The Foreign Service Journal, April 2018

THE FOREIGN SERVICE JOURNAL | APRIL 2018 47 guage, they voted overwhelmingly to pub- lish it. Ironically, Jerri Bird fought me every step of the way on the edits, and threat- ened more than once to pull the piece—a bluff I happily called, since I could foresee the firestorm the article would generate. But she eventually admitted that the piece really was more effective in its slightly toned-down form. I don’t know how State found out her article was in our pipeline, but that spring the Bureau for Near Eastern Affairs for- mally requested that AFSA drop it. When that didn’t work, the NEA front office summoned me to a meeting to “discuss” the matter further. I no longer remember the deputy assistant secretary’s name, but he solemnly warned AFSA Executive Director Susan Reardon and yours truly that the situation in the region was so volatile that any criticism of Israel could have grave consequences—up to and including war. (Yes, he really said that.) We agreed that such an outcome would indeed be unfortunate, but pointed out that, though critical of Israel, our interlocutor had not stated anything in the article that was untrue. We therefore published it in June 2002 as planned. That was a proud moment. But in the immortal words of Clare Boothe Luce that I love to quote: “No good deed goes unpunished.” Over the summer, the pro-Israel organization HonestReporting organized a massive campaign that sent hundreds of vituperative letters, emails, faxes and phone calls The October 2012 FSJ , the first issue following the redesign.