April
3, 2002 8:30 a.m. The
PLO’s Man
Jesse
Jackson and Yasser Arafat go way back.
hings
could always get worse in the Middle East. For example, the Palestinians
and the Israelis could take up Jesse Jackson on
his offer to step in and mediate their war.
It's
an absurd idea, of course, floated by a has-been hack politician desperate
to remain relevant in a world that has increasingly less use for a grievance
racketeer who can't be faithful to his wife, and who can't get his tax
returns in order. In a hopeful sign, General Electric has signaled that
it
doesn't take seriously his corporate-shakedown strategy. With reportedly
half his Rainbow-PUSH Coalition staff laid off in the past year, and
rumors of a tax audit swirling, the Great Man is doing his best to relive
his glory days as a jet-setting, self-appointed diplomat.
Nobody has ever erred by accusing Jackson of a surfeit of chutzpah, but
many people won't grasp why Jackson's offer to insert himself into the
Israeli-Palestinian dispute is so outrageous as to beggar belief. It's
like this: What if, during the Republican-Democrat battle royal in Florida,
Alec Baldwin had presented himself as an honest broker able to bring both
sides to mutual understanding? Jackson's offer makes as much sense.
To understand why, let us return to 1979, the penultimate year of Carter-era
malaise. It was the year American embassy workers were taken hostage by
Islamic berserkers in Iran. It was the year the Soviet Union invaded Afghanistan.
It was the year Soviet-backed Sandinista forces overthrew the government
of Nicaragua. And it was the year that Jesse Jackson found a soul mate
in Yasser Arafat.
The story of Jesse's love affair with Yasser is well-documented by Kenneth
Timmerman in his best-selling Shakedown,
which devotes an entire chapter to this ugly episode in Jackson's career,
and one that will come as news to folks who think Jackson's only brush
with Jew-bashing was his infamous "Hymietown" remark in 1984.
In August of 1979, Carter sacked Andrew Young, his ambassador to the United
Nations, after the black former mayor of Atlanta met privately with the
Palestinian Liberation Organization's man at the U.N. Jackson, a friend
of Young's, publicly insinuated that Jews brought down Young, and complained
that Jews were false friends of blacks.
A month later, Jackson announced he would go to Beirut to meet with Arafat,
who was living in exile there. Citing media reports at the time, Timmerman
quotes Jackson as telling Arab-American supporters gathered at PUSH headquarters:
"By October 1, there will be no black leader left willing to come
to the aid of the Palestinian cause, if there is not an immediate infusion
of funds into the black community from the Arab states."
Two weeks later, Jackson and his entourage took off for Israel on a junket
paid for by Arab donors. When Israeli prime minister Menachem Begin failed
to turn up at the airport to greet the American preacher, an insulted
Jackson gave a news conference in which he intimated that racism might
be behind the snub. Days later, Jackson visited Yad Vashem, the national
memorial to Holocaust victims, where, according to personal notes made
by a liberal clergyman traveling with him, Jackson equated the incineration
of six million Jews to American slavery. Newsweek quoted Jackson
as saying that "a persecution complex ... almost invariably makes
Jews overreact to their own suffering," and Jackson was quoted elsewhere
as saying that he was "sick and tired of hearing about the Holocaust."
Then Jackson lit out to visit Palestinians in the fetid Dheisheh refugee
camp. "I know this camp," he preached. "When I smell the
stench of the open sewers, this is nothing new to me. This is where I
grew up." (Actually, he grew up in relative comfort in North Carolina).
Two American Jews who had helped arrange for Jackson's trip, and who accompanied
him, quit in disgust during the pilgrimage. One of them, publisher Philip
Blazer, said Jackson was piggybacking on the plight of the Palestinians
to raise money for his own interests. Even the Rev. Harold Schomer, a
left-wing cleric who accompanied Jackson, noted in his private journal
(made available to Timmerman) that the Arab states were trying to use
the Jackson fact-finding trip to weaken U.S. backing of Israel, and to
legitimize the PLO.
When
Jackson finally met Arafat in Lebanon, he gave him a big kiss (captured
by news photographers) and declared the terrorist big "my friend
and the friend of justice and humanity." Two years later, Israeli
forces invaded Lebanon in an attempt to drive out PLO terrorists mounting
attacks on Israel from Lebanese soil. The Israelis, commanded by Gen.
Ariel Sharon, drove Arafat into exile.
Jackson arrived home after his trip and was greeted by a hailstorm of
criticism — including some piquant words from rival black leaders
— for having succored the Soviet-proxy PLO, and endangered domestic
relations between blacks and Jews. The indignant Jackson blamed —
who else? — Jews in the media.
Happily for Jackson, his pro-Arafat sojourn opened the floodgates of Arab
money into PUSH coffers. A $10,000 check from a Libyan diplomat nearly
earned Jackson an FBI subpoena, but the Carter White House called off
the dogs. In 1981, reported the New York Times, a fat donation
from the Arab League made up 80 percent of the funds Jackson raised for
his group that year. Jackson said he didn't know a thing about it.
Jackson's most notorious anti-Semitic comment came in 1984, during his
first run for the presidency, when he made what he assumed was an off-the-record
comment to a black reporter in which he called Jews "Hymies"
and New York "Hymietown." He publicly apologized for that, and
in ensuing years has made efforts to overcome Jewish mistrust of him and
his motives. He has been largely excused by the media, even as Jackson
insists that whites like the recently defeated Charles Pickering are unfit
for government office because of racist views they might have held 40
years ago.
Still,
the record of this man who offers himself as a peacemaker between the
Israelis and the Palestinians bears remembering. All things considered,
celebrity diplomat Alec Baldwin would stand a better chance.
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hings
could always get worse in the Middle East. For example, the Palestinians
and the Israelis could take up Jesse Jackson 
