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Dr. Alfred M. Lilienthal
Alfred M. Lilienthal has been an outspoken critic of Zionism since before the state of Israel was created. Indeed, he likes to describe himself as "the only person alive who was at Lake Success in 1947 when Israel was created by the United Nations; in New York when Arafat addressed the UN in 1974; and...at both Algiers in November 1988 when the PLO declared the state of Palestine and at Geneva the following month to hear the PLO chieftain renounce terrorism and accept Israel's existence." Clearly, he knows whereof he speaks.
And speak he does - to university audiences, women's clubs and international conferences. (One of his goals is to have lectured in every state of the union: Vermont, Alabama, New Mexico, Alaska and Hawaii remain to be conquered.)
Along with Rabbi Elmer Berger of the American Council for Judaism, Dr. Lilienthal was years, if not decades, ahead of his time in recognizing and speaking out on the issues of Zionism and Palestinian rights. His "initial indoctrination" took place during World War II, when he served in the Middle East and got to know Palestine and its people, as well as the Jewish refugees who were flooding in from Europe.
An "intuitive feeling against chauvinism and nationalism" led him to reject the idea of a Jewish state. At the end of the war, Henrietta Szold, the founder of Hadassah Hospital and an ardent Zionist, asked him, "When are you coming back to help us build our state?" Lilienthal, troubled by the lack of concern for the fate of the Palestinians, replied, "I'm not coming back." In fact, he has returned to the Middle East 26 times, but not for the reason Szold suggested.
In 1949 the Reader's Digest published Lilienthal's article "Israel's Flag is Not Mine," in which he first...