The top-level personnel policy committee of B’nai B’rith International has urged “strict disciplinary action” against any member of its professional staff who takes a public position in opposition to any “Supreme Lodge policy.” The new initiative, broad in its wording but specific in its application, is directed against employes of B’nai B’rith or B’nai B’rith Women who advocate any kind of accommodation between Israel and the terrorist Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO), or even public discussion of the issue.
Earlier this year the B’nai B’rith Board of Governors took a policy position which declared “unconditional support of the government of Israel in its refusal to negotiate with the PLO.” This governmental policy, which has been questioned by a few leaders of the political opposition in Israel and by left-leaning critics in America, may, according to the proposed action, no longer be debated or discussed by B’nai B’rith professionals in any public forum.
The sponsor of the proposal, which must be ratified at the forthcoming meeting of the Board of Governors in Houston, Texas, is New York attorney Lawrence Peirez, long prominent in the affairs of the Anti-Defamation League and now chairman of the personnel policy committee. “In these times of peril for the people and State of Israel,” notes Peirez, “we can no longer allow our employes to take positions which are inimical to our interests as we perceive them.”
The action is intended as a warning to B’nai B’rith staff that vague slogans about “free speech” and “academic freedom” do not apply to those whose salaries are paid by the dues of the half-million strong B’nai B’rith family. Although the ruling does not yet apply to B’nai B’rith members, it is the hope of the sponsor that they will voluntarily accept the discipline which is being imposed upon the professional staff.
B’nai B’rith is the first American Jewish organization to take this pragmatic position as an affirmation of the ideal of Jewish solidarity. Should the leadership of B’nai B’rith vote favorably on the measure, it is anticipated that they will urge other Jewish organizations to initiate similar action within their own ranks.
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