When Do We Give Up the Right to a Personal Opinion?

When Do We Give Up the Right to a Personal Opinion?

By Sherwin Pomerantz

In 1977 I was writing a weekly column for the now-defunct Chicago Jewish Post & Opinion.  It was a very personal assessment of the community at the time and, quite frankly, I loved doing it.  But that year I was elected Midwest Regional President of the United Synagogue of America, the umbrella organization of Conservative congregations in the US and Canada and everything changed.

My mentor at the time, now deceased, Rabbi Samuel Schafler, sat me down and told me in no uncertain terms that I could no longer speak as a private citizen.  As the elected head of a community body anything I would now say would reflect, for better or for worse, on the organization I represented.  Therefore, in his opinion, I had no choice but to stop writing the column, and I did so not only because of my respect for his opinion but because it was, indeed, the right thing to do.  I could no longer speak as a private citizen.

I was reminded of this last week when I saw the video clip and read the story about British MK George Galloway, who stormed out of an Oxford University debate on Israel when he found out that his counterpart was not just a British citizen of mosaic persuasion, but the son of Israelis living in England and, therefore, also a citizen of Israel.

What happened was that during Eylon Asian-Levy’s rebuttal to Galloway’s remarks, Asian-Levy used the term “we” when referring to Israel.  At that point Galloway interrupted and asked Asian-Levy whether he was also Israeli?  When he responded in the affirmative, Galloway and his wife immediately left the meeting saying:  “I refuse to debate with an Israeli, a supporter of the Apartheid state of Israel.  The reason is simple; No recognition, No normalization.  Just boycott, divestment and sanctions until the Apartheid state is defeated.”

And this from a member of the British parliament whose country’s official position is not only diplomatic recognition of Israel, but general support of its government and its right to be considered a member of the family of nations.  So then the question becomes, does an elected member of Parliament who has sworn allegiance to the country in whose legislature he serves, have the right to deny by his actions the stated policy of his government?  I think not.

But we have a similar situation in Israel.  MK Hanan Zoabi about whom I have written before was a demonstrator on the Mavi Marmara that sailed from Istanbul in May, 2010 to break the Israeli blockade of Gaza, in direct opposition to the policies of the government to which she had sworn allegiance.  More recently, during the recent installation of our newly seated Knesset, she chose to leave the room when the national anthem was sung in a show of disrespect to the country to which she had just minutes before sworn allegiance.  (I would not have had a problem had she chosen not to sing it, but walking out is a different kettle of fish, as it were.)

Our former Foreign Minister, Avigdor Lieberman, committed the same error when he addressed the United Nations two years ago and expressed an opinion that was diametrically opposed to that of the government he served at the time.   Such conduct is simply not acceptable.

Elected members of the legislature who, as part of the process of their being seated, are required in every country to swear allegiance to the country they serve and its elected leadership.  At that point their right to the expression of personal opinion becomes somewhat curtailed just as they then become eligible for some perks that come with such high office.  But these go hand in hand and people cannot accept one and reject the other.  Accepting the mantle of leadership demands a certain commitment to keeping one’s personal opinions somewhat subdued within the limits of parliamentary obligation.

Most of these people need to learn what Albert Einstein taught us.  If A equals success, then the formula is A = X+Y+Z where X is work, Y is play and Z is keeping your mouth shut.  If more of our leaders understood that we would probably all be better off.    

   

Can the New York Times Ever Get it Right?

Can the New York Times Ever Get it Right?

By Sherwin Pomerantz

Given the pontifications about Israel that one finds in the New York Times’ reporting on Israel, their editorials and the constant commentaries by regular columnists Tom Friedman and Roger Cohen, one would think that if anyone wants to know something about what is really going on in Israel, all they need to do is read The Times.  But how wrong they would be.

Today’s paper, for example, where Peter Baker (in New York) and Isabel Kershner (from Israel) talk about President Obama’s decision to visit Israel in mid-March, makes the following statement:

While Mr. Obama won a clear victory in November, Mr. Netanyahu emerged from elections last month in a weakened state.    

You will recall that Obama garnered 61.1 million votes against Romney’s 58.1 million or 50.5% to 48%, not exactly what one would call a solid win, even though the President acts as if he received a strong mandate.  Certainly he was weakened as a sitting president seeking a second term.  But Baker and Kershner chose to point to Netanyahu and call him “weakened.”

In yesterday’s Times editorial the paper criticizes the US Senate Foreign Relations Committee in its handling of the hearing on the Hagel nomination for Secretary of Defense.  They said:      

Republicans focused on Israel more than anything during his confirmation hearing, but they weren’t seeking to understand his views.  All they cared about was bullying him into a rigid position on Israel policy.

Well, I watched those hearings as well and, as I recall, there was a lot of questioning going on about Hagel’s positions on the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, much more so than his position on Israel.  And, of course, one of the reasons they couldn’t understand his views during the hearing was that he seemed to be in a catatonic state most of the time, fumbling for answers, not providing a level of comfort that he was even in sync with the administration’s policies on Iran, and generally lacking in knowledge about a host of topics that one would hope an incoming Secretary of Defense would have at his fingertips.

Finally, the Times, in the same editorial goes on to excoriate those who rightly criticized the Political Science Department of Brooklyn College for endorsing an event later this week featuring two anti-Israel speakers who support an international boycott of Israel to force us out of Judea and Samaria (i.e. the West Bank).  Of course, here too, they missed the point.  No one is being critical of the college agreeing, in the interests of free speech, to allow such a dialogue to be held on campus.  After all, the school is a public institution and cannot turn down such requests.   But to be officially sponsored by a department of the college is tantamount to endorsement and that crosses a red line.

As for Omar Barghouti, one of the two speakers at the event, he is a Qatari born Muslim who moved to Israel and is currently studying at Tel Aviv University.  It is certainly strange that he can call for the boycott of Israeli universities on one hand and on the other hand be a student in the very university system he urges others to boycott.  The height of chutzpah is it not?

What the Times, Roger Cohen, Tom Friedman and others seem to forget is that the use of the democratic system to wage war against that system is a seminal danger to the long term viability of America as well as to the life we in the west hold dear.  Editorializing in a news article by making one think that one close election generated a strong mandate while another evidenced the weakness of the winner is just that, editorializing, which has no place in a news article.  Castigating a Senate committee for exercising its right to question a nominee for a major cabinet post is an attempt to control the discourse which ultimately leads to the rise of Facism.  And defending the right of a university department to endorse a position that it, itself, finds abhorrent, is simply idiotic and not becoming a publication of the stature of the New York Times.

Edmund Burke knew whereof he spoke when he said “The true danger is when liberty is whittled away, for expedients, and by parts.”  Those words are no less true today than they were in 1777.  The press and the academy have an obligation to protect our liberty and not abuse the privilege that we grant them to enter our lives.