Earning My Living as a Writer: The Year ADL
Changed My Job Description
by Grace Halsell
Washington Report On Middle East Affairs - October 1996, pg. 20
When I made my first journey to Jerusalem in 1979, I had earned my living as a writer
for 37 years. I always thought I was lucky, being able to sell articles and pay my way
around -- and around -- the world. I lived as a writer in Europe, the Far East and
South America. I also went as a writer to cover the conflicts in Korea, Vietnam and
Bosnia. For most of my life, I've reported what I saw with my own eyes and what
others on the scene told me.
Since I have earned my living as a writer since my high school days, it came as a
surprise to learn that a Jewish organization chose, unilaterally and arbitrarily, to classify
me not as a reporter, journalist or writer but rather as a propagandist.ä What
prompted one organization to assume the authority of changing my job description?
I was one of 34 persons identified as propagandists in A Handbook, 1983 -- First
Edition, put out by a Jewish organization, the Anti-Defamation League of B'nai B'rith
(ADL). While the others on the list undoubtedly would think of themselves as
professional persons -- doctors, lawyers, heads of organizations -- in the ADL listing
they, like me, become propagandists. We were singled out for one purpose: we've
said that as regards the Arab-Israeli conflict, there are two sides of the story -- and
that most Americans know only one.
Our sin, in the eyes of the Jewish ADL, is having disseminated Pro-Arab Propaganda
in America. Although the ADL champions the cause of justice for all Jews, it
apparently does not condone others speaking of justice for Palestinians.
Looking at the ADL Handbook, I am left wondering: how widely has it been
circulated? If any of those listed in the Handbook apply for a job, will a boss clear
their names with the ADL? Is the Handbook used as a guide for pro-Israeli editors
not to print articles written by anyone the ADL terms a propagandist? Is it a guide for
pro-Israeli lecture agents to refrain from sponsoring any speaker who mentions the
plight of Palestinians? Is the action taken by the ADL intended to set us aside, to mark
us for life with a brand of their choosing?
As a child, I often heard my father relate how, in the frontier days before fenced-in
property, he heated over open flames an iron rod and put a brand on cattle. Later,
living through the Second World War, I learned that the Nazis branded individuals by
forcing them to wear yellow arm bands. The arm bands were used to brand Jews,
gypsies and other so-called enemies of the state as different, suspect, not reliable,
unsuitable. In its Handbook, the ADL also chooses to set individuals apart.
The intent is to suggest that we are suspect, unreliable.
Unlike branded cattle, I do not suffer the pain of burning flesh. Nor am I forced to
wear a yellow arm band. Since I suffer no physical abuse, is it fair at all to make an
analogy with those who endured torture worse than death and of the multitude of
others who indeed were killed? Compared with those tragedies, the ADL listing of
individuals in a handbook may seem innocent and non-invasive. Yet, while the
dissemination of such a handbook is done professionally, with skill, sophistication and
subtle use of pejoratives, the intent seems clear: it is to suggest that we differ from the
norm, that we are suspect, unreliable, not given to write or relate what we see with
veracity.
The ADL Handbook targeted a medical doctor, a former U.S. senator, 10 university
professors and 3 attorneys. It listed a half-dozen men of Jewish heritage: Rabbi Elmer
Berger, Edmund R. Hanauer, Mark Lane, Alfred M. Lilienthal, Haviv Schieber and
Israel Shahak. And it named 23 Arab Americans presumably guilty of being
pro-Arab.
In addition to individuals, the ADL Handbook also targeted 31 organizations. In this
listing, 17 were committed to giving the Palestinian side of the story. These
organizations, in their financial resources, membership and over-all influence and
impact on American society, may be likened to a grain of sand in the vast sea of huge,
wealthy pro-Israel groups that operate throughout the United States.
Since the pro-Israel organizations are so vast and successful in their endeavors and the
pro-Arab groups so small and largely ineffectual, why did an influential Jewish
organization, one of the wealthiest and most powerful in America, go on the attack? In
the ADL Handbook preface, it explained that after the 1982 Israeli invasion of
Lebanon, Israel began to get bad publicity:
The nightly television news which brought pictures of death and destruction directly
from Lebanese battlefields, and the print media with its exaggerated casualty figures
created fertile ground for the latest propaganda campaign characterizing Israel as a
militaristic, brutal and oppressive nation.
Blaming the Messenger
The ADL gave no rebuttal to charges that Israel in its invasion of Lebanon was acting
as a militaristic, brutal and oppressive nation. Rather than investigate the charges, the
ADL investigated those who called attention to the wrong. It blamed the print media
with its exaggerated casualty figures. Generally, the press reported that the 1982
Israeli invasion of Lebanon killed and wounded some 200,000 people, most of them
civilians. The ADL in its Handbook, found no fault with the invasion itself, only what it
termed exaggerated casualty figures.
The Handbook's purpose, ADL reported in its preface, is to identify the leading
individuals and organizations who have mounted this and previous propaganda
campaigns targeted against Israel.ä If the massacre simply were not reported, the
Handbook seems to imply, Israel and its supporters would have had no problems with
the massacre itself.
One result of the 1982 invasion of Lebanon was Israel slicing off a portion of Lebanon
which became known as Israel's security zone. The Handbook pointed out, however,
that criticism of Israel started much earlier on than the invasion of Lebanon, and in
fact, the criticism started at the very beginning of the Jewish state:
Shortly after the establishment of the Jewish state in 1948, the preface said, there
were those questioning the basic legality of the infant state. Indeed, most American
Jews at that time did not support Zionism nor its goal to take land from Palestinians. In
1967, after Israel initiated a new war, seizing military control of the West Bank, Gaza,
East Jerusalem and the Golan Heights, critics of Israel, the Handbook said,promoted
the myth of an oppressive, imperialistic Israel seeking to expand her borders from the
Jordan to the Euphrates.
Again, the Handbook, while claiming that the descriptive terms are myth, gave no
evidence that refuted an aggressive, imperialistic Israel -- one that was dramatically
and successfully executing a plan to expand her borders. Rather than being a myth, it
was, especially for the victims, a tragic reality.
In the wake of the Camp David accords, the preface continued, champions of
Palestinian rights began calling attention to issues they claimed had been overlooked
by the 1979 peace treaty signed between Egypt and Israel. Charging the Jewish state
with gross human rights violations -- including torture, educational and economic
repression of the Palestinians on the West Bank and Gaza, the propagandists stepped
up their campaign aimed at discrediting Israel in the eyes of the American public.
Here again, rather than deal with the accusations -- that Israel engages in gross human
rights violations -- including torture, and educational and economic repression of the
Palestinians on the West Bank and Gaza the Handbook attacked not what might be at
fault, worthy of ADL's own investigation, but rather those who expose the wrongs.
By branding those who say Israel engages in gross human rights violations as suspect
characters, the ADL hopes that others will see the charges as a myth, coming from
persons not so pure as the rest of society. |
