Fair Game

...Commentary is published by the American Jewish Committee...

...Nonetheless, we must face the question, What if the United States did in fact embark on a military effort in the Persian Gulf...

...Yet if he agreed with their stance, one doubts he would be cautioning them to mute their opinions for fear of their skins...

...Or should they do more, that is, less-perhaps end their extensive and remarkably successful campaign for arms to Israel and for commitments by U.S...

...If they take Stone's advice and keep absolutely mum about the possibility of invading the Arab lands, will that be enough to insure their domestic tranquillity...

...Or suppose, during the campaign to save the Rosenbergs in the early 1950s, someone had described as "dangerous" the number of Jewish names being signed to petitions to stay the executions, warning that non-Jews might jump to the conclusion Jews were displaying far too much sympathy for a pair of convicted Jewish spies...

...One can only speak for oneself...

...For the most part, it seems to me, Jews can safely say practically anything they care to on practically any subject...

...One of the worst aspects of this inflammatory proposal," Stone wrote, "is the place where it appeared...

...In that event, I. F. Stone's prediction might come true...

...Suppose we get bogged down in circumstances that evoke bloody memories of Vietnam...

...Tucker put forward the thesis that a military takeover of the Persian Gulf oil fields is feasible and would be beneficial to this country and to the entire West...

...in the halls of business and finance, where it is felt arrangements with the Arabs might be feasible, were it not for the political presence of Jews-in such places, the reaction that Stone warns against could readily arise...

...Let's set aside his motives for recommending prudence or silence to all those hysterical persons who do not share his vision of peace in the Middle East...

...What If...

...All the efforts of anti-Semites over the decades to build up hard feelings against Jews on the basis of the Rosenberg case, the Hollywood Ten, their predominance in the Communist Party have gone for nought...

...Many of those folks, however, are themselves Jewish and not many of the others are pogrom-prone...

...Jewry stem from his exasperation with the Israel-right-or-wrong position that many Jews take almost by reflex...

...One of the them is that fear and silence in time of peril cannot save us...

...politicians to Israel's survival...

...At the same time that he scorns those who find such a solution "unrealistic," he recommends a self-serving realism to America's Jews, urging them to consider their own interests and safety before speaking out...

...At home, American Legionnaires and Zionists would be trading plaques at patriotic banquets...

...Not that this experience will cause Jews to uncross their fingers...

...Our native Jew-haters tend to be truculent types...

...I. F. Stone writes: "The lesson of the Holocaust is not to be learned in the war colleges but in our prophets...

...The lesson of the Holocaust is that to treat other human beings as less than human can lead to the furnaces...

...The concern, high on the 1973-74 agendas of Jewish organizations, that the Arab oil boycott and ensuing privations would be blamed on this country's Jews, proved unwarranted...

...But if a day should come when I am able to persuade myself that such a move, on balance, promises more benefits than dangers for America, for Israel, for the world, then I hope I shall be frank enough to say so...

...But here, too, one finds many differences...

...Now, I find very little appeal in proposals that America send troops anywhere to do anything, but the Tucker article in Commentary, like the earlier essay on the subject by Paul Seabury in these pages ("Thinking About an Oil War," November 11), seemed to me refreshing...

...These will roam from the highest moral peaks to the most mundane by ways, and among them will be the issue, raised by I. F. Stone, of whether a military campaign or the prospect of a campaign will produce adverse reactions within the U.S...

...In particular, when it comes to the question of an American war, many other considerations besides Israel's seeming needs will come into play...

...Especially troubling to Stone was an article by Robert W. Tucker, a professor of international relations at Johns Hopkins, that appeared in the January issue of Commentary magazine...

...On the other hand, suppose Tucker's Pentagon scenario doesn't work out...

...Stone America's Jews have lately been put on notice that they had better watch what they say about events in the Middle East, lest their opinions prove dangerous to them at home...

...Yet whatever the appearances, Jews in America do not make corporate decisions, even on matters affecting their peoplehood...

...and, anyway, the Arabs are not only not white men, they are actually Semites...

...He calls upon the Israelis to see the Palestinian Arab "as a displaced brother, not as an expendable," and his hopes appear to center on a kind of binational accommodation that may not accommodate the existence of a Jewish state...

...Indeed, in some of the traditional centers of anti-Semitism, calls for a takeover war against those selfish Arabs would probably be greeted with cheers...

...in the black ghettos, from which America's Armed Forces are being heavily recruited...

...the United States, after all, represents only a short space in a long and sorrow-filled journey-but at the least, things could be a lot worse...

...The answers depend largely upon one's view of Jewry's situation in America...

...Well, should it be successful, should the troops move in, quickly take over the fields and get the oil flowing again without much delay or opposition, my guess is that the polls would show overwhelming support for the action...

...I. F. Stone, I am sure, would have responded that to fail to stand up for what one believes in is a form of cowardice...

...Suppose deaths and casualties are high and the Arab guerrillas are not easily put in their place...

...The advice comes from I. F. Stone...

...Would it not have seemed unworthy to him, for example, if during the 1948 Presidential campaign Jews had held back from supporting Henry Wallace for fear that their identification, in disproportionate numbers, with a Communist-directed candidate would be unhealthy for the Jewish image and might bring on a backlash...

...Writing in the New York Review of Books, he warned Jews against expressing opinions that might be interpreted as proposing "a solution through war," or stimulating "a hate-Arab campaign...

...For my part, the notion of sending troops into Arabia holds no charm, except perhaps in a corner of my mind in thrall to T. E. Lawrence and Hollywood...

...What should Jews do...

...Right-wingers are no friends of the Russians...

...They brought out in print, for analysis and discussion, ideas that are circulating in Washington and elsewhere...

...We would see a flowering of friendship for the Israelis, who would then, willy nilly, be our main allies in the area...

...As a matter of fact, the precincts where anti-Semitism has probably grown as a result of the Arab-Israeli troubles are on the Left, among the admirers of I. F. Stone...

...Still, the connection between America's Jews and Israel is so special, so heavy with emotion, so politically touchy that Stone's advice needs to be weighed...

...Stone's remonstrances to U.S...

...Stone, who supported Wallace, let the world know, and whatever one thought of his judgment on that matter, his courage could not be faulted...

...they like military display...

...into war with the Arabs, and to take their richest resource from them...

...Despite their gut determination that Israel shall survive, American Jews generally do not care all that much what becomes of Sinai or what treatment is accorded the Golan Heights or whether Jerusalem is internationalized...

...That, surely, is one of the prime functions of journals of opinion, and it comes oddly from a journalist as free-spoken as Izzy Stone to caution that certain subjects ought not to be discussed in public, and particularly not by Jews...

...Yet our prophets do not speak with one voice, and some of us have drawn other lessons from the Holocaust...

...In the heartland of America, where isolationism and anti-Semitism continue to find breeding grounds...

...The danger, as Stone sees it, lies in the growth of "a Jewish hysteria about Israel so irrational that it strengthens the hard-liners there and invites anti-Semitism here...

...Nothing could be more dangerous for American unity, for the future of the American Jewish Community and for Israel itself than to have it look as if Jewish influence were trying to get the U.S...

...No, he has a position of his own on the Middle East, one that is shared by few Israelis and by few American Jews...

...Nor are anti-Jewish feelings likely to be aggravated by efforts to tie the fate of Soviet Jewry to U.S.-Soviet detente and trade...

...it could be bad for the Jews here at home...

...To begin, let's understand that Stone does not offer his counsel mainly out of allegiance to or concern for his fellow Jews in this country...

...It may seem that they do, because no issue has ever produced the near-unanimous fervor inspired by Israel...

...there is nothing resembling a consensus on solutions to any of the specific problems...

...With such language, who can quarrel...

...But let us set aside the question of whether I. F. Stone's sympathies for the State of Israel are equal to those he held for Henry Wallace...

...Since Stone offers no guidance on these matters, we shall have to figure them out for ourselves...