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THE DETROIT JEWISH NEWS
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VOL. LXXXV, NO. 20
CANDLELIGHTING AT 8:50 P.M.
Campaign questions
Two welcome statements this week issued by the National Association
for the Advancement of Colored People underscored how silent other
prominent organizations have been in not speaking out against the
anti-Semitic racism preached by Nation of Islam leader Louis Farrakhan.
The first NAACP statement criticized Farrakhan's remarks and rejected
"all forms of racism and anti-Semitism." The second called for closer ties
between blacks and Jews.
But where are the other voices? Why only silence from church and
religious groups who should be speaking out in the strongest terms?
As the Democratic Party moves towards its convention, one can look back
and see the fatal flaw in the media and among politicians and responsible
organizations in not criticizing Rev. Jesse Jackson for a campaign that
tolerated the very elements of racism and bigotry he said he opposed. There
was a degree of reverse discrimination as the media and others tolerated from
Jackson, the first major black candidate, what it would not have stood from a
white candidate.
But the lesson of a democracy still holds. What is necessary is to speak
out against any threat to principles of freedom and dignity, no matter
whether their source is black or white.
Political omen
The framers of the platform to be presented at the Democratic National
Convention in San Francisco this month have spelled out an augury for
justice by defeating a Jesse Jackson-proposed resolution to endorse the
establishment of a Palestinian state bordering Israel.
The overwhelming vote against such a prejudicial proposal will surely be
judged as an omen that the major political parties will renew the national
assurances of a continuing American-Israel friendship. The cooperation
between the two democracies has become national policy and both the
Republican and Democratic leaderships already appear bent upOn
strengthening the principled accord between Israel and the United States.
.Anti-Israelism has been evidenced among the very small parties,
especially those influenced by the type of ultra-leftism which stems from
pro-Russian sentiments. In such extremism, the anti-Israel attitudes which
develop into anti-Jewish propaganda are difficult to understand. Yet, even in
their minuten e ss numerically, they are the result of a pro-Arabism that
seldom benefits the Arabs and only promotes human discord. It certainly does
not contribute to the quest for peace.
The predominantly principled ideological American decisiveness is for a
strengthened accord with Israel. The Democratic policy-makers are paving
the way, and the Republicans are certain to follow in retaining this ideal.
That's one of the many ways of erasing bigotry.
A basic fact to remember, always to be considered seriously, is that the
American-Israel friendship is a bipartisan policy, that it finds emphasis in
the platforms of both political parties, the sentiment in support of it is
overwhelming. Therefore, any obstacle to it approaches a destructive attitude
in foreign dealings with a major American policy and must be treated in that •
fashion.
Analytical criticism of Jackson
overdue from media, politicians
BY VICTOR M. BIENSTOCK
Special to The Jewish News
A forthright challenge of Jesse
Jackson's credentials as the advocate
of civil and humanitarian rights and
his credibility as spokesman for the
nation's underprivileged and victims
of bias and discrimination is long
overdue.
The time has come, too, for the
Reagan Administration, which does
have a tendency of its own to ignore
laws with which it is not in sym-
pathy, to remember the Logan Act
which an indignant Congress
enacted nearly 200 years ago to make
it illegal for private citizens such as
Jackson to usurp the role of govern-
ment in negotiations with foreign
states.
The press, hyper-sensitive on the
race issue, has treated Jesse Jackson
with kid gloves. Editors, apparently
fearful that forthright criticism of
Jackson would expose them to
charges of racism, have carefully
limited themselves to a questioning
of his methods, not his motives. His
political opponents have been afraid
to counterattack him for the same
reasons.
And so Jesse Jackson has been
permitted to get away with murder.
His color, which he flaunts, has been
the shield protecting him from the
condemnation which his tactics and
methods would otherwise have eli-
cited.
Now the time has come when
this self-proclakned Messiah must be
reconized for What he is: an arrogant,
slick, thoroughly opportunistic oper-
ator whose chutzpah in pursuit of his
objective — the advancement of Jesse
Jackson — is unparalleled. If in the
process of the advancement of Jesse
Jackson there are some collateral
gains for the blacks of America, so
much the better, but they will be
purely incidental byproducts.
Politics, the hackneyed old
truism has it, makes strange bedfel-
lows and Jesse Jackson has deliber-
ately chosen to share his bed with the
most unseemly assortment one could
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ever expect to find in the company of
a crusader for social justice, the role
Jackon claims.
Who are they? There is Yassir
Arafat, the Palestinian terrorist
chieftain; President Hafez al-Assad
of Syria, who thought nothing of
massacring 20,000 dissidents and
razing an entire city; there is Col.
Muammar al-Qaddafi, the Libyan
dictator and fountainhead of
Worldwide terrorism, and there is
Fidel Castro, the Kremlin's surro-
gate in Latin America and Africa.
Jackson has let himself be used
by each of this sorry group to bolster
his image in the eyes of the world. He
has made it possible for some of them
to score notable diplomatic and pub-
lic relations triumphs.
It requires a certain amount of
moral insensitivity to embrace an
Arafat or an Assad, but the Jackson
who has declaimed so passionately
about the injustices he says the Is-
raelis have heaped on the Palesti-
nian Arabs does not seem to have
been disturbed by Arafat's murder of
Israeli men, women or children or by
. Assad's wholesale killing of the
people of Hama.
On the domestic front, few of the
recognized leaders of the black com-
munity are to be found among Jesse
Jackson's close associates although
some find the fall-out from Jackson's
charismatic appeal politically ad-
vantageous. Few speak out against
him; there is, understandably, a re-
luctance on the part of blacks to
speak out publicly against another
black leader and expose themselves
to charges of racial disloyalty. Many
speak in his defense in the belief that
the attacks against him are racially
motivated and must be rejected.
It is hard to believe that a man
who is dedicated to brotherly love,
equality and justice to the extent
Jackson claims to be could tolerate
for a single minute association with
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