation of U.S. law. Anticipating questions, the White House asked the State Department for expert legal advice. The White House spokesman used what General Counsel Sofaer's office sent. It was such pro-Israel guidance that the White House later had to set the record straight.

Sending Judge Sofaer to Israel, where he spends his vacations, to represent the U.S. in what should have been some very tough interrogations does not engender much confidence among the American people in the ability of their own institutions to cope with Israel's outrageous behavior and with the awesome power of Israel's U.S. lobby to protect it from criticism. Since that power is firmly grounded in the American Jewish community, American Jews will be the ultimate losers if their fellow Americans conclude that they blackmail and pressure elected American officials to ignore or flaunt U.S. laws, traditions and history to benefit Israel.

We believe the Pollard affair is only the tip of the iceberg. The article on the adjacent page mentions previous occasions when Israel was caught mounting intelligence operations against the United States, apologized, and kept right on doing it.

It might seem like comedy, the spectacle of kindly Uncle Sam Milquetoast apologetically trying to safeguard his silverware. But comedies have happy endings and that scenario won't, for many reasons.

First, people are dying daily in the Middle East because the U.S. refuses to rein in Israel. For example, the U.S. supplied Israel with cluster bombs to be used only in self defense. They explode in midair, releasing hundreds of small grenade-like bomblets. One cluster bomb can blow arms, legs or heads off everyone in an area the size of a football field. Almost from the day they started receiving them, the Israelis have been dropping them over Palestinian refugee camps in Lebanon, as well as using them in wars to hold land seized from their neighbors. President Reagan has admitted that Israel "may have" violated U.S. laws using those cluster bombs, but we go right on giving them to Israel. That's not funny. That's outrageous. And that's why survivors of Israel's victims have started filling graves with Americans.

Second, there has been hard evidence for years that the Russians are getting not only our secrets, but also our most advanced technology from someone. James J. Angleton, who was the CIA side of an authorized Mossad-CIA intelligence exchange, always believed there was a mole somewhere in his Agency. In the light of what we are learning about Pollard, and the Israeli organization created to handle him and others like him, isn't it a lot more likely that, once our technology and our secrets get into Israel, some find their way from there into the Soviet Union? Would it be so difficult for the Soviets to mingle a few of their own agents-in-place into the steady stream of Soviet Jews reaching Israel? Think about Angleton, after handing over each new batch of secrets to Israel, going back to his fruitless search for the mole. It's ironic, but it's not funny.

Least funny of all is the way Americans are starting to feel about their fellow Americans. Whether you are Jewish or non-Jewish, think about what you've said to your friends of the other religion about the Pollard case. Nothing, right? Then think about what you've said to your friends of the same religion and to your own family. Quite a difference, isn't there? That's not funny, it's scary.

So let's stop treating the Pollard case as comic opera and set out to produce a drama where good guy bests bad guy and walks off with girl: The kindly host sits brooding by the telephone. He was once the best-liked guy in town. Now some people hate him because his wife's cousin has stolen something from them or from their relatives and they know the police are afraid they'll offend the old man if they arrest the rascal. All the rest of the old man's friends have turned away from him because, when they told him in the community center that his wife's cousin's lawlessness was destroying the community, the old man wouldn't listen. Instead he pointed out that since the community center was on his land and he paid a third of the upkeep, if there was any more of that kind of talk, he would shut down the center.

The old gentleman dials and says to his ward:

"I want to talk to you now."

"It will have to wait until I come in on payday."

"Then there will be no payday. I'm letting you go."

"Your wife won't let you do that."

"When she told me not to, I told her to go live with you."

"Are you crazy? I need her there, not here."

"She knows that. She's in the kitchen now making my favorite dessert. She says what she and I have going is too important to both of us to lose over a lazy relative who steals from his neighbors."

"if that's what I am, it's her fault, and yours too for listening to her. I never learned a trade since you never made me do anything for my paycheck. And it was only because you left me with so much time on my hands that I got into trouble with all my neighbors."

"I recognize that. You have my full apology."

"What does that mean?"

"The same thing it meant all the times you apologized to me. Nothing. So you'll have to find other friends to help you."

"I don't have any other friends and that's your fault too. I didn't need any until today."

"Make some in your neighborhood."

"Everyone I took something from here has stopped speaking to me."

"Then you'd better give back the things you took."

"I'm sending my kids over right now to return all your silver."

"I can buy more. Give back what you took from your neighbors instead."

"But I need you. You're my only friend."

"When you return everything you stole, you'll have friends in your own part of town, and I'll have friends again in mine."

"But what will I do while I wait for them to forgive me?"

"After you've returned everything you've taken from your neighbors, we'll think of something. Until then, don't call me, I'll call you."

As the old man hangs up his wife brings in dessert. She's smiling and looks relieved.

"I heard everything. It's high time you told him off. I couldn't do it but I hated the way he made me feel guilty. What you just did is the best thing for him, and certainly the best thing for me."

Doesn't that script have the makings of a nice little morality play? And the nice thing about Dear Abby, Ann Landers, and morality plays is that they really show people how to solve problems.

So let's put that show on the road. If Ronald Reagan plays the kindly uncle, and reads his lines firmly, it doesn't matter which Israeli Prime Minister plays the cousin. Any one of them eventually will have to read the same lines. If they don't, this comic opera could turn into a Greek tragedy for us all.

—Richard Curtiss