The moral failure of the American Jewish Committee

The American Jewish Committee has been around since 1906 and has done some fine work over the years (although it did a poor job during the Holocaust.) Nowadays it seems to have changed its name to simply AJC Global Jewish Advocacy. It fights antisemitism and is a Zionist organization.

On Monday, it failed in its primary mission.

AJC has been hosting a series of interviews with global figures, and on Monday it hosted a conversation with Dina Kawar, Jordan’s ambassador to the United States.

 

Before and during the interview, a number of people asked that AJC ask Kawar about the case of Ahlam Tamimi, the terrorist responsible for the murder of 15 at the Sbarro pizza shop in 2002 who is now living freely in Jordan, under the protection of the Jordanian government, which is defying a US demand for extradition.

Yet the AJC, dedicated to protecting Jews and Israel, failed in its mission. It had a golden opportunity to publicly pressure Jordan to do the right thing. And the timing was right, as Jordan is feeling the pressure from the US. Bringing it up would have created an avalanche of publicity, no matter what Kawar would have answered – and this is exactly the kind of pressure that is necessary for justice to be served.

By being polite to the representative of a regime that protects a murderer of Jews, the AJC has lost much of its clout and credibility.

I have no doubt that Kawar explicitly conditioned the interview on the AJC not asking sensitive questions like about Tamimi or about how Jordan still treats its Palestinian residents as second class citizens.  The AJC should have either refused the interview under those conditions, or it should have broken the agreement because justice for the terror victims is a far more moral cause than telling the truth to a regime that protects murderers. The AJC, eager to appear influential and probably with an eye to ensuring more interviews with more international figures, betrayed its mission to protect Jews and to promote justice for antisemites.

So instead of doing something that could have had real results – and which would have brought the AJC a great deal of positive publiciy - we have a boring conversation that no one will watch.

The AJC squandered its chance to do good. And its reputation has been hurt because of its cowardice.