A 'PROXY WAR' NOBODY NEEDS

...The rigid defense of Israeli policy led to a reevaluation of American foreign — and even domestic — policy...

...A perceptible shift occurred after 1967, climaxed by a series of Podhoretz editorials in 1971...

...Blacks reacted with particular bitterness to Stein's remarks...

...As the cross-fire intensified, it became obvious that hostility had been festering for a decade or more...

...The resolution charged that Jewish organizations and intellectuals had become "apologists for the racial status quo...

...Among Jews, it would postpone a long-needed debate on the national rights of the Palestinians...

...But some form of black-Jewish cooperation is — and will be — an essential component of any broader coalition for economic and social justice in America...

...In 1972, more than 10,000 delegates to a black leadership conference in Gary, Indiana, declared their support for creation of a Palestinian state...

...These changes in the black movement aggravated relations between blacks and Jews...

...They saw themselves as a people whose social and economic achievements could suddenly be swept away by change in the political climate...

...As black organizations have lent more and more support to Palestinian demands for national rights, the conflict between blacks and Jews has threatened to become irresolvable...

...Blacks see they don't have the power base...

...And Koch was quoted in The New Yorker as saying, "My experience with blacks is that they are basically anti-Semitic...

...Instead of seeing quotas as temporary means of redressing past wrongs, Jews saw them as the first step toward reestablishing the limits on Jewish enrollment in universities that had existed until the 1960s...

...From this, they concluded that the more fully a society was committed to freedom and justice for all, the better off Jews, too, would be...

...In 1972, after George McGovern's defeat, Podhoretz joined two other Commentary stalwarts, Nathan Glazer and Seymour Martin Lipset, in forming the Coalition for a Democratic Majority, which intended to capture the Democratic Party for Senator Henry Jackson...

...The most active enemies of the Jews," Podhoretz wrote, "are located not in the precincts of the ideological right but in the ideological precincts of the radical left...

...Their role as civil rights representatives in government and the labor movement was challenged...

...But from 1967, the year of the Arab-Israeli War and the year when "black power" was adopted as a slogan and a program, it is possible to construct a chronology that leads directly to the Andy Young affair...

...Reflecting the vestiges of the nationalist-integra-tionist split, the NAACP, with the support of the Urban League and the A. Philip Randolph Institute, proposed a resolution that black-Jewish tensions were "now behind us...

...In a typical issue, one would find left-wing pacifist H. Stuart Hughes explaining why he was challenging Edward Kennedy for the Massachusetts Senate, Daniel Bell enumerating the virtues of collective bargaining, Staughton Lynd and Hans Morgenthau questioning the assumptions of the Cold War, and Podhoretz himself, the author of the justly famous 1963 essay, "My Negro Problem — and Ours," spearheading Commentary's commitment to black equality...

...In the center of the United Press International photo, flanked by King and A. Philip Randolph, is Rabbi Joachim Prinz, president of the American Jewish Congress...

...They see Jews having that...

...In government and labor, Jews were the links to the minority community...

...At this point, the black-Jewish conflict threatens to grow, in the words of Tuskegee Professor Manning Mara-ble, into a "proxy war" in which Jews side with the Israelis and blacks side with the PLO and the Arabs...

...Podhoretz attacked the tendency of Jews to imagine that what is good for Americans in general is good for the Jews...

...In New York's three-way mayoralty race, law-and-order candidate Mario Procaccino received 45 per cent of the Jewish vote...

...Albert Shanker's United Federation of Teachers went out on strike, and Shanker made "black anti-Semitism" a key issue...

...But beginning in the mid-1960s, Jews began to turn away from this "universalism" toward a more conservative, interest-group philosophy...

...Blacks are not politically solvent," Cruse says...

...But the dissenters have been isolated and, in some cases, crushed...

...Koch's black deputy mayor quit in protest...

...That was, as Chuck Stone politely put it, a "father-son relationship" and not a relationship between equals...

...His other concern was the New Left's criticism of Israel...

...Such a split would have disastrous consequences...

...In 1967, the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC), then the major black civil rights organization, declared its opposition to Israeli expansionism in the aftermath of the Six-Day War...

...In the Presidential bids of George McGovern in John Judis is the political editor of In These Times...

...As one Chicago civil rights activist put it, "It wasn't the Scandinavian organizations that made a fuss about Bakke...

...fin 1974, the American Jewish Committee, the American Jewish Congress, B'nai B'rith, and other major Jewish organizations backed Marco DeFunis's "reverse discrimination" suit against the University of Washington...

...Today, Jews and blacks remain the most loyal adherents to the old liberal Democratic coalition...

...Every time something comes up these complexes come to the fore...

...According to Harold Cruse, who analyzed both the black-Jewish and nationalist-integrationist conflicts in his 1967 Crisis of the Negro Intellectual, a feeling of powerlessness and failure in the black movement is presently exacerbating the black-Jewish split...

...Podhoretz called for a reevaluation of Left and Right...

...The leaders of eleven major Jewish organizations issued a response that clearly indicated they read anti-Semitism and little else into the black resolutions...

...1972 and Jimmy Carter in 1976, the percentage of Jewish support was exceeded only by that of blacks...

...The integrationists focused on the struggle for political and legal rights, and they deferred to white leadership...

...But Cruse adds, "On top of that Jews have taken positions on civil rights that rub blacks the wrong way...

...fin 1978, black organizations and elected officials founded TransAfrica, which was to lobby for American opposition to apartheid and white Rhode-sian rule...

...Their increased status, combined with their fears for Israel, created a defensive attitude among Jews...

...In his 1968 book, Black Political Power in America, Chuck Stone, who had been an aide to Representative Adam Clayton Powell and the editor of the Chicago Defender, characterized the Jewish role this way: "Jews have played major — and, at times, the principal — roles in most of the civil rights groups...

...After the DeFunis case was declared moot, the same organizations became principal supporters of Alan Bakke's suit against the University of California...

...Jewish financial clout in the 1980 elections, as well as the New York vote, undoubtedly influenced Carter's decision that Young had to go...

...While Jewish leaders and organizations were heading right-ward, the black movement was also changing, but not in a way that can readily be characterized in Left-Right terms...

...Especially by taking an outspoken role in defense of Bakke, the Jewish groups subjected themselves to black hostility...

...In an editorial entitled "Is It Good for the Jews...

...Young's resignation, as one black activist put it, was "merely the spark that caused the larger conflagration to come out into the open...

...Commentary now draws many of its writers from the American Enterprise Institute, a conservative think tank in Washington...

...A few organizations, such as the National Conference of Jewish Women, opposed Bakke, as did prominent Jews in the American Civil Liberties Union and Americans for Democratic Action...

...Prinz's special place among the March leaders symbolized the special relationship that had prevailed for more than fifty years between blacks and Jews...

...There has also been some dissent on Israeli policy — from an organization (now defunct) called Breira ("alternative") and from the World Jewish Congress...

...But it also stemmed from the 1967 war, which made Jews apprehensive about their own survival and that of Israel...

...Podhoretz counseled Jews to look after their own interests...

...A typical issue will contain a "revisionist" view of Watergate (Nixon was really not so bad), a defense of California's Proposition Thirteen, an attack on Eurocommunism, and a study of the Soviet arms buildup...

...ambassador, Jewish support for Bakke, and Israeli foreign policy made the moderate black leaders less reluctant to take a stand on the Middle East...

...But among many blacks and Jews and their organizations, harmony has given way to enmity, and cooperation has been replaced by bitter strife...

...For their part, Jewish leaders were quick to seize upon the injustice and unreasonableness of the black leaders' complaints...

...The nationalists focused on economic self-improvement, and they maintained an independent black leadership and an awareness of Afro-American and African culture...

...fin 1979, a Jewish state senator, Alan Robbins, introduced an initiative to prevent school busing to promote desegregation in California...

...It was expressed by sociologist Nathan Glazer in a Commentary article, "The Exposed Jew...

...And prominent Jews and Jewish organizations continue to support the NAACP, the Urban League, the A. Philip Randolph Institute, and such black politicians as Los Angeles Mayor Thomas Bradley...

...In 1966, signs of a Jewish "backlash" were evident when 55 per cent of New York Jews voted against creation of a civilian police review board...

...But bitterness over the circumstances of Andrew Young's ouster as U.N...

...They also threatened to withdraw their financial support from black organizations...

...I reject categorically the amalgam of half-truths, untruths, and anti-Semitic nonsense...

...This division in the black movement, which predates the Civil War, reflected the unfinished struggle for black political rights...

...American Jews are now shivering in the wind," Glazer wrote, "vulnerable because they have been more fortunate than other groups and because they must ask from their fellow citizens heavy support for a small and endangered nation...

...In the wake of the Young affair, the NAACP, PUSH, the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC), and TransAfrica have adopted positions calling for Israeli talks with the PLO and for a settlement that would respect Israeli and Palestinian national aspirations...

...We've been concerned," black trade unionist Charles Hayes says, "about the courtship between Israel and South Africa at a time when black South Africans are languishing in poverty without a right to express themselves through the voting proc-ess...

...But the Young affair did reveal the widespread sympathy for the Palestinians that has existed within black organizations and the black community...

...In that New York conflict, ethnic divisions, aggravated by Bakke, are reinforced by a historic resentment that flows from the black leaders' perception of themselves as powerless compared to the Jewish leaders and their organizations...

...It called upon Jewish organizations to repudiate Israel's relations with South Africa...

...And it concluded that "Jews must show more sensitivity and be prepared for more consultation before taking positions contrary to the best interests of the black community...

...The struggle against economic discrimination, wliich centered on affirmative action, pitted blacks against white ethnic groups, including Jews...

...Speaking for B'nai B'rith's Anti-Defamation League, Nathan Perl-mutter echoed these sentiments: "The poppycock that surfaced last night is either misinformed or hypocritical," he said...

...Before 1979, some black organizations, out of deference to Jewish organizations and also out of fear of being labeled anti-Semitic, were reluctant to express their long-held sympathies for Palestinian national rights...

...Antagonism erupted in August when blacks blamed Andrew Young's ouster as U.S...

...In New York City, Jewish Mayor Edward Koch announced a plan to close down several hospitals that served New York blacks...

...This defensiveness manifested itself in the Jewish support for the plaintiffs 'Jews must show more sensitivity...' in DeFunis and Bakke...

...Jewish and black organizations have worked together in coalitions for full employment and national health insurance...

...Had it not been for their financial efforts and labors of dedication, there is no question that the American Negro's freedom struggle would not have reached its present stage, or even its current dimensions...

...I guess it got down to the power of the Jewish folks," one NAACP leader said...

...More than 200 black leaders assembled on August 22 at NAACP headquarters in New York City to discuss Young's ouster and black-Jewish relations...

...The insistence on an independent black leadership also created bitterness among Jews, who found themselves removed from leadership positions they had long held in civil rights organizations...

...Furthermore, increased attention to Africa also led to a critical view of Israel...

...In the early 1970s, the Jewish community of Forest Hills in the New York City borough of Queens fought to block the erection of public housing which would probably have been predominantly occupied by blacks...

...Cruse distinguishes between a black-Jewish ethnic conflict that is taking place in many American cities and a special conflict between black and Jewish organizations, which is focused in New York City, where the organizations are headquartered...

...In Philadelphia, Frank Rizzo won 50 per cent of the traditionally liberal Jewish vote...

...And among blacks, it would create a diversion from the uphill struggle that blacks face in a recession-bound America...

...This black-Jewish conflict has been far more concerned with Jewish support for the Bakke "reverse discrimination" suit than with Jewish allegiance to Israel or even with Israel's friendship toward South Africa and white Rhodesia...

...The black leaders also took positions defending the SCLC's right to meet with the PLO and the right of blacks to form their own opinions on foreign policy, including U.S...

...The initiative's principal supporters were in Bustop, a Los Angeles organization with Jewish leadership...

...It was the Jewish ones...

...One was the black demand for quotas, which Podhoretz termed "the most serious threat to Jews since World War II...

...Since 1964, the black movement has scored important electoral victories around the country, but these victories have not been matched by any significant improvement in the economic status of blacks...

...He had two specific areas of concern...

...Mayor Koch had appointed him to a place on the Board of Estimate traditionally reserved for blacks...

...Martin Luther King Jr., the leaders of the March on Washington posed for photographs with President John F. Kennedy...

...Commentary, published by the American Jewish Committee, is the most prestigious and influential Jewish publication...

...The defensiveness also manifested itself in an unwillingness to brook any criticism of Israel...

...Based on this perception, they proceeded to dismiss any accompanying sentiments — from sympathy with the Palestinians to anger at the Jewish stand on Bakke — as expressions of this same irrational resentment — in short, as anti-Semitism...

...After the mid-1960s, most black organizations, including the integrationist NAACP and Urban League, began to have a black leadership, a focus on economic self-improvement and discrimination, and a concern with Africa...

...There is an inferiority complex involved...

...The governing principle for many Jews and Jewish organizations became: What Israel supports, American Jews should support, and what Israel's enemies (the Arabs, the Third World in general, the Soviet Union) support, American Jews should oppose...

...This transformation of American Jews' political outlook was epitomized by Commentary magazine and its editor, Norman Podhoretz...

...Once that struggle was won, the divisions began to erode...

...The CDM later spawned the Committee on the Present Danger, the principal right-wing opponent of SALT II...

...Jewish leaders indicated that so long as black leaders met with the PLO, they were unwilling to have anything to do with them...

...policy on the Middle East...

...In 1969, the black school board of Ocean Hill-Brownsville in New York City, having been given control over its district, fired thirteen teachers, all Jewish...

...TransAfrica denounced Israeli arms shipments to South Africa and Rhodesia...

...Not all Jews and Jewish organizations have followed Podhoretz and Commentary to the Right...

...ambassador to the United Nations on Jewish organizations...

...Nevertheless, black leaders were quick to blame the Jewish organizations...

...At the Convention for a New Politics in Chicago, black delegates proposed a resolution condemning "Zionist imperialism...

...In the early 1960s, it was a beacon of left-liberalism...

...This resentment helps explain the irrational scapegoating side of the black leaders' reaction to Young's ouster...

...In 1910, Jews helped found the NAACP, and a Jew was its president for twenty-five years...

...The Jewish commitment to the civil rights movement — and to liberalism and radicalism in general — had been shaped by Jews' reflection upon their historical situation...

...At the 1972 Gary conference, the NAACP and the Urban League refused to attend because of the prospective debate on the Middle East...

...See "American Jews and the Middle East Dilemma," by Carolyn Toll, in the August 1979 issue of The Progressive...

...After the SCLC's Joseph Lowery met with the PLO, New York City official Andrew Stein commented, "American Jewry must, of necessity, interpret Lowery's actions as a demonstration of contempt and a signal that Jewish support is no longer desired by black Americans...

...But except for a statement from the president of the Zionist Organization of America, no Jewish leader called for his resignation, for which Carter and the State Department, not the Jewish organizations, were immediately responsible...

...But the majority, led by William Jones from the 1.5 million-member Progressive Baptist Convention, adopted a resolution that harshly criticized Jewish stands on civil rights...

...It is as simple as that...

...It is doubtful that blacks and Jews will ever return to the special relationship they enjoyed before 1967 — nor should they...

...The group took no official position on the PLO or a Palestinian state, but its inclinations became evident in the subsequent actions by PUSH, SCLC, the NAACP, and TransAfrica...

...Still another factor exacerbated the black-Jewish conflict...

...When the delegates, under nationalist Amiri Baraka's 'The poppycock . . .is hypocritical' leadership, adopted a strong condemnation of Israeli policy, Coleman Young and the Michigan delegation walked out in protest, and they were joined by other black leaders, among them PUSH's Jesse Jackson...

...The rightward turn stemmed in part from the increased prosperity of American Jews, who continue to exceed all other ethnic groups in average income, educational level, and professional status...

...Until the late 1960s, the black movement was divided between inte-grationist and nationalist currents...

...Clear signs of black-Jewish tension could be discerned even in the urban riots of the mid-1960s, when Jewish merchants and landlords in Harlem, Watts, and Chicago's South Side became targets of black rioters...

...Kennedy stands to one side with the United Auto Workers' Walter Reuther...