A mixed response
Howe, Irving
IM he best thing Jesse Jackson did during the Democratic primary was to name the problems. He was the one Democratic candidate who stressed that there are serious social wrongs in the United...
...power resides in the hands of the president...
...Dealings with Libyan agents and some Arab groups: In 1980, the Justice Department investigated whether Jackson should register as a foreign agent because a $10,000 contribution came from Khadafy's Libya to PUSH, his Chicago organization...
...1979) as reporting that Jackson, in explaining his Middle East intervention, called it part of a "Divine Plan...
...Why Jackson should refuse to repudiate this appalling bigot when it would be to his political advantage to do so, is a question I cannot answer...
...Anti-Semitism is no more a "parochial" issue than is anti-black racism...
...There remains the matter of Farrakhan...
...and to repudiate the "positions" requires that the person advancing them also be repudiated...
...but they are not running for president9 And at least as important, they aren't presenting themselves as leaders of a progressive or rainbow coalition...
...It now became necessary to consider: Does he have a chance of winning the presidency...
...The liberal columnist Mary McGrory wrote (Washington Post, July 22, 1985) that Jackson "went before the Republican National Committee members [in 1978] and promised that if they played ball with him, he would deliver blacks out of their 'bondage' to the Democrats...
...Once Jackson turned into a serious candidate, then the argument that he should be backed simply because he expressed a positive tendency became insufficient or evasive...
...That other Democratic candidates are not accountable to a structured constituency does not matter: first, because they have at least exposed themselves to the test of office and second, because they do not put themselves forward as leaders of an insurgent group or community...
...Envisage, then, a situation in which Israel is with its back to the wall, as during the Yom Kippur war of 1973, and its fate depends on the decision of an American president-shall he send supplies needed for Israel's survival...
...Rather Jackson decides, then announces, his political line and the rest follow...
...it is he who is responsible for those "positions...
...For all of which he deserves credit...
...He made the appalling remark a few years ago that New York is "Sambotown...
...The Lane Kirkland leadership of the AFL-CIO was barely heard from and not many 264 • DISSENT Americans seemed to miss it...
...Five days later, October 16, 1979, the Chicago Sun-Times ran a similar report...
...I want the political momentum set in motion by the Jackson campaign to continue...
...There is no quick or easy solution to this problem...
...but Welcome Aboard HAROLD MEYERSON has joined the editorial board of Dissent...
...We have reached a point in AmeriCan life (and one hopes in the history of the left) where a presidential candidate claimed as our own must not be shadowed by even the faintest suspicion of anti-Semitism...
...We can hope that those friends who say Jackson has "grown" will be proven correct...
...But if Jackson is to be the leader and spokesman for a progressive constituency and is to be considered a potential president of this country, then I think it quite reasonable that such statements-there are others--be scrutinized...
...Once we began to move up, the Jews who were willing to share decency were not willing to share power," he is quoted as saying in the Washington Post, August 21, 1979...
...It has also been said that to raise these matters is "parochial...
...Since its leader is Jesse Jackson, I find myself conflicted...
...Though PUSH conceded the contribution, the inquiry was dropped...
...He acknowledged the needs of an important segment of the white working class...
...I am a conduit . . . many ideas flow through and from me from the Lord . . . I stand at the very center of moral power...
...I would not care to see that decision made by the man who said that Zionism is a "poisonous weed...
...I have grave doubts about Jackson as a serious presidential candidate or possible president and would raise questions about him as a plausible leader of a left-liberal movement...
...9 A recurrent bias: In a discussion of blackJewish tensions in an interview with the New York Times, April 16, 1988, Jackson gave as a reason for this tension: " . . . y o u also have a fundamental issue 9 . . like--I guess it was two months ago--when South Africa invaded Angola and it was really a South Africa and Israeli joint project9 There is no evidence that Israel participated in any "joint project" with South Africa in invading Angola...
...It has been said in defense of Jackson that many whites and Jews also make disparaging remarks about blacks9 True...
...But it is not at all reassuring...
...An apostle of Christian nonviolence, he has had kind words for such Third World dictators and candidatedictators as Castro, Assad, and Arafat...
...P r e c i s e l y because I have been a sharp critic of Israeli policies on the West Bank, I would be most uneasy if Jackson were president9 I want to persuade the Israeli government to change its policies, I hope the Israeli people will elect another government...
...A picturesque account of Jackson's fund-raising methods appeared in the Washington Post, October 11, 1979, where he is quoted as saying to an Arab group: By October 1 there will be no black leader left willing to come to the aid of the Palestinian cause, if there is not an immediate infusion of funds into the black community from Arab states...
...If there will, however, be a revived movement around Jackson, then we have to consider the points made by James Ridgeway in the Village Voice (April 29, 1986): "The politics of [Jackson's Rainbow Coalition] are confusing...
...In 1978 Jackson offered "an alliance" of "mutual need" to the Republican party (Washington Post, July 22, 1985...
...And he refuses to repudiate his quondam associate, the Jewish fascist Meier Kahane...
...Behind Jackson's success there was the glaring failure of the traditional liberal and labor constituencies to play important roles in the Democratic primaries...
...Now, this isn't the sort of question that has been at the forefront of thinking among people of the left...
...I could not give him the sort of trust that one should feel about the person one wants to have as president...
...The Jackson program seemed attractive, the Jackson movement vigorous, but I feel uneasy about Jackson the leader...
...He brought the black community to a high point of enthusiasm...
...If that happens, it must be asked: To whom is he accountable...
...I'm afraid this is disingenuous9 The "positions" (anti-Semitic rant) came not from the air over Chicago but from a specific person in Chicago, Farrakhan...
...Were the Jackson constituency led by someone like Martin Luther King or A. Philip Randolph, or by someone like Julian Bond or David Dinkins, my response would be to cheer enthusiastically...
...He enlisted as supporters a significant minority of the unions...
...In the New York Times, April 16, 1988, Jackson said, "I renounce or repudiate positions, not people . . . . I seek to redeem people...
...The Holocaust, Jews, etc.: "Apartheid," Jackson is quoted as saying in the Washington Post, July 29, 1979, "is worse than Hitler...
...The coalition itself doesn't set its own political agenda...
...I have looked through a number of Jackson's earlier remarks about Jews...
...We will all learn to recite the alphabet without three letters, P-L-O...
...Speaking in July 1980 before an Arab group, Jackson said: "We have the real obligation to separate Zionism from Judaism . . . . Zionism is a kind of poisonous weed that is choking Judaism...
...Whether a postelection, organized movement will coalesce around Jackson, we don't yet know...
...He raised hopes for survival among frayed remnants of the New Left...
...Is this very different from Pat Robertson...
...but when Jackson talked about "the Jews" he was falling back on a stereotype as unacceptable as Mayor Koch's "discovery" some time back that most blacks are anti-Semitic...
...Ebony quoted Jackson in August 1984: "You see, before, historically, we did not spiritually unify blacks of different ideological persuasions . . . . This time we've involved the nationalists, whether it's Herb Daughtry or Farrakhan...
...If Jackson meant to say that Israeli arms might have been used in that invasion, that again is rather curious, since South Africa has purchased arms from many other countries, including France and the Soviet Union...
...Now, this may be true about some Jews (who, by the way, have names that could be cited...
...But Jackson does not speak of South African "joint projects" with those countries9 Readers will have noticed that many of these quotations from Jackson come from the late 1970s...
...A Los Angeles-based political consultant and writer, he is a frequent contributor to these pages, a columnist for the Los Angeles Herald-Examiner, and a long-time member of the National Executive Committee of the Democratic Socialists of America...
...While agreeing with the general thrust of his domestic policy proposals, I found it hard, in light of his record and stated opinions, to think of him as a man I wanted to be president...
...The major liberal politicians stayed (or copped) out...
...It is especially crucial in the American political system, where enormous * Not in the forefront of thinking, but very often at the center of conduct...
...What kind of president might he be...
...God's messenger: An article by Marie Syrkin in Midstream (Feb.—March 1988) quotes the Los Angeles Times (Sept...
...Let me advance a hypothetical case: A chap 266 DISSENT named Botch is running for high office...
...He offered a program roughly akin to that of the liberal-left...
...It's just too late for that sort of thing...
...but perhaps it should have been.* We should by now have learned from hard experience that the quality and credibility of leaders is a crucial factor in politics...
...Jackson seems to have believed for a long time that the Jews control the media, are exploiters of black tenants, and have abandoned the cause of civil rights9 He has spoken all too loosely about "the Jews," as if they are a unified bloc always acting in concert...
...I feel close to many of the people working for him...
...Here are a few reasons: • A record of political instability: An integrationist in the mid-1960s, Jackson became a proponent of a Booker T. Washington-like call for black selfreliance in the early 1970s...
...He brought vividness to an otherwise bland campaign...
...I need only mention the honored names of Norman Thomas and Michael Harrington...
...He was the one Democratic candidate who stressed that there are serious social wrongs in the United States requiring more than superficial treatment...
...SUMMER • 1988 • 265 But apartheid is a system of legal extermination...
...Can you imagine the roars of denunciation that would come from the left...
...The first thing to hope for, meanwhile, is that Ed Koch will learn the value of at least occasional silence, take himself a long vacation, and allow New York City to choose its next mayor without his rancorous presence...
...The outrage that would be expressed by such periodicals as the Nation and the Village Voice (both of which enthusiastically endorsed Jackson...
...Those Dissent readers who have participated in one or another socialist group know that what often held members was the trust they could feel in the integrity, honesty, selflessness of leaders with whom they might on occasion disagree or even take to be inadequate in some respects...
...So there was a vacuum, and Jesse Jackson, through daring and hard work, filled it...
...Until recently he spoke in behalf of "black capitalism," something hardly congruent with his politics in the 1988 primary...
...Yet I cannot, in simple honesty, accord Jackson the trust a leader ought to have...
...He is Jewish...
...Jackson: "I've been blessed you see...
...Untrue...
...Hitler was a man for a season...
...Since then he may have "grown," as his defenders say, or he may have become more circumspect in public speech...
...There now exists a strong constituency behind Jackson and this changes the relationship of political forces within the Democratic party—as, to a lesser extent, within the country...
...They are disturbing9 Not exactly anti-Semitic, but contaminated by a kind of ignorant folk bias...
...I also know that Israel is surrounded by real enemies and must therefore maintain its military strength (for which American aid is crucial...
...We can hope for a calming of relations after the election...
...To my knowledge, Jackson has never denied these accounts...
...His chance of winning has become an academic issue, but the second question merits reflection...
...Once he was exposed, he was rejected...
Vol. 35 • July 1988 • No. 3
