Washington Report on Middle East Affairs, December 1997, Pages 34, 93

Reminiscences

Whether It’s Jerusalem or Nantucket, You Can’t Go Home Again

By Dr. Alfred M. Lilienthal

Thirty miles out into the Atlantic lies my personal Tara, the "little, old gray lady," as the island of Nantucket is more familiarly known to long-time inhabitants. Last year, 1996, was the only time in 50 years that I had not at least touched base there.

It was on the island, in 22 different houses, that I found the serenity and beauty that helped inspire me to write four books on the Middle East conflict and innumerable articles for Middle East Perspective, the monthly newsletter I published-edited for 17 years.

At the same time I managed to keep in fairly good shape through daily bicycling which took me to the beach in the late afternoons after early rising to write. I took the bike to social events as well, including a wedding for which I gathered a bouquet of wildflowers in the woods to give to the bride.

Long ago I gave my bicycle a special name, "B.G." What did it stand for? It was named after Israeli Prime Minister David Ben-Gurion because I loved to ride him so much.

In late July of 1997 I was back on the island again and, as usual, tried to keep abreast of the outside world through The New York Times. Its July 30th issue, which I picked up at the Hub on Main Street, carried in glaring headlines (as did its sister paper, The Boston Globe), the story of the Palestinian suicide bombing that had shattered a crowded Jerusalem market, killing or fatally injuring 16 people and wounding a score more.

For two days, the Times was filled with coverage of the attack, which it claimed editorially had severely endangered "the peace process" [more appropriately, the "surrender process"]. The ravages of this and past acts of terrorism were listed by date and spelled out in great detail. Neither in these listings nor anywhere else, however, was there even the barest mention of the massacre in Hebron's Ibrahimi mosque in which American-born Jewish settler Baruch Goldstein shot to death 29 Palestinian men and boys as they prayed in Hebron's Ibrahimi mosque; the opening of the Hasmonean tunnel near the foundations of the Al Aqsa mosque in East Jerusalem; the start of the "Har Homa" settlement for Jews only at Jabal Abu Ghneim and other Israeli settlements in East Jerusalem; the closure of Gaza and the West Bank depriving thousands of Palestinians access to their jobs in Israel; nor of the other multifold acts of oppression by Israel.

In sum, there was no relating cause to effect—only the incessant use of the pejorative "terrorist" to stultify reasoning in the same manner as the other widely used labels, "anti-Semite" and "anti-Semitism," have been used to stifle criticism or even mention of acts of terrorism by the Israel Defense Forces or Israeli settlers.

Starting on its front page with a horrific photo from the scene of the West Jerusalem bombing, the Times built pathos through pictures of victims and grieving family members. By contrast, when Palestinians are shot, or tortured and sometimes fatally injured by Israeli police and interrogators, or are expelled from bulldozed homes, they scarcely are photographed. (And, if such stories are reported at all, they appear in the smallest possible space in the back pages of the paper.)

It was reported in this same issue of the Times that U.S. representative Dennis Ross would shortly be sent back to the region to continue "U.S. mediating efforts." It is axiomatic that mediation requires objectivity and impartiality. Yet, Ross, his deputy, Aaron David Miller, U.S. Ambassador to Israel Martin Indyk (who is soon to be assistant secretary of state for Near East affairs), and State Department spokesman James Rubin all just happen to be Jewish, as are the head of the National Security Council, Samuel Berger, and his deputy, James Steinberg, the top two foreign policymakers in the White House.

Whatever the individual predilections of these policymakers, it is simply ridiculous that all American officials involved with U.S. mediation in Middle East peace are Jewish, but this has never even been reported, much less questioned editorially, by The New York Times, America's "newspaper of record."

What a far cry this is from September 1960, when, in a personal letter to me, presidential candidate John F. Kennedy wrote, "I wholly agree that American partisanship in the Arab-Israeli conflict is dangerous both to the United States and the free world. My goal is to bring the parties to the negotiating table."

Such were my random thoughts as I sat reading my Times on the bench in front of the Hub—in the very spot where I had sat 45 years earlier exchanging views with President Roosevelt's former personal envoy, Morris Ernst. The famed civil rights attorney had been sent by the president to England early in World War II to see whether the British (and other British Commonwealth nations) would join the U.S. in opening their doors to a goodly number of European refugees. England expressed a willingness to take in 150,000 to 200,000 Jewish refugees, provided the U.S. would match that number.

Ernst was shocked when, upon his return, he was told by the president that this program of rescue "could not be put over because the dominant vocal Jewish leadership of America won't stand for it."¹

When Ernst asked why, the president replied, "They know they can raise vast sums for Palestine by saying to their donors, 'There is no other place this poor Jew can go.' But if there is world political asylum for all people, they cannot raise the money. Then, the people who do not want to give the money will have an excuse to say: 'What do you mean, there is no place they can go but Palestine? They are the preferred wards of the world?'"²

This alleged response by the Zionist leadership ended the remarkable FDR effort to rescue Europe's displaced persons.

When we spoke, Ernst agreed that the policy the U.S. was pursuing in the Middle East was in no way serving the American national interest but rather was calculated only to woo votes and campaign funds for the incumbent administration. However, in the aftermath of his efforts, he became reluctant to speak out boldly in criticism and thus find himself trashed by the White House.

Ernst's reluctance recalled for me vividly the failure of my own lobbying efforts at the U.N. to block the original Zionist aggression against Palestine. I had been there working for the American Council for Judaism, the anti-Zionist group formed by concerned Jews which exists to this day.³ On Nov. 29, 1947, however, the international organization voted 33 to 13 at its Lake Success headquarters to partition the Mandate of Palestine into two states. Although Jews comprised only one-third of the population at the time, the Jewish state that became Israel received some 53 percent of the land. The two-thirds of the population who were Muslim and Christian Arabs received some 47 percent of the land, but the Arab Palestinian state never came into being. A mere shift of three votes would have stalled the new U.S.-Zionist alliance. (My unsuccessful efforts are all detailed in my 1954 book, What Price Israel?)

It was in the wake of that defeat that I first came to Nantucket to lick my wounds by writing an extended article, "Israel's Flag Is Not Mine," which was published in the Reader's Digest. This was followed in subsequent summers by the books, What Price Israel?,The Other Side of the Coin, There Goes the Middle East, and, finally, The Zionist Connection I and II.

I do not believe that I could have achieved even the most modest summer writing goals had the island earlier been invaded by droves of tourists—all wearing "Nantucket"-emblazoned T-shirts purchased in the local stores. Neither the ancient cobblestoned Main Street nor the winding, narrow side streets were ever made for the vehicles, vans and large "U-Haul" trucks which now pervade the island. Roads to the beaches are clogged by bumper-to-bumper traffic, and the lives of the bicyclists no little endangered. Worse, the island's serenity has been greatly diluted.

An Influx of Outsiders

Palestine, likewise, has been drastically changed by an overwhelming influx of outsiders—initially by those seeking a haven from Nazi genocide and then by Zionist nation-builders. In 1917, at the time of the Balfour Declaration, the indigenous Arab population constituted 93 percent of the inhabitants. Although that overwhelming majority had shrunk to 68 percent at the time of the 1947 partition, surprisingly, despite the forcible eviction of close to a million Palestinians in 1948 and in 1967, Christian and Muslim Palestinians still constitute about half of the population in the former Mandate of Palestine (including both those in the occupied territories and inside Israel), and may already outnumber the Jewish inhabitants. This helps to explain the daily encroachment by the state of Israel on Palestinian land and lives. Evictions, bulldozing and closures have become very much the order of the day.

In holding Israel out as the world-wide Jewish state instead of, as initially designed by the U.N., a small refugee state, Zionist propagandists have been able to take full advantage of global repugnance to Nazism and sympathy for its victims. With the help of a most compliant media and of venal politicians, the incessant recital of the Holocaust in every possible form most effectively continues to inflame the world's conscience. This has most recently been exemplified by the saga of the Swiss bank accounts. Indeed, the Holocaust and the ensuing guilt doth make cowards of us all!

During my recent visit to one of Nantucket's beaches, I spied the tall, lean figure of the Rt. Reverend Krister Stendahl. For many years he had been the bishop of Stockholm, presiding over the coronation of Swedish rulers. The bishop had been my landlord during two of my Nantucket summers when I occupied his charming flower-laden cottage on Derrymore Road. At the end of my stay, as a token of my appreciation, I left behind an autographed copy of The Zionist Connection II⁴ which had been published earlier that year. In a note of thanks, the bishop wrote, "I have not yet read the volume you so kindly left me. But I do trust that your book is not another anti-Semitic polemic against Israel and Zionism."

Despite his close connection to Swedish kings, one of whose nephews, Count Folke Bernadotte, had been assassinated in 1948 by Yitzhak Shamir's Lehi (Stern Gang) militia in the course of carrying out his duties as U.N. conciliator in the Holy Land, this Swedish church official could not conceive of any person, let alone a Jewish American, publicly questioning the justice of the Zionist takeover of the Holy Land.

This year, on the Sunday before leaving the island, I attended services in its unique old Unitarian church. It was in this same edifice in mid-August 1971 that I had faced a most unsympathetic audience which had come to hear me speak on the topic "How Can We Stop the Middle East from Becoming Another Vietnam?"

From the outset of that evening, I found it most difficult to defuse the obvious hostility of the audience. It seemed almost as if the church were overflowing with Zionists specially flown in from Boston and its environs to heckle me. Nevertheless, with the grace of the good Lord, I managed to deliver my remarks and then answer the volley of angry, negative questions thrown at me.

As I finish this narrative, I cannot help speculating over which task is most difficult: restoring the original serenity of my lovely island of Nantucket, or bringing peace and justice to the Holy Land. Both goals would require Herculean efforts. As Thomas Wolfe expressed it, "You Can't Go Home Again."

NOTES:

1. Morris L. Ernst, So Far, So Good, New York: Harper, 1948, pp. 170-179.

2. Ibid.

3. For further information write to the Council at P.O. Box 9009, Alexandria, VA 22304, or telephone (703) 836-2545.

4. The book is out of print but copies are available through the AET Book Club. Call 1 (800) 368-5788.