Letters
Editor: DISSENT has recently carried three contributions dealing with Israel. Two, by Irving Howe and Michael Walzer, give critical support to the Israeli government; a third, by the...
...This is the government's minimum program...
...One may be convinced that Bobby Seale isn't guilty as charged in the New Haven trial, but the revelations emerging in that trial from the Panthers themselves as to the nature of their inner life ought to be profoundly disturbing to those leftist students who have romanticized the Panthers...
...B. Paid circulation: 1. Sales through dealers and carriers, street vendors and counter sales...
...Will they ask themselves how it relates to and perhaps even calls into question their political sympathies for the Panthers...
...Without such a gesture, Irving Howe's plea for the defense of Israel's democracy falls flat...
...but it is necessary for socialists to disown annexationists...
...Nothing in this letter should be construed as support to Arab nationalism, Fadeyeen or other terrorist organizations and their perverse hangers-on among the New Left in America, the Matzpen and other self-lacerating Jews...
...2. Mail subscriptions...
...I certify that the statements made by me above are correct and complete...
...Editor: Irving Howe, 509 Fifth Avenue, New York, N.Y...
...D. Free distribution (including samples) by mail, carrier or other means-350...
...c) accepting neither return nor compensation while safeguarding their rights...
...It is merely to say that those Panthers whoare now frantically calling the country's attentionto what the police are doing to them must be far more naive than the apparent nature of their enterprise in America led one to believe...
...force under auspices of the Security Council...
...had to attack North Vietnam—but these provocations can hardly serve as an excuse to annex parts of the Kingdom of Jordan or to strike commando blows in the territory of Lebanon...
...3) If my comment on Connie Matthews' "classically anti-Semitic article" had done no more than score a point, it would have been—pointless...
...He thus scores one point in his continuing debate over the Panthers with their New Left supporters...
...4) A distinction is called for...
...7. Owner (If owned by a corporation, its name and address must be stated and also immediately thereunder the names and addresses of stockholders owning or holding 1 percent or more of total amount of stock...
...2. Bona fide refugees should be offered the triple choice of (a) returning to their place of birth, with full rights of ownership and citizenship...
...However, if Professor Talmon's article was meant to balance the one-sided views of Irving Howe and Michael Walzer, it does so only in the very narrow sense in which Walzer reports (with an audible sigh of relief) that "the distances are small between so-called doves and hawks...
...To the latter, their repeated anti-Semitic statements can't, after all, be entirely unrelated...
...6. Names and Addresses of Publisher, Editor and Managing Editor: Publisher: none...
...While such an offer, if made by Israel, would not be without risks (but what in politics is without risks...
...Average number of copies each issue during preceding 12 months-6,977...
...But the murder of six million Jews by Hitler has not given their survivors any right to drive out a million Arabs from Palestine, and the iniquities Jews in the Middle East have suffered at the hands of Arab governments do not justify the aggrandizement of the State of Israel...
...Paradoxically, Professor Talmon, an Israeli, starts out from a less pro-Zionist attitude than Howe and Walzer...
...The first three of his six points are unacceptable to the Arabs...
...There Mr...
...freedom of passage through the straits...
...Moreover, there is now a growing opposition to the government's policies among the young in Israel, and the continued stalemate of the Cold War in the Near East has caused many to reflect on the character of the State of Israel...
...E. Total distribution (sum of C and D...
...5. Location of the Headquarters or General Business Offices of the Publishers: 509 Fifth Avenue, New York, N.Y...
...While this New Left does not appear to doubt that the State of Israel should continue to exist in some form, the events of the last three years have opened the question whether it can exist in its present form...
...I support the defense of the Panthers' civil rights...
...Average number of copies each issue during preceding 12 months-1,623...
...Editor: Irving Howe reprints a classically anti-Semitic article from the Black Panther newspaper, written by Connie Matthews...
...Average number of copies of each issue during preceding 12 months-8,600...
...In some cities there have clearly been instances, though it is not at all clear who organized them, where the police have been lured to their death...
...But if Mr...
...there are virtually no disagreements about the requirements of a final settlement, nor about the need for military strength...
...Why, with all this to be argued, is Irving Howe satisfied to document one case of Panther antiSemitism...
...As though to confirm this statement, Professor Talmon, speaking as a so-called dove, spells out his conditions for peace: "Unity for Jerusalem (with some autonomous status for the Arab community in it...
...It is regrettable that the line has not been drawn sharply enough between those who plead for justice in the Near East and those who are swayed by the rhetoric of national survival...
...Professor Talmon's only distinction is that he announces it now, instead of holding on to other points for bargaining purposes...
...G. Total (sum of E and F—should equal net press run shown in A...
...10017...
...9. [blank—not relevant] can Stalinists, their glorification of violence, their arm-twisting methods within the black community, their fanatical enmity to Israel (the New York Times, August 23, reports a Panther delegation in Amman declaring support for the guerrillas' refusal to abide by the Middle East cease-fire and urging that "the Zionist entity be removed," a euphemism for the destruction of Israel)—these do not persuade me to regard the Panthers as comrades...
...10017...
...Wiener wish to challenge me on this?—a trend toward anti-Semitism in the Panthers...
...Single issue nearest to filing date-350...
...Surely, that ought to satisfy Mr...
...Prominent Israelis, including the Mayor of Jerusalem, have stated that it is not necessary for Israel to own Jerusalem...
...Irving Howe, 509 Fifth Avenue, New York, N.Y...
...That there are foolish or benighted persons in the Panther movement is no more significant than that there are such persons in other movements...
...3. Frequency of Issue: bimonthly...
...But the analogy holds true in one respect: collective security must not be tampered with by any nation, and the community of nations must not allow any nation to violate another nation's borders...
...Sometimes it is feebly disguised (as it used to be in traditional anti-Semitic groups) with such terminology as "anti-Zionism" or as "anti-Kosher nationalism...
...It would be foolish to deny that the Panthers are an important phenomenon, or that some of their leading figures are strikingly articulate and forceful, or that they release authentic sentiments of black despair...
...Anderson's article in the present issue of interest...
...Their celebration of Maoism, their recent relationship with the AmeriSTATEMENT OF OWNERSHIP, MANAGEMENT AND CIRCULATION (Act of October 23, 1962...
...If not owned by a corporation, the names and addresses of the individual owners must be given...
...4. Location of Known Office of Publication: 509 Fifth Avenue, New York, N.Y...
...He also may find Mr...
...Section 4369, Title 39, United States Code...
...that, in the last two months, the mistreatment in jail of the New York and New Haven Panthers, and the harassment of their lawyers, suggests that they can't get a fair trial...
...5) There is a great deal in the Panther outlook, politics, and methods that must be repugnant to democrats and socialists...
...10017...
...And still more significant is the fact that one can detect and document—does Mr...
...demilitarization of Sinai and the West Bank...
...and its implementation ought to be surrounded by certain safeguards, it is essential that Israel make the gesture, just as it is essential for Israel to offer the return to its original borders...
...That was all we had to say about the Panthers in that issue...
...Single issue nearest to filing date —1,900...
...Far more than a debate is involved here...
...Two, by Irving Howe and Michael Walzer, give critical support to the Israeli government...
...Managing Editor: Edith Tarcov, 509 Fifth Avenue, New York, N.Y...
...8. Known bondholders, mortgagees, and other security holders owning 1 percent or more of total amount of bonds, mortgages or other securities: none...
...In writing about Near East affairs, or indeed about Third World affairs, one risks bad company these days...
...that the reversal of Huey Newton's conviction was long overdue, and that refusing him bail was an intolerable injustice...
...But contrary to his assertion, they include not only the extreme Right among Jews but also the extreme Left and a number of independent humanists such as the late Professor Magnes, as well as eminent friends of Israel such as Erich Fromm and Hannah Arendt...
...On the other hand, Israel's accommodation of Jewish refugees from Arab lands must be recognized as a balancing claim...
...10017...
...Or in other words: if Irving Howe is right in differentiating between U.S...
...Wiener and others of his political outlook consider the implications of such a trend...
...Refugees who have found employment outside the camps should lose the status of refugees...
...The rest consisted of a few lines of comment by myself...
...Walzer himself admits that a substantial percentage of Arabs and a minority of Jews favor a binational state...
...the Golan Heights...
...Wiener tells us is "classical...
...Average number copies each issue during preceding 12 months8,600...
...that, because of their political ideas, the Panther leadership has been systematically decimated by this national conspiracy, leaving people like Connie Matthews the only ones left...
...The spectrum of opinions in Israel, however, is not as narrow as we are told...
...JON WIENER IRVING HOWE replies: In view of Mr...
...b) accepting compensation and renouncing all rights to return...
...One can agree that Israel had more provocation to attack Egypt than the U.S...
...Wiener as to where we stand...
...Average number of copies each issue during preceding 12 months-2,100...
...that charges should have been brought against the officials responsible for the police murders of Chicago Panthers Fred Hampton and Mark Clark...
...Single issue nearest to filing date-4,212...
...C. Total paid circulation...
...But why is it that the only thing DISSENT has to say about the Panthers in two horribly eventful months is that they printed an anti-Semitic article in their paper...
...Single issue nearest to filing date-8,700...
...but one cannot accept the plea that Israel's aggression must be condoned because it is a democracy...
...If Howe doesn't feel that way, at least he ought to be able to appreciate the tactical wisdom of "first they came for the Catholics, but I didn't protest, because I wasn't a Catholic...
...most of it was a quote from The Black Panther, a quote Mr...
...If owned by a partnership or other incorporated firm, its name and address, as well as that of each individual, must be given): Dissent Publishing Corporation, 509 Fifth Avenue, New York, N.Y...
...A more appropriate sentiment for one who proclaims himself to be some sort of socialist would be "where any man is oppressed, I am oppressed...
...Single issue nearest to filing date-8,700...
...but their conclusions are not so far apart...
...Wiener will stretch his historical reach by just a few months, he will find in our March–April 1970 issue a remarkable article—so, at least, I regard it in its mixture of sympathy and criticism—entitled "Panthers: Black Men in Extremis" and written by Jervis Anderson, a very gifted young black writer...
...Obviously, this is not to applaud thepolice...
...So should camp inmates who cannot prove that they either were forced to flee from the present territory of Israel or are descended from such persons...
...One can agree with him that Israel must be defended against aggression...
...a third, by the Jerusalem professor J. L. Talmon, is a moving appeal to reason and reconciliation, implicitly critical not only of the Israeli government but of the attitudes which most Israelis display vis-h-vis their Arab neighbors and the prospects of peaceful coexistence with them...
...Average number copies each issue during preceding 12 months-6,627...
...that Bobby Seale should not be charged with conspiracy in Chicago, and should not be tried before Judge Hoffman, who previously denied him his right to an attorney and his right to defend himself...
...We would then have no space for anything else, certainly not for reflection on how a politics to end such outrages can be created...
...actions in Vietnam and Israeli actions in the Near East, he may also have to differentiate between actions of the Israeli government which are defensible and others which are not...
...Especially the kind of antiSemitic statement Mr...
...Certainly Irving Howe agrees that there has been a national conspiracy to eliminate the Panthers, presided over by the attorney general and the FBI director...
...I am not in sympathy with many of their ideas...
...What is more, I cannot honestly say in advance—as one could have about other groups—that each time the Panthers get involved in a fight with the police, they are necessarily to be regarded as innocent LETTERS victims...
...n 10...
...F. Office use, leftover unaccounted, spoiled after printing...
...1. Date of Filing: October 5, 1970...
...10017...
...Single issue nearest to filing date-6,800...
...A. Total number of copies printed (net pressrun...
...Lewis Coser, 509 Fifth Avenue, New York, N.Y...
...10017...
...strongpoints such as Sharm-el-Sheik...
...1) The item that troubles Mr...
...10017...
...Wiener's courtesy of tone and the likelihood that his views represent a strand of left-wing opinion, I should like to reply in some detail...
...Single issue nearest to filing date-6,450...
...Let me quote Jervis Anderson again: . considering the color of the Panthers, considering the nature of their political mission, the ir revence of their stance, their policy toward the police, and the terminologies in which they couchtheir hatred and contempt for the police, it is hardto imagine anyone—including the Panthers themselves— being surprised at the way the police havebehaved...
...Editor: DISSENT has recently carried three contributions dealing with Israel...
...Will Mr...
...The political repression of the Panthers—which may indeed be "fascist repression"—is too serious a matter for the left for Irving Howe to be satisfied with scoring points against their defenders...
...a U.N...
...This seems to me no more defensible morally and politically than what the Chicago police did to Fred Hampton...
...Z) It would be foolish, I think, to ask that a magazine like DISSENT feel obliged to react every two months to each outrage with which our world is filled...
...responsibility for maintaining those camps which they wish to continue should devolve clearly on the Arab states...
...Average number copies each issue during preceding 12 months4,527...
...Wiener occupied half a page in the July–August 1970 DISSENT...
...He states correctly that the analogy between Israel and Vietnam is false...
...What is significant is that such "a classically anti-Semitic article" can appear in the Panther press without retraction in a later issue or public protest from the white left-wing intellectuals who sympathize with the Panthers...
...Wiener will find the judgments he asks for, and I agree with, concerning police attacks on the Panthers: In addition to the immediate principle of thePanthers' rights, a broader urgency underlies this concern [with police methods] because if it becomes a relatively easy matter to by-pass the "dueprocess sieve" in dealing with the Panthers, thenit becomes just as easy to do so in respect, say, tothe whole black community in America, which occupies a position in relationship to the police whimand power that ultimately is not any more advantageous than that occupied by the Panthers...
...Stanley Plastrik, Business Manager...
...Wiener describes as "classically antiSemitic...
...The Panther policy of police-baiting, their advocacy and apparent use of violence, make it difficult in some instances to distinguish between violations of rights and mere shoot-outs, between cases where the Panthers should be vigorously defended and cases where one finds it hard to know...
...The picture the Panther witnesses drew of what happened before Alex Rackley was murdered is that of a milieu of strong-arm authoritarianism...
...Single issue nearest to filing date —2,238...
...2. Title of Publication: DISSENT...
...While we agree that this question is one of the knottiest in today's international affairs, we suggest the following measures: 1. UNRRA should be dissolved and American contributions should be stopped...
...But together with this side there is another one, authoritarian and perhaps even semi-fascist in character...
...We note with deep regret that our two coeditors have not felt it necessary to write about the refugee problem which Professor Talmon calls the central issue—though he does not offer any solution either...
...it is indeed false for many reasons which he does not state...
Vol. 18 • February 1971 • No. 1
