The Enemy Within

The Enemy Within

By Lee Diamond

As a young boy growing up in the USA, I watched the McCarthy hearings on television.  I would sit in the back of my father’s liquor store along with my parents and we would watch with horror as person after person was called before the committee and harassed by Senator McCarthy.  I should add that many of those who were called before this committee were Jews.  Those days and these hearings made an impression on me that I will never forget.  It was clear to all of us that this was a witch hunt comparable to the Salem witch trials of the 17^th century.  The nation that I was born in, lived in and indeed believed in had been taken over by the fear and hysteria of “communist infiltration” and the very principle of the American constitution which guaranteed freedom of belief and speech had been undermined by this committee for “Un American Activities” under the leadership of the most undemocratic personage that America had even borne, Senator Joe McCarthy.

Lives were broken.  Families were destroyed. Careers ended. People hid from exposure. Innocent people feared being involved and hid from exposure.  Legitimate criticism was curtailed for fear of the scourge of McCarthy.  Many Jews feared reprisals for their liberal political ideas. There was no doubt in the minds of many in the Jewish community that they were part of the target.

Just a few years after McCarthy I found my self involved with those who had the courage to criticize their own society for its treatment of its own citizens in the form of the civil rights movement and what we considered America’s unjust war in Vietnam.  Civil disobedience was considered a virtue. Marching the streets of Selma with Martin Luther King and tens of thousands of blacks and whites; participating in demonstrations in Washington against the Vietnam War and even being jailed for such was nothing less than an honor.  Again there were Jews among us, indeed many! Again we spoke our minds. Yes we were even part of the radical movements such as Students for a Democratic Society (SDS). Rabbi Professor Abraham Joshua Heschel was with us as we marched with Martin Luther King.

McCarthyism had been dealt a deathly blow. Nothing was more sacred than the freedom of speech guaranteed to us in our constitution.  America had learned the lesson tragically from the witch hunt of the mid 20^th century.

Today I live in Israel.  No doubt that the McCarthy era influenced this decision. No doubt that the discomfort of being the target of bigotry, hysteria, and the national witch hunt  that I experienced contributed to this need to be part of the newest, most dynamic democracy in modern time, Israel.  Here I could be politically right, left, center and express my loyalty in my own way to the State of Israel. Here I would never be targeted for my politics or for my Jewish identity. Over my 40 years in Israel I have voted center, center left, left, center right. I have been proud to participate in organizations that demand that we live by our highest standards as they are reflected in the Jewish and western tradition.  For me self criticism is a Jewish value and Israel as the Jewish State must be subject to such self criticism. 

But today I find myself thrown back into the world of Salem. Witch hunts are being renewed in “Jeru” Salem. A committee of “Un Israeli Activities” is about to be established by a no less destructive force in our very government and Knesset.   Together with deeply caring Zionist brothers and sisters who criticize Israel out of love without fear; who send our own children to the IDF and who serve personally in the IDF; who do not know the meaning of the phrase:  “I do not do “miluim” or “I don’t do the army” We know and understand that this is the democratic responsibility of all citizens, left, right or center. Yet when we climb the barricades of justice, to bring our beloved Israel to confront its weaknesses as well as its strengths we will now be subjected to this inquisition.

Before it is too late we must call this witch trial, this inquisition, this McCarthyism, this KBG spy trial to task and prevent it at all costs. We must name it for what it is:  an attempt on the part of a paranoiac and hysterical political movement and its supporters in our government to gain the votes and support from anti democratic forces within our own Israeli society, who fear democracy and wish to return us to the tragedies that history has ruled unacceptable.  The very parties who support such a motion must be investigated for un- Israeli, un -Jewish and un –democratic activities and be prevented from bringing this disgrace upon us.

We must stand together as a nation, right, left and center to demand that this agenda be prevented.  I call on my fellow Israelis to prevent this source of evil from destroying all that we stand for.

Yours truly,

 Lee Diamond

Kfar Saba