14 |
The Story of the Jewish Defense League |
bevery passing JDL incident, now boiled over. Bitter protests
bwere lodged with the American government, and in Mos-
bcow CBS correspondent William Cole was ousted from the
bSoviet Union.
bAnd in July, the JDL learned that its political plan was
bcorrect and had begun to bear fruit.
bA phone call to the JDL offices, at that time located in a
bhuge, dingy office loft on West 42nd Street, was received
bfrom the US Mission to the United Nations. It was Ambas-
bsador Yost himself and he requested me to come see him at
bthe earliest possible moment.
bHurrying over to the mission, I was immediately taken up
bto Mr. Yost’s office. He began by saying that JDL efforts
bwere not helping the Jews of the Soviet Union but were,
binstead, hurting Soviet-American relations that Washington
bhad so painfully built up. He added that he feared that
bfurther JDL actions would invite Soviet retaliation and that
bthe US-USSR détente would be endangered. (Mr. Yost also
bexpressed thoughts on the question of alleged threats and
battacks by JDL on Arabs, but that is for another chapter.)
bI listened to Mr. Yost with feelings of deep satisfaction
band gratification. If the United States really feared a threat
bto the détente which both it and the Soviets wanted so badly,
bthat was exactly what the whole JDL plan against the Soviets
bwas aiming at! It was this point that American Jews failed to
bgrasp, as they looked at each action without its context and
bwith the usual lack of imagination, political acumen, and
bprophetic sense of destiny that marks the pygmy generation
bof our times.
bThe violence of the JDL against the Soviets was in reality
bpart of a political program, based on shrewd understanding of
bpolitical realities and human nature. We began with the
bpremise that silence on any issue is usually a mask for impo-
btency or unwillingness to act, but always a guarantee of
bdisaster for the victim at issue. Silence and quiet diplomacy
b(whatever that term meant) had proved to be graveyards for
bEuropean Jewry before, especially during World War II,
band would inevitably be the same for Soviet Jewry. The first
bstep in any program of rescue lay, we knew, in making the
b