From Mr John Chuckman Sir: In Mr Theodoracopulos's reply to
Conrad Black (High life, 3 March), he mentions Rabbi Irving Greenberg, who has apologised for writing letters in support of Marc Rich. What he does not say is that Rabbi Greenberg is the board chairman of Washington's Holocaust Museum. Rabbi Greenberg apparently used his official stationery to plead with Mr Clinton, putting, in the words of Washington columnist Richard Cohen, 'the moral authority of the museum in a lobbying effort for a fugitive. . . . ' On top of that, the museum is a publicly funded institution.
It is important to recognise that these efforts followed a long and often bitter campaign to obtain a pardon for Mr Jonathon Pollard, one of the most damaging spies in American history. Mr Clinton was virtually exhausted by these pleas at times, but he could not relent in the face of fierce opposition from the entire American military and intelligence establishment, which deeply resents Mr Pollard's sensitive revelations to Israel and the fact
that some of them apparently made their way to Russia. The pardoning of Marc Rich seems to have been at least in part an effort to placate those who for years have hounded Mr Clinton over Mr Pollard.
No fair-thinking person can equate criticism of Israel with anti-Semitism, although in the United States this is a rather common, nasty practice. Israel is a state and, if it is to be accepted as a state much like other states, it must be subject to the same criticism of its behaviour that other states are.
John Chuckman
Portland, Maine
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