In the Trenches: A Reply to the Trio

In a Jerusalem Post blog (March 16), three writers, Anne Bayefsky, Caroline Glick and Melanie Phillips, continued their scurrilous assault on AJC in a piece entitled "A Reply to David Harris."

In more than thirty years in Jewish organizational work, I have never believed in initiating any public attack on fellow Jews involved in communal activity. Instead, I have focused on the issues, not the personalities. I have never questioned personal motives.

Literally hundreds, if not more, of published statements, op-eds, blogs, letters and speeches prove the point.

Jewish history has taught me how much damage can come from such malicious intra-Jewish fighting, which often diverts precious resources away from external challenges and inevitably only offers satisfaction to our common enemies.

Moreover, this squabbling is too often over what, in the final analysis, are petty issues of personalities, turf and tactics.

All that said, a few points regarding the Post piece.

First, let it be absolutely clear that this exchange was initiated by the three writers, each of whom, in separate articles but clearly leaning on one another, assailed the AJC for various alleged misdeeds. My Post article, "Durban Diplomacy, Durban Delirium," was a response to those outrageous charges.

Second, the notion that the AJC is engaged in an effort to "damage" Israel and its core interests is beneath contempt.

To begin to explain the AJC's efforts - and successes - on behalf of Israel's standing in the international community and at the UN, during the 18 years I've been in my present position, would require an entirely separate discussion. But recalling the late Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan's laudatory comments about our central involvement in the 16-year struggle to repeal the infamous "Zionism is racism" resolution, and Israeli Ambassador to the UN Dore Gold's statement that the AJC had "changed history" by helping end Israel's isolation from the regional groups at the UN in New York, might be a good place to start.

It should also be entirely unnecessary for anyone who watches our new film "Vilified: Telling Lies About Israel," reads my Post blog, visits our Web site (ajc.org), talks with Israeli leaders and veteran diplomats, hears our weekly CBS radio commentaries reaching a listening audience of 30-35 million Americans weekly, or asks what group has been there for Israel in every recent crisis it faced, including the wars in the north and south.

Third, these three writers wish to claim credit for the decision of the United States to disengage from the "Durban II" process, even as they remain suspicious of the US position. They're entitled to claim whatever they want, I suppose, even if there is no basis for it.

The notion that Washington withdrew not because the Obama administration sent a five-person evaluation team to Geneva to assess the situation on the ground and in face-to-face meetings and make policy recommendations, but rather because three journalists were stomping their feet on the sidelines and assailing the government's motives, is, frankly speaking, quite a stretch, to say the least.

And this brings me to my last point.

These journalists, of course, are fully entitled to their positions. But those positions today are suffused with a bitter partisanship, even loathing, that is hardly concealed.

They clearly do not trust President Barack Obama and his team. And to read the comments of those who support the stance taken by these writers, including a few nasty anti-Obama e-mails sent my way, that view is shared by some others. They assume that anyone who takes a different approach, even if to attain the same goal, must by definition be a sycophant of the new administration, with all the criticism that automatically comes with such a characterization.

But there is a fundamental difference between advocacy journalism and nongovernmental diplomacy.

In the former, you can say whatever you wish, and consequences be damned. Meanwhile, your supporters will offer you a gratifying standing ovation.

In the latter, however, you deal in a different world. The AJC's goals have always been not simply to reinforce pre-existing views, but to change minds.

That requires real-life discussions with people who may or may not begin by sharing our viewpoint, but who are in a position to affect our well-being as Jews and supporters of Israel, whether we like it or not. It's tough work, often behind-the scenes and unheralded, but it is essential. And, among other things, it requires an absence of partisanship, not its embrace.

Whether one supports the new administration or not, and we at AJC are strictly nonpartisan, simple logic suggests that to approach the government with slash-and-burn, take-no-prisoners language may feel good to some, but is not going to be a productive strategy.

Does that mean silence or passivity when disagreements emerge? Absolutely, positively not. But it does mean picking and choosing battles and lines of argumentation.

The three writers insist their motivation is to help Israel. I do not for a moment question it, though, regrettably and inexplicably, they question ours.

But is Israel well served by such a frontal assault, using, in the case of Phillips, scatological language, when maintaining the US - Israel relationship, through thick and thin, has been and must remain the linchpin of Israel's foreign policy?