A MOMENT Interview with Philip Klutznick
MOMENT INTERVIEW PHILIP KLUTZNICK Philip Klutznick, businessman, lawyer, and diplomat, is now President of the World Jewish Congress. He served Governor of Illinois Adlai Stevenson as...
...Now the battle can only be conducted by a kind of neutral force...
...Thinking about those 30 years, about Israel, what's the biggest surprise, what's the biggest disappointment, what's the greatest source of pride...
...Is there a truth to that...
...It has for so long been identified with one man that some people have thought that the two were one and the same...
...They love the place...
...I suppose I should be flattered that when they listen to me they think they're listening to Nachum Goldmann...
...And El-Arish is right close at hand...
...I wish that all of our Jewish leaders spoke as well and with one voice in support of Israel as these did...
...I didn't want to remind people that my predecessor had been saying that for years...
...Well, as a practical matter, I have the assumption that there won't be any...
...Assuming first that I wanted to do it, I'd hope that people would think me smart enough not to have those kinds of witnesses...
...That's easiest to mount, but what's called for is an organization that's willing to examine the destiny of those three million Jews as a separate phenomenon, considering all of the surrounding circumstances and then to arrive at a program...
...If everything else fell in place, that would also...
...That's of no consequence to me...
...And the fact that we have an organization which involves some 63 countries gives us a status and stature that permits us to move constructively into these places, these areas, without in any way usurping the function of ongoing organizations, or certainly even attempting to usurp the function of the State of Israel...
...They will have been decimated by genocide of a cultural character...
...This we can't accept...
...M: Where does the three million come from...
...The United States as a super-power finds that its voice at an official level is sometimes meaningless...
...It isn't as if the Jews of the world today are lacking a voice in certain areas...
...I do think that Begin moved in a constructive fashion in December...
...But Israel hasn't walked out of the U.N., and even if it's going to take five, ten years, we're going to fight back against the notion that Zionism or Judaism is racism...
...But it didn't take long to see that after five years of struggle, the notion that you can handle the problem of Soviet Jewry by only bringing them out is totally inept...
...M: Your memory goes back fifty years, as you say...
...The Presidents' Conference is expected by most people not to disagree with the official line...
...It's a wonderful place to make a home, and to build a community and all that, I agree...
...When I met with Sadat, one thing that was said to me was, "I don't think you made a mistake in going to see Sadat...
...You have more intellectual quality and a broader perspective in our Jewish leadership today than you had when I was a boy...
...The ones you took weren't American Jewish leaders...
...We've had any number of meetings, face to face, behind closed doors with some of the leaders of the 77, the black Africans and the browns and others, including their chairman...
...I would say that as a total community, the quality of the people that get involved today is certainly no worse...
...On the other hand, one must take a look at three million Jews in the Soviet Union...
...And therefore, we have AIPAC...
...After we had spent a whole morning getting reports on aliyah and its present level—which, incidentally, begins to show a slight improvement—we turned to the cultural lag, and the need to catch up...
...But what you said is so true...
...How many Udovitches did you have at that time...
...We are expanding the program in Europe and New York...
...M: Where does the budget of the Congress come from...
...Because if you don't, there won't be any Jews left in the USSR...
...We've issued our first publication on the economic aspects of it...
...There are people who have been active in it who ask the question, "What are we really doing...
...Let me give you an example of one of the exciting programs that we've been working on together with the World Zionist Organization...
...M: The criticism may have been that the people you took have tenuous ties to the organized community and therefore, insofar as there may be some assumption by Sadat that they spoke representing the community, they could not, because they don't...
...Isn't it more important that he have the qualities to think of the problem, to give you help on it, to analyze it—that's the concept of leadership...
...If I were to evaluate what's happened in 30 years, I would say that no one, 30 or 40 years ago, in his wildest moments could have dreamt that after the birth of the State of Israel it would have the infrastructure that it has, that it has over 3 million Jews, that its arguments are now whether they are getting enough recognition from the Arabs or not enough, that they've got a higher education system that is at least comparable with countries that have been around a lot, lot longer than they have...
...So, we are setting up a commission...
...Let me mention one more thing on the new programming, for example...
...It was a lot easier to be a leader for the movement of a Jewish State when there wasn't one, and when there wasn't a prime minister...
...We surely need it...
...M: How does he deal with that...
...But, the total reaction was, "why not...
...Sadat and King Hussein and a few others would say, "Look, fellows, we like the way it's been since '67 and okay, let's make peace and let's have open borders and so forth," it would be nice...
...K: Well, our projected budget for this next year is over three million but it does not begin to cover our total expenditures...
...Most of our readers probably don't even know what the underlying rationale of the World Jewish Congress is to begin with...
...The first reaction is to get mad and to attack frontally...
...But it is an effort to uncover, if it's possible, a technique by which they can be helped to do a better job and by which we may draw into the orbit of our understanding of this problem not only our Jewish leadership, but some of the distinguished non-Jews of the world...
...M: Can we talk about the World Jewish Congress now...
...But, I think there's always been a sad lack of a place for people who devote a good part of their lives as volunteers or as professionals to Jewish hopes and to Jewish ambitions to get a chance to sit down and argue through, and discuss through, the differences that exist in the world...
...There's been a terrible relationship between the total Jewish community and the Jewish community of Hungary, which doesn't get, in the real sense of the word, the kind of assistance and aid that other communities have gotten...
...We have just set up for the first time a fund raising operation to supplement our budget when we need it...
...M: Where do you go...
...Are there other alternatives to frontal attack...
...There's no turning back...
...K: I would say that at the moment, not the interests of the State of Israel, but the interests of the government of Israel or the officialdom of Israel...
...You don't want to call them leaders...
...As a result of our mission I think we're about on the eve of establishing a mutual program where there will be some recognition of the past on the part of the Polish government...
...Take the low figure, it's 80,000, take the high figure, it's 120,000 Jews...
...They are doing a good job...
...I am trying to be honest to both, and there's a distinction between trying honestly to study both sides of an issue and give your best judgment, which statesmanship calls for, and accepting one side of an issue without adequately studying the other side...
...It is true that the issues were such that there was more passion about them, and it is also true that the intellectual level of the total community was so much lower that passion prevailed over reason many a time...
...We have, in connection with problems that affect Israel, several instrumentalities, not just one...
...You know, when you look at a city at night and the lights are shining and you don't see all of the bad things it always looks much more exciting...
...Arid therefore, even the internal competition may be great...
...K: That isn't the real problem, you know...
...I've been there...
...K: Well, he doesn't think so...
...Now, when I say that, I am immediately charged with trying to put pressure on Israel...
...They still refuse to believe that there is a new President of the World Jewish Congress, and that with all of my love and affection for Nachum, I'm my own man and not his...
...K: It comes from several sources: First, there was established a fund some years ago that returns roughly one million two or three hundred thousand dollars a year...
...The other part that I think people must not forget is that an American Jew who aspired for leadership in the absence of the State of Israel didn't have to compete with the back bench of the Knesset when he wanted to make a speech...
...Therefore, it's important to try to understand the problem both as to its impact on the Diaspora as well as on the State of Israel...
...And there was also a need to try to understand the Israeli position, and to act as a kind of two-way street for the interpretation of one to the other, both at the executive level and at the community level...
...How many Meyersons...
...When you look back thirty years, people forget the miserable fights that took place between Wise and Silver and Brandeis...
...K: Well, his answer has been, to certain people, that there are too many who do not have enough confidence in the Jewish people, that if there is peace, there'll be two million who'll come on aliyah and they will propagate at a rate where they'll outdo the Arabs...
...The same in Rumania or Yugoslavia, or now in Poland...
...Let me cite another example in which we're deeply involved and in which we agreed to expand our activity—The Third World...
...But it was just a move...
...No Meyersons at all...
...They're doing it for everyone else...
...And now, when you strike that special moment where there's a convergence of necessities, then the issue becomes, what do you have to pay to achieve it...
...There are people who will say Sadat's not serious, Hussein's not serious—I say it's serious because it's in their interest to have precisely what Israel wants...
...And you can't say that Bob Nathan has no standing at all...
...K: There's a very serious question whether you could ever gather a group together that really represents the community, but more important, I've attended any number of such meetings...
...In failing to analyze what we've achieved, we may sometimes end up with the wrong analysis of what our deficiencies were in the past and what our goals should be for the future...
...The point I'm trying to make is that 30 or 40 years ago you couldn't have gathered together a group like that...
...I'm not thinking of the current hassle...
...He has worked with the National Welfare Board and the Jewish National Fund, was a vice-president of the World Federation of YMHA's and Jewish Community Centers, and served as International President of B'nai B'rith...
...We have a relationship and we're maintaining it and we're working on the solution of that problem both with the government of Hungary and with the community of Hungary and the institutions that should be operating actively in Hungary...
...There are a lot of people in his own bailiwick who don't agree...
...M: That's out of the question...
...May I make my point first by giving you an illustration of the American scene, which after all involves the largest single group of Jews...
...Things have deteriorated so much that there's no turning back...
...We lack the material...
...He may never have been the head of a B'nai B'rith lodge—actually, I think he was, as a matter of fact, or he was at least very active—but is that the test of leadership...
...He has received honorary degrees from nine colleges, was awarded the Certificate of Merit for Wartime Services from President Truman, and is a member of the Legion of Honor of the American Zionist Association...
...There have to be places where these things are considered at what one might call a fair intellectual level, before conclusions are reached...
...K: Of course, and the cultural interaction between Egypt and the Jewish community of America and elsewhere had to come from a stimulus other than the political negotiations that are involved, because the political negotiations, even if they end up successfully, are going to have ups and downs...
...M: One last question: This interview will be published in the May issue of moment, which is the 30th anniversary of the State...
...So, where do you go...
...We have a rationale that starts from our beginning, and which is still the basic rationale, and that is that we are trying, to the best of our ability, to provide the most comprehensive forum, in depth and in width, for the Jewish communities and Jewish leadership in the world to meet and to consider their mutual problems...
...We also talked about the fight against Soviet anti-Semitism...
...Now, we are nothing more than an agent, but because of the stature of the name and of the history, we can discharge a role that others can't...
...M: The Syrian Jewish case is another good example of that...
...And the State of Israel would be the first to say so...
...A man like Allon will say to you that the classic mistake we made was not to approach the West Bank from the point of view of a security problem, not as Samaria and Judea, but as a security problem, and he says that as a security problem, the number of strong highpoints that need to be kept in Israel's hands—and mind you, he's a hawk on that—is so small that it complies completely with 242, that it would represent "minor border adjustments...
...And so, it is not true that they were necessarily better people...
...Is this an ideological-historical problem, or is it a security problem...
...It is beautiful...
...Sure I'd like to see it...
...I guess it is a cliché these days that the American Jewish community lacks the quality of leadership that it once had...
...I can imagine that the State of Israel has something going with the Soviet Union by way of international diplomacy that is independent of the Soviet Jewiy issue and for very good purposes it is important that that issue be fielded by the Jews as distinguished from the Israelis...
...Interestingly enough, we will be announcing shortly the establishment of the first information office we've ever had...
...We continue to have that...
...I think what every free Jewish community needs sorely, whether it's in connection with the affairs of the State of Israel or with Soviet Jewry or with any one of the variety of questions that are involved, is a group that honestly weighs the alternatives and the facts and uses its good offices to effect progress, rather than to be merely another lobby...
...There are probably people today who would say, yes, Sadat is serious and Hussein is serious...
...Now, there are those who are associated with him who are beginning to think so...
...They came up to see me...
...The problem I have on this is not that I wouldn't like to see everything that the present Israeli government wants realized...
...That isn't Jewish life...
...I was authorized to establish a world-wide commission on the social and economic implications of peace and its impact on both the Diaspora and the State of Israel...
...Now, five or six years ago that would have been accepted...
...Look at the people that were driven out of leadership in those days...
...The maintenance of a crackeijack military organization has been at the expense of the standard of living of the people, as proud as one may be of it, and the continuance of that level of military involvement could jeopardize freedom...
...For example, at the Brussels Presidium there was an interesting debate...
...We also have an instrument called the Presidents' Conference...
...K: Let me give you my judgment on that, both as an American Jew and as one who travels the world...
...Now, the tragedy of all this is that anyone who is absolutely certain about his answer is a fool, and therefore, I am very reluctant to take issue on a lot of these things...
...I think that's wise in a limited way...
...I know the place...
...I think, with all due respect to some of the deficiencies in the governmental structure—maybe we became too democratic at times, maybe Ben Gurion was right in his concept that the country, sooner or later, needs a two-party system, or its equivalent—nevertheless, when you take a look at the number of countries that have had less difficulties than Israel has had, and have gone under as free countries, somebody ought to stand up and cheer and say that at least this little country, in spite of all its difficulties, remains free, so free that maybe it ought to pull in its horns a little bit...
...The relationship between the Soviet Union and the State of Israel is such that unless the issue had been fielded by others we would have faced an even greater decline in numbers...
...I don't think it's a contest, and I think this is where we fall into a terrible trap, and it accounts for some of the panicky behavior in which we get involved...
...That is to say, Begin is still emotionally committed to a variety of things in addition to peace, that in fact act as impediments to peace...
...Now, that was, in a way, an insult, because while Martin Meyerson has never headed a Jewish organization, we should be proud of the fact that he's headed one of the great universities, that he is a Jew and his university has close working relationships with the universities of Israel and that he is increasing his participation in Jewish life...
...The question that arises is whether in fact he's right, that a concession on the West Bank inevitably leads to a PLO government...
...you've met President Sadat—what's your mood these days...
...The question is that if you have to give this up, are you getting enough in return...
...Certainly, if Mr...
...So, the basic purpose has been, and continues to be, to provide a forum both on a regional and on an international level for serious consideration of the concerns of the Jewish Community...
...I've been around Israel, and there are a number of people who live in Israel who complain about the fact that they haven't come far enough...
...One of the universities in Israel has offered its services in that connection, and we hope to involve industrialists, economists, and sociologists in our work...
...K: The current situation supports that view...
...The fact is that the only destruction of the PLO has been at the hands of the Syrians and at the hands of the Jordanians...
...I talked about it in Israel recently...
...And yet it circulated in political circles...
...M: Let's talk for a minute about the Sinai settlements...
...What has happened is that for lack of an adequate staff, which the Presidents' Conference doesn't have and which I think it should have, and in the absence of a clear delineation of the differential between itself and the other organizations, it has become a kind of lobby and is treated as such by officialdom and others...
...This kind of thing is constantly going on...
...There are areas that require a kind of neutral posture, not in commitment, but in voice in order to resist attacks on Jewish life or even to improve relationships between existing entities and the Jewish community...
...Sometimes it tends to block out the good...
...Frontal attack goes on all the time...
...It's not the most solidly based, but that's another area...
...No one seems to be willing to address that question all the way to the end...
...It would be nice not to have to pay anything—but that's not realistic...
...I've already heard, since November the 19th, some communities talking about peace dividends...
...Now there has to be a place where an idea can be examined as to whether it's adequate, and here is an example of what I'm talking about...
...K: I don't like the word "biggest...
...The one thing you have to give Begin credit for is that last May he did lift the government out of the doldrums, and he does, no matter that you disagree with him, maintain a rational approach and a gentlemanly approach...
...Many of them who were around were at colleges, hiding the fact that they were Jews...
...Take the problem of Soviet anti-Semitism...
...The second instrumentality on the American scene is what has been called—unfortunately—a Jewish lobby...
...That's a factor we never had before...
...Klutznick has served the Jewish community for fifty years...
...Isn't this a way to reopen that front...
...I would predict acceptance of the original concept in which Sadat would agree to an exchange of some land on the other side of the Negev for this land...
...It's misused so much these days...
...I don't think that it is really the great issue that it's been built up to be...
...Wonderful young people...
...It would be wonderful if people get inured to wide open space on the West Bank, but that's not the question...
...He served Governor of Illinois Adlai Stevenson as vice-president of the Illinois State Housing Board, Presidents Roosevelt and Truman on the Commission of Federal Public Housing Authority and, in 1961, was appointed by John Kennedy as ambassador to the Economic and Social Council of the United Nations...
...But the main thing is that the "good old days" always seem better...
...So I concluded early in the game that this was a power play that had nothing to do with me at all...
...Davis has finished the first half of it and while we were in Jerusalem we had a meeting, under the president's aegis, President Katzir, to consider the progress made and the broad outlines of what we attempt to achieve, by way of a program to improve the quantity, quality and depth of courses, the training of teachers, and the development of curriculum...
...First of all, Israel has its official representation, and that official representation from the ambassadorial level on down has a role to play and must play it within the diplomatic field...
...Well, even if that were true, it's still a long-term program, and the danger of a PLO operation, in my judgment, emerging on the West Bank, is greater with Israeli control than with Jordanian control, or for that matter, Egyptian control...
...Today the competition is very heavy...
...Not at all...
...M: Is it the case that there are times when it is useful to have a voice which can purport to speak for the Jewish people worldwide, other than the voice of the government of the State of Israel...
...It wouldn't work...
...Why should we refuse to stand up, as Americans, for things that we hold dear, either here or abroad...
...When you look back, the greatest military successes were won at a horrible price, and while we're all proud of them, what we lost in winning must be looked at seriously...
...It may even be much better, because this is a third and fourth generation community where there has been a certain learning process...
...I'm confident that he doesn't think that that move will hold all the way...
...K: The answer is quite clear...
...We are perfectly willing to face up to the fact that Zionism and Jews were badly treated in the U.N...
...I said, "You know, you can't assume that if peace comes the transfer of funds between the Diaspora and Israel will be maintained at the same level, or as some think of it, at a higher level...
...I was proud of them...
...We've jointly financed what's called the Davis Study, in the field of Jewish studies—Hebrew and Yiddish at the college level—the new phenomenon of our day...
...And one well-meaning person said that the only real function of the Brussels Presidium— which is the interim coordinating group of the Conference on Soviet Jewry—is aliyah...
...I don't like the way you put the question...
...For the American Jewish community to be at its greatest effectiveness, it's got to be accepted as being fair to the United States as well as to the State of Israel...
...Actually, our Executive Committee meeting authorized the president to appoint an exploratory committee to see what additional supplementation is necessary—not only in the Jewish community but in the non-Jewish community—in order to add that dimension and depth that will signify that there's been a major change in the world in terms of anti-Semitism...
...Sadat needs peace, and Hussein would be better off with that problem settled on the West Bank because every time he turns around he's inhibited by an unsettled situation...
...So you see, there are areas that are international in scope, that call for an instrument of the character of the World Jewish Congress...
...If you would take the typical national conference on Soviet Jewry, they have no time to look at anything but the problem of how do you get them out, how do you protest, etc...
...And yet the needs of Israel during the first years of peace, if blessedly it comes, may be greater, may actually be greater in the adjustment process...
...This is not a criticism of the action agencies...
...But, why didn't you take American Jewish leaders with you...
...Take for example, the question of Soviet anti-Semitism...
...I don't like to use the word unity...
...And thank goodness those differences exist...
...They're not doing it gratuitously for Jews or Israel...
...The Israeli government is in a number of bodies where it can bring this to the Continued on page 52 KUHZNKK INTERVIEW Continued from page 25 attention of the officialdom of the world, and must, and sometimes it's effective and sometimes it lacks elfectiveness...
...I had the pleasure of meeting with some of the young people from Yamit...
...But fundamentally that is not enough...
...Another thing that came up months ago, and we've been working on in a preliminary way, but which literally exploded at the Brussels Presidium through a report that we received, was the question of the new anti-Semitism and neo-Nazism...
...People forget what was done to Chaim Weizmann...
...K: The notion that I would have told the President in the presence of eight or nine or ten people to put pressure on Israel is the worst insult I've ever had in my life...
...There are some who forget that the fever chart shows a direct relationship to controversy and war as a stimulant to fund raising, not to peace and relaxation...
...One of the first reactions from some people was that we must not deal with it...
...M: The example is an interesting one, because it's probably an area where there is the potential for an adversary relationship, with the interests of the State of Israel and the interests of the Soviet Jews diverging...
...You know, the creases are forgotten and the smiles are remembered—and that's a large part of it...
...It's Begin who's not serious...
...M: Before we talk about your new job as President of the World Jewish Congress, let's talk about the Middle East...
...K: I am hopeful for one reason...
...Somebody who may mean nothing in Israel, other than the fact that he is a member of the Knesset, can draw a crowd, or he gets an honor which someone in this country, who may have worked very hard to be a leader, may not get at all or ever...
...He was appointed chairman of the American Housing Committee for Israel by David Ben-Gurion in 1949...
...There have been some indications that they might be interested in translations of Jewish literature into Spanish and French...
...K: That's right...
...I have only one criticism of it, and that is that it may not be discharging its most effective role...
...That's a sign of weakness, in my judgment, and not a sign of strength...
...And they were really crying...
...For example, my visit to Hungary, where there is no relationship between Hungary and the State of Israel...
...If everybody thought the same, there would be no hope for Jewish life...
...They said they were sent there on a government mission and now people want to uproot them...
...We have an interesting example with UNESCO now in connection with our higher education program...
...Goldmann would be the first to admit that it wasn't so, and anyone who took a good look at the World Jewish Congress would understand that it isn't so...
...I think we have a tendency to constantly think about what we haven't done and forget where we came from, and as a result we diminish what we have done...
...I fear, however, that what has happened has been something else, although we did operate that way for quite a few years...
...But worse than that, after I've been around the Jewish community since I've been a youngster, fifty years, and now I have to get my credentials O.K.'d, attesting that I'm for Israel and for peace—that's a pretty sad thing...
...Third, we have individual contributions and we have been fortunate enough to get some support from other institutions...
...We must never ignore the fact that for thirty years now there has been a state, a Jewish state, which can speak in those areas where official spokesmen meet...
...I still don't know who it has something to do with...
...And here it is the largest Jewish community, next only to the Soviet Union, in the socialist sphere...
...And how important is it that a person be temporarily a president for a couple of years...
...K: Well, I would be the first to concede that the World Jewish Congress is one of the best kept secrets in Jewish life...
...And the person who suggested it was just overwhelmed...
...This can't be done in the first instance at a governmental level...
...We proceed on the theory that opposition does not mean that we give up on people...
...K: Part of it is "the good old days" idea...
...M: No, I'm thinking of something else...
...Second, we have organizational contributions...
...They weren't around...
...When we originally set it up it was under the theory that there was a great need for a voluntary association to be able to understand what our government was thinking about, not just at the presidential level or at the secretarial level, but at the places where government really acts ninety percent of the time—at the lower levels of government...
...I don't deny that legitimate activity of that kind is appropriate in a community like ours...
...M: If we can shift for a bit, what about your recent flap, where it was reported that you told President Carter to lean on Israel...
...So the real issue here in negotiation, in my judgment, turns around the difference in concept...
...There are very weak spots, but I think it's on a solid base to go if it gets what it needs, and I would put as a prime necessity a settlement, a fair and just settlement so that the real potential of what has been built can be realized in an era of peace...
...The way you put the question creates the impression that there is a contest between the Israeli voice and that other voice that you're talking about...
...When I was able to sit down with the editors at Bet Sokolov, the Ha'aretz people, the Ma'ariv people, all of them, I found, gratefully I found, a substantial unwillingness to believe it...
...Having come this far, what we need to analyze is where we ought to go from here rather than to be critical of where we've been...
...It is not exactly a household word...
...So I would hope that having experienced all of these thrills and whatnot, we would begin to realize that we're on a plateau, and that the real talents and the real possibilities of the State are yet to be realized—no matter how successful the past has been...
...The real problem is the West Bank, and here you get a confusion between military authority and ideological concept...
...That's probably been the one place where Begin has lost the most credibility so far...
...In the world as a whole, this becomes even more important...
...You just returned from Israel...
...If the leadership of Israel determines the latter, I think the settlement possibilities are excellent...
...They are people who are prepared to give an input...
...We're now contacting a number of people...
...So, I would say that it's not fair to compare them unless you analyze the differences between the two eras, and unless you analyze the potential for leadership...
...The other problem is where he brushes away the implications of Israel inheriting that many more Arabs...
...M: The same thing will happen to that dividend that happened to the post Viet Nam peace dividend...
...It started out with one who had not previously attended, an Israeli...
...There are areas that need to be explored that no one is thinking about or there are changed phenomena like anti-Semitism or neo-Nazism which call for a certain type of treatment...
...There are a lot of people you know, who brush this issue off...
...So, I look upon Israel's first generations, and I say it that way, as a major achievement across the board...
...I don't like the words...
...There was no question as to where they stood, and it was said in a way that was elegant at least, and was understood at a level of intelligent exchange...
...So this group reflected a change in the quality of the potential leadership...
...Look how many of them disappear...
Vol. 3 • May 1978 • No. 6
