To the Editors:

Joe Lieberman and our new Massachusetts US Senator, Scott Brown, have introduced in the Senate a bill that would strip the citizenship from anyone “accused” of aiding terrorism, of joining a terrorist organization or of being a terrorist.  The defects in this brainstorm are readily apparent: it reverses the presumption of innocence and is otherwise unconstitutional on a number of grounds.  It panders to unreasoned panic, and demonstrates the moral bankruptcy of its sponsors.  It will have no deterrent effect on terrorism but raises the specter of widespread injustice.  Sadly, our history is peppered with this sort of over-reaction, from the Alien & Sedition Acts to the Palmer Raids to the internment of the Japanese to the blacklist; sooner or later we wake up with a national hangover.

But this particular assault should have a special resonance for the Jewish community.  In the 1930’s and 40’s, the Stern Gang, the Irgun, and even more moderate Zionist organizations were widely perceived as terrorists, certainly by the British who ruled Palestine.  Let us recall that Menachim Begin surmounted his part in the destruction of the King David Hotel to become prime minister of Israel.  If the proposed law, and the State Department’s list of suspected terrorist organizations, had been around when World War II began, how many native-born Jewish-Americans could have been denaturalized and deported for joining or donating to a Jewish charity with murky connections?  If great uncle Max were careless in his Zionist activities, he could have wound up back in Mielec, Poland just in time to be gassed.  And it wouldn’t matter that he was born in New Jersey.

Joel Eigerman, Chairman

Committee on Law and Social Action, JALSA