The recent spate of violent attacks on Soviet officials and installations in the United States has produced the worst crisis in U.S.-Soviet relations since the late ’60s and early ’70s. They have produced violent Soviet counterattacks against U.S. citizens in Moscow and the result has been that détente has been strained more by a handful of Jewish militants than by Vietnam, the Middle East and even Angola. I put it that in this lies the political logic and justification for violence.
The angry attacks and criticism of the Jewish militants by U.S. officials and non-Jewish sources are less surprising than the painful crudities of various Jewish Establishment groups whose insecurities and complexes have led them to take the lead (as in the case of the American Jewish Congress) in urging the FBI to arrest the culprits. Thus is repeated the shameful “Season” of 1944–45 when Jewish Agency leaders, in what was then “Palestine,” called for the hunting down of Jewish members of the Irgun underground and for turning them over to the British. In any case, Jewish and non-Jewish critics alike misunderstand the reason for and the political logic of the violence against the Soviets and it is time that the other side had its opportunity to be heard.
The Soviet Jewish tragedy arose nearly 60 years ago when the Bolshevik Revolution began its destruction of both Jewish spirit and nationalism. Only a pitiful number of Soviet Jews were allowed to leave and even after Stalin’s death the annual emigration stood at a few hundred (out of more than three million), almost all elderly people. Since Jewish militants began their attacks on the Soviets in 1969 and through 1975, more than 115,000 Soviet Jews were allowed to emigrate to Israel – the vast majority young, with many professional and talented people among them. It is more than proper to ask: What makes these years different from those that preceded them …
It is clear that the Soviets have an interest in NOT allowing Soviet Jews to emigrate. Aside from the fact that it makes their Arab clients unhappy, any large-scale emigration from the Soviet “paradise” is a contradiction in terms. The Berlin Wall went up to prevent emigration and the Iron Curtain stands around Eastern Europe lest people “vote with their feet” against Soviet communism. Nevertheless, 115,000 Jews were allowed to leave. Why?
Surely, not because of “public opinion” as the major Jewish groups, who did nothing for decades, want us so badly to believe. A nation which cynically asked “how many divisions does the Pope have?” and which defies world outcry by sending troops into Czechoslovakia and Hungary, is not deterred by that absurd concept. Not world opinion but self-interest is what makes Ivan run and while keeping Soviet Jews from emigrating is one of the Soviet interests, it is hardly the major one. That honor lies with détente. The Soviets not only want détente; they hunger for it. It has brought them enormous benefits, from technology to grain to hard currency to the destruction of any meaningful anti-communism in the West and to an ability to concentrate on China in the East. The dividends are incalculable and the Russians will not easily allow it to slip from them.
But what happens when the Kremlin is faced with an inescapable choice? What if it must choose between détente and some lesser desired interest? What, for example, if the Russians must choose between allowing Jews to leave and détente? The answer is clear. The Soviets are merchants, par excellence. They will try to purchase what they need for the lowest possible price. But if they have no choice and if the seller demands a higher one – they will pay it through gritted teeth if they want it badly enough. And that is precisely the explanation for Soviet easing of the emigration bars beginning in 1969; that is the reason for the hardening of the fist since 1974; and that is the reason for the politically logical attacks on the Soviets by Jewish militants in 1976.
Jewish violence against the Soviets did a number of things that the Jewish Establishment would not like Jewish masses to know. It put the Soviet Jewish problem on page one, in the spotlight, after decades when barely anyone knew that such a problem existed; it gave the Soviet Jews, in their huge prison, hope as, for the first time, they heard of other Jews risking themselves for them, and above all, it seriously threatened the détente that the Kremlin wanted more than anything else.
When a diplomat from Luxembourg is attacked in Washington or when the offices of the Danish government are smashed – very few people care and not even the governments may carry their protests to extreme lengths. But the Soviet Union is neither Luxembourg nor Denmark and assaults on her offices and officials are insufferable insults to the pride of a superpower. Though they would much prefer not to, they have no choice but to react – and angrily. My files are filled with copies of Soviet protests to the State Department against JDL and other Jewish militant acts; there are countless State Department memos detailing the deterioration in relations because of this; the Soviet Ambassador was recalled for a month following one violent act and in June 1970 the then U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations, Charles Yost, invited me to his office to tell me that “your actions are harming relations between our country and the Soviet Union.” The Soviets wanted none of this; they never wanted to cancel the Bolshoi or other cultural exchange programs. But they had no choice, for no superpower can calmly sit by and watch its national pride humiliated by attacks on its people and property.
This is what the violence against the Soviets did four and five years ago. It forced them to choose: Détente or Jews? And they gritted their teeth and chose that which was more important – détente.
The Jewish Establishment, led by feudal barons unelected and unresponsive to the Jewish masses, never understood this and never wanted to. It was rather men like Senator Jackson and Congressman Vanik who did exactly the same thing that Jewish militants did when they told Russia to choose: trade or Jews. And during the early years of Jackson pressure when he stood firm, the figures on Soviet Jewish emigration reached record heights: 30,000 in 1972; 35,000 in 1973. And if the Russians then tore up the agreement and Jewish emigration has fallen, it is not because Jackson was too stubborn or militancy backfired. Quite the opposite. It was precisely after Jewish militant protests and demonstrations had dwindled (due to FBI harassment, arrests and prison); it was precisely after Jackson allowed himself to be pressured by Jewish Establishment leaders to compromise and accept a figure of 60,000 Jews a year; it was exactly after these Jewish leaders had collapsed before Nixon-Kissinger pressure (aided and abetted by an Israeli government that placed narrow interests before Soviet Jewry’s freedom) that the Russians saw that there was no need to pay the high price and stopped doing so!
The lesson is clear. Political violence has a logic and truth to it that may be sad but not less truthful all the same. There is nothing – neither moral persuasion nor quiet diplomacy (that awful fraud) nor public indignation – that will move the Kremlin tyrants to allow Soviet Jews to emigrate, if that is against the Soviet interests. The only way to make the Russian retreat is to show that there is a higher interest that is being threatened. As long as the Soviets want détente badly enough, that is their only Achilles’ heel and it must be painfully wounded, again and again.
The Jewish militants are not hoodlums. They are political logicians and their attacks should be cheered on and supported. On the other hand, I am prepared to do all in my power to persuade them to call a moratorium on their violence should the United States government indicate that it will make strenuous efforts to persuade the Soviet Union that it is to the interest of both nations to prevent an escalation of violence that could lead to a diplomatic break between the two countries. After all, what would be the consequences of a fatal attack on Soviet Ambassador Yakov Malik? The thought is a chilling one especially when all sides know that one Jewish extremist simply cannot be stopped if he does not fear the consequences. I implore the Soviets to understand what their policy may lead to.
30 Nisan 5736 – April 30, 1976