By Alison Weir, excerpted from Fortas, Breyer, Brandeis, Frankfurter, Ginsburg: Israel partisans
In February 1967 an Israeli citizen brought a case before the Supreme Court that ended up changing a longstanding American tradition.
A naturalized American named Beys Afroyim, who had then become an Israeli citizen, sought to overturn a law that prohibited dual citizenship. Afroyim, whose original name had been Ephraim Bernstein, was a member of the communist party who had fled the U.S., lived in Cuba for awhile, and then moved to Israel.
While a previous lawsuit on behalf of a Mexican individual had failed, the Israeli lawsuit had a different fate. Although both the Washington DC District Court and the Court of Appeals had affirmed the U.S. law, the Supreme Court overturned their decisions and on May 29, 1967 found in favor of the Israeli.
The swing vote was cast by Supreme Court Justice Abe Fortas, an Israel loyalist. The Jewish Press reports that Fortas “was an unabashed Israel supporter who influenced LBJ’s strong pro-Israel position during the 1967 Arab-Israeli War; as author/historian Laura Kalman aptly put it, he was ‘a Jew who cared more about Israel than Judaism.’”
Author Donald Neff writes: “Among his first thoughts when he was unseated from the court had been to visit Israel. There was nothing wrong with that, obviously, but it did indicate an attachment of such personal importance that he should have recused himself from the dual citizenship case.”
Neff concludes: “His action, along with four others on the court, had destroyed a 200-year tradition.” This occurred without the concurrence of the American people.
A week and a half after the decision was handed down, Fortas, under the code name “Ilan”, secretly helped Israel elude responsibility for its fatal June 8th attack on the USS Liberty.
Fortas was eventually forced to resign over allegations that he had accepted a bribe from his friend corporate raider Louis Wolfson to protect Wolfson from going to prison for stock manipulation.
Wolfson was reportedly “a staunch benefactor of Jewish causes and of the state of Israel.” He allegedly bribed radio host Larry King during the episode.
(Fortas was also charged with being soft on pornography. Newsweek reports that the porn charge was “based in fact. Fortas was involved in several rulings that effectively legalized pornography.”)
Why Are There Israeli—But Not Mexican—American Dual Nationals?
The US press in general ignores the large number of Americans who vote in Israeli elections, fight in Israeli wars and whose first allegiance belongs not to the U.S. but to the Jewish state…
By Grace Halsell, reposted from Washington Report on Middle East Affairs, 1993
America is the home of many faiths and many nationalities. Recently, we have seen that a U.S. businessman can be “called home” to serve as the prime minister of Serbia. While the unusual appointment of Milan Panic, some 20 years after he emigrated to California to found a multimillion-dollar pharmaceutical company, drew some media attention, the press in general ignores the large number of Americans who vote in Israeli elections, fight in Israeli wars and whose first allegiance belongs not to the U.S. but to the Jewish state.
While many immigrants who become Americans express nostalgia and, in most instances, a love for the old country, they are not torn as to their first allegiance or loyalty. Nor, before the creation of Israel, were many Jewish immigrants to North America. Zionism, however, taught them that regardless of where they were born, or where they lived, they had an allegiance to a Jewish state.
American-born Jonathan Jay Pollard, who perhaps stole more secrets from the U.S. than has any other spy in American history, said he felt compelled to put the “interests of my state” ahead of his own. Although as a U.S. Navy counter-intelligence specialist he had a top-secret security clearance, by “my state” he meant the state of Israel.
Literally tens of thousands of Americans still holding U.S. passports admit they feel a primary allegiance to the state of Israel. In many instances, these Americans vote in Israeli elections, wear Israeli uniforms and fight in Israeli wars. Many are actively engaged both in the confiscation of Palestinian lands and in the Israeli political system. Three examples come to mind:
One is Rabbi Meir Kahane, who founded the militant Jewish Defense League in the U.S. in the 1960s, then emigrated to Israel where, eventually, he was elected to the Knesset. Until he was shot and killed at one of his U.S. fund-raising rallies in 1990, the Brooklyn-born rabbi shuttled between Tel Aviv and New York, where he recruited militant American Jews for his activities in Israel against Palestinians.
Another Jewish American, James Mahon from Alexandria, Virginia, reportedly was on a secret mission to kill PLO Chairman Yasser Arafat when he was shot in 1980 by an unknown assailant. When he was shot, Mahon held an American M-16 in his hand and a U.S. passport in his pocket.
Then there was Alan Harry Goodman, an American Jew who left his home in Baltimore, Maryland, flew to Israel and served in the Israeli army. Then, on April 11, 1982, armed with an Uzi submachine gun, he walked, alone, to Al-Aqsa, Jerusalem’s most holy Islamic shrine, where he opened fire, killing two Palestinians and wounding others. Both the U.S. and Israeli governments played down the incident, as did the media.
The examples of Kahane, Mahon and Goodman raise the question of when a U.S. citizen ceases to be, or should cease to be, a U.S. citizen. U.S. Law at one time clearly stated that an American citizen owed first allegiance to the United States. A U.S. citizen could not fight in a foreign army or hold high office in a foreign country without risking expatriation.
THE 1940 NATIONALITY ACT
Section 401 (e) of the 1940 Nationality Act provides that a U.S. citizen, whether by birth or naturalization, “shall lose his [U.S.] nationality by…voting in a political election in a foreign state.”
This law was tested many times. In 1958, for instance, an American citizen named Perez voted in a Mexican election. The case went to the Supreme Court, where the majority opinion held that Perez must lose his American nationality. The court said Congress could provide for expatriation as a reasonable way of preventing embarrassment to the United States in its foreign relations.
Then came the case in 1967 of an American Jew, Beys Afroyim. As a result of his case, U.S. Law changed drastically. Afroyim, born in Poland in 1895, emigrated to America in 1912, and became a naturalized U.S. citizen in 1926. In 1950, aged 55, he emigrated to Israel and became an Israeli citizen. In 1951 Afroyim voted in an Israeli Knesset election and in five political elections that followed.
After living in Israel for a decade, Afroyim wished to return to New York. In 1960, he asked the U.S. Consulate in Haifa for an American passport. The Department of State refused the application, invoking section 401 (e) of the Nationality Act—the same ruling that had stripped the American citizen named Perez of his U.S. citizenship.
Attorneys acting for Afroyim took his case to a Washington, DC District Court, which upheld the law. His attorneys appealed to the Court of Appeals. This court also upheld the law. The attorneys for Afroyim then moved the case on to the Supreme Court. Here, with Supreme Court Justice Abe Fortas, Lyndon Johnson’s former attorney and one of the most powerful Jewish Americans, casting the swing vote, the court voted five to four in favor of Afroyim. The court held that the U.S. government had no right to “rob” Afroyim of his citizenship.
Zionism taught allegiance to a Jewish state.
The court, reversing its previous judgment as regards the Mexican American, ruled that Afroyim had not shown “intent” to lose citizenship by voting in Israeli elections.
Did Golda Meir relinquish her U.S. passport at some point in her evolution from Milwaukee schoolteacher to prime minister of Israel? U.S. State Department officials said they did not know.
“State Department officials should know,” former INS Commissioner Leonel Castillo told me. “If you look at it strictly, she should have relinquished her passport. “
Castillo added that while Washington claims it has a “good neighbor” policy with Mexico, the U.S. does not permit Mexicans to hold dual nationality. “We make them become either U.S. or Mexican—you can’t be both,” he said, adding: “The U.S., in its special relationship with Israel, has become very sympathetic to allowing Israelis and Americans to retain two nationalities and allowing U.S. citizens to hold public office in Israel.”
Asked if he knew of any other countries with so many dual citizens, Castillo said, “No, I don’t know any. This U.S.-Israel relationship is a special situation.”
He also viewed it as dangerous: “It is unknown to what extent the special relationship that allows Americans to vote in Israeli elections, fight in Israeli wars and hold Israeli public office might be carried.”
Authors:
Alison Weir is is the founder and executive director of the nonprofit organization If Americans Knew, president of the Council for the National Interest, and author of Against Our Better Judgment: The Hidden History of How the U.S. Was Used to Create Israel.
Grace Halsell was a Washington, DC-based writer and author of Journey to Jerusalem and Prophecy and Politics.
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