{"id":60833,"date":"2015-07-13T12:00:24","date_gmt":"2015-07-13T11:00:24","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/?p=60833"},"modified":"2015-07-11T19:29:33","modified_gmt":"2015-07-11T18:29:33","slug":"in-memoriam-donald-neff-journalist-1930-2015","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/2015\/07\/in-memoriam-donald-neff-journalist-1930-2015\/","title":{"rendered":"In Memoriam: Donald Neff, Journalist (1930-2015)"},"content":{"rendered":"

One of the top journalists to report on Palestine-Israel has died.<\/em><\/p>\n

\"donald-neff-james-buckner\"<\/a>Donald Neff passed away on May 10, 2015 in his hometown of York, Pennsylvania, at the age of 84. The cause of death was heart disease and diabetes.<\/p>\n

Neff was a luminous writer and meticulous reporter. From humble beginnings, he had reached the top ranks of American journalism. When he then turned his formidable talents to writing books and articles about Palestine, his contracts with mainstream American publishers dried up, his income plummeted, and his fame faded.<\/p>\n

Today, even many activists in the growing Palestine solidarity movement are unaware of Neff\u2019s groundbreaking work. This is unfortunate, since he exposed critical facts about Palestine with unparalleled precision and elegance. Much of the information he uncovered is still significant today.<\/p>\n

During his long career, Neff reported on the Vietnam War from Tokyo and Saigon and was TIME\u2008magazine bureau chief in Houston, Los Angeles and Jerusalem. One of the first reporters on the scene at the Jonestown Massacre in Guyana, he also covered the Apollo moon landing and reported on the nuclear accident at Three Mile Island (not far from his hometown). In 1980 he won the Overseas Press Club of America\u2019s prestigious Mary Hemingway Award for best magazine reporting from abroad for a 1979 cover story about Colombia\u2019s cocaine network.<\/p>\n

Neff was at TIME from 1965-1979. While based in Jerusalem, he exposed an incident that would change the course of his life.<\/p>\n

In \u201cEpiphany at Beit Jala<\/a>,\u201d an in-depth essay written for the\u2008November-December 1995 issue of The Link<\/em><\/a> , Neff wrote about this incident and other eye-opening experiences covering the region.<\/p>\n

Like most Westerners, Neff had arrived profoundly sympathetic to Israel. However, he wrote, \u201cAs my tour extended into years, I could not ignore a disturbing blindness in some of even the most gentle Israelis. They did not seem to see the Palestinians all around them\u2026In general, this was just as well because when most Israelis did notice Palestinians their reaction to them was one of loathing or fear that quickly could escalate into violence.\u201d<\/p>\n

Neff\u2019s experiences also revealed a power dynamic between the U.S. and Israel that he found astonishing.<\/p>\n

He reported on Secretary of State Henry Kissinger\u2019s frantic attempts to convince Israel to relinquish Egyptian land Israel had acquired through its 1967 war of conquest and had managed to retain through American support during the 1973 \u201cYom Kippur\u201d war. The U.S. was calling on Israel to return it to Egypt. Israel refused.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe extent of Israel\u2019s ability to resist U.S. advice,\u201d Neff wrote, \u201cwas my first great eye-opener in Israel. I had had little appreciation of the astounding depth and strength of Zionism\u2019s influence in Washington. I was stunned that a country completely beholden to the United States could thumb its nose at Washington.\u201d<\/p>\n

Various encounters through the years caused Neff \u201cdeep uneasiness\u201d about the views and beliefs of some Israel partisans in the U.S., raising \u201cthe question of dual loyalty to a level I had never realized existed.\u201d<\/p>\n

A man who had been serving in the U.S. Navy when Israel tried to sink the USS Liberty<\/em>, killing 34 and injuring over 170 Americans, told Neff that he had been \u201ctorn by the dilemma of whether he could actually participate in a U.S. retaliatory attack against Israel.\u201d (This never came.)<\/p>\n

Another American Zionist showed Neff his Israeli passport alongside his U.S. one. Neff was taken aback; it had been illegal for Americans to hold dual citizenship. The man proudly informed him that the policy had been changed in 1967 by the Supreme Court, adding with emphasis that the case had been brought by an Israeli and the swing vote was cast by Abe Fortas.<\/p>\n

In later researching Fortas, Neff discovered that Fortas was a Zionist and that among his first thoughts when he left the Supreme Court had been to visit Israel. \u201cThere was nothing wrong with that,\u201d Neff wrote, \u201cbut it did indicate an attachment of such personal importance that he should have recused himself from the dual citizenship case.\u201d This ruling, Neff wrote, \u201chad destroyed a 200-year tradition.\u201d<\/p>\n

Neff\u2019s most intense experience, the \u201cepiphany\u201d of his essay title, came in March 1978, when a freelance reporter called to say that she had \u201cheard reports that Israeli troops had just conducted a cruel campaign throughout the West Bank against Palestinian youth. Many Palestinians had suffered broken bones, others had been beaten and some had had their heads shaved.\u201d<\/p>\n

When Neff repeated the report to his TIME bureau staff, all Jewish Israelis, they were indignant. The report was obviously false, they said, because \u201cthat is what was done to us in the Holocaust.\u201d<\/p>\n

Neff decided to check out the facts for himself, taking along a skeptical Jewish American friend who was living in Israel.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe went into the small hospital and a young Palestinian doctor who spoke English soon appeared. Yes indeed, he said matter-of-factly, he had recently treated a number of students for broken bones. There were 10 cases of broken arms and legs and many of the patients were still there, too seriously injured to leave. He took us to several rooms filled with boys in their mid-teens, an arm or leg, sometimes both, immobile under shining white plaster casts.\u201d<\/p>\n

When TIME published Neff\u2019s report, it provoked outrage from both Israeli authorities and American Zionists. The New York Times<\/em> failed to report on the incident, making it seem for awhile that Neff\u2019s report was inaccurate. It wasn\u2019t until an Israeli official investigated the incident and confirmed Neff\u2019s facts that other journalists finally reported on it.<\/p>\n

As a result of his reporting, Neff was made an honorary citizen of Bethlehem.<\/p>\n

After Neff returned to the U.S. he eventually decided to leave periodical journalism in order to write books. He signed a contract with Simon & Schuster and wrote the first in what was to be a trilogy about the Israeli-Arab wars of 1956, 1967 and 1973<\/p>\n

The book, Warriors at Suez: Eisenhower Takes America into the Middle East<\/em><\/a> (1981), received wide acclaim. It was a National Book Award finalist and an alternate selection for both the Book of the Month Club and the History Book Club.<\/p>\n

The Chicago Tribune Book World<\/em> described it as \u201cA true thriller\u201d and said that the story was \u201cas sobering as it is fascinating\u2026.important and compelling reading.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Tribune<\/em> review, however, was to be among the few exceptions to a pattern later described by Ambassador Andrew Killgore, publisher of the Washington Report on Middle East Affairs<\/em>.<\/p>\n

Books on the Middle East that editors disliked, Killgore noted, would be assigned to \u201ca Zionist reviewer\u2026the reviewer usually is Jewish, never a Muslim and only occasionally a Christian. If none of the facts presented in the book can be refuted, the book\u2019s substance has to be ignored.\u201d Often they would simply go un-reviewed.<\/p>\n

Neff\u2019s second book, Warriors for Jerusalem: The Six Days That Changed the Middle East<\/em><\/a>, came out in 1985 and was again praised by experts. Former Undersecretary of State George Ball called it indispensable to anyone who wanted to understand \u201cwhy we are in such a dangerous mess in the Middle East.\u201d<\/p>\n

While the Christian Science Monitor<\/em> called it \u201cone of the most significant contributions to modern historical literature,\u201d most newspapers ignored it.<\/p>\n

American Zionists had long disliked Neff\u2019s work. When his report on the Beit Jala incident came out, even some TIME colleagues had complained. Neff was called an anti-Semite to his face, while others shunned him.<\/p>\n

The book industry included such Israel partisans, as well. Simon & Schuster did not renew its contract with Neff, and his final book in the trilogy, Warriors Against Israel: How Israel Won the Battle to Become America\u2019s Ally<\/em><\/a>, was published in 1988 by Amana, a much smaller publisher.<\/p>\n

Once again, Neff produced a powerful volume. Archibald B. Roosevelt, Jr., a grandson of President Theodore Roosevelt, a polyglot who spoke 20 languages, and a former CIA officer with considerable expertise in the Middle East, wrote: \u201cAs an observer of Middle Eastern affairs for more than four decades, I was impressed by the originality of Neff\u2019s presentation and surprised by his devastating conclusions, assembled from facts previously known to most of us only piecemeal. It is not only a good read, but essential background for serious students of developments in the Middle East today.\u201d<\/p>\n

Neff\u2019s next book, on the history of U.S.-Israel relations, was published in 1995 by the Institute for Palestine Studies, headquartered in Lebanon. A second, updated edition was published in 2002.<\/p>\n

Neff himself, and many others, considered this his most important book. Fallen Pillars: U.S. Policy Towards Palestine and Israel Since 1945<\/em> provides a detailed history of how Zionists overcame the recommendations of U.S. diplomats, the Pentagon, and intelligence agencies to create today\u2019s uniquely special relationship with Israel.<\/p>\n

Citing a multitude of memos and official studies, Neff\u2019s opus details U.S. officials\u2019 failed attempts and frequent frustration at a special interest lobby that held more influence over U.S. policies than they did. Already by 1949 \u201cIsraeli officials were openly bragging about the power of the Jewish American community to influence U.S. policy.\u201d<\/p>\n

Pillars<\/em> shows the deep roots of many current issues. \u201cBy 1968,\u201d Neff reported, \u201cthe CIA was convinced Israel had produced nuclear weapons, or was capable of doing so, and informed President Lyndon Johnson. His response was to order the CIA not to inform any other members of the administration, including Defense Secretary Robert McNamara and Secretary of State Dean Rusk.\u201d<\/p>\n

Although, again, scholarly reviewers praised Neff\u2019s book, most mainstream media chose not to review it. An exception was The Washington Post<\/em>, which assigned it to Tad Szulc, a Jewish American journalist whose primary expertise was Latin America and Eastern Europe. Szulc called Pillars \u201cdeeply flawed\u201d and charged Neff with being \u201cmore Palestinian than the Palestinians.\u201d<\/p>\n

Neff\u2019s final book, Fifty Years of Israel<\/em><\/a>, was published on the 50th anniversary of Israel\u2019s creation. A collection of the \u201cMiddle East History\u201d columns Neff wrote for this magazine beginning in 1993, its short, footnoted chapters were based on a detailed handbook compiled daily of events related to Israel and Palestine from 1947 to the end of the 20th century. (See excerpt in sidebar here<\/a>.)<\/p>\n

Long before Google and other Internet search engines made their appearance, Neff\u2019s computerized database was a frequently called upon source of information for authors and journalists. As theWashington Report\u2019s<\/em> late executive editor, Richard H. Curtiss, noted in his introduction to Fifty Years<\/em>: \u201cOver the phone I could hear the \u2018click, click\u2019 as he entered into his computer\u2014which seemingly always was turned on\u2014the key words that brought up almost instantaneous answers to whatever questions I asked.\u201d<\/p>\n

Donald Neff brought honesty, precision, and courage to a topic of world-shaking significance that most top journalists feared or obfuscated. For this, he paid dearly.<\/p>\n

Those working to rectify one of the world\u2019s most significant injustices and causes of ongoing tragedy owe deep gratitude to Donald Neff.<\/p>\n

I personally am profoundly indebted. I first stumbled across Neff\u2019s books when I \u00advisited the Washington Report<\/em> bookstore in Washington, DC in the spring of 2001. While I had already seen at first-hand Israel\u2019s ferocious treatment of Palestinians, I was largely unaware of Israel\u2019s power in and over the United States. Neff\u2019s work was as enlightening as it was disturbing.<\/p>\n

A few years later I had the honor of meeting Donald Neff in person and conducting a long interview with him about his work. (A few minutes from this are on a video<\/a> If Americans Knew subsequently released.)<\/p>\n

I expect that eventually Neff\u2019s books and articles, like those of other journalists who worked to tell Americans about Palestine but were largely erased from public awareness, will be rediscovered, as a new generation intent on justice discovers the power and relevance of his pioneering work.<\/p>\n

Neff is survived by his companion of 15 years, Washington Report<\/em>managing editor Janet McMahon, as well as son Gregory Neff of York; two stepdaughters, Victoria Brett of Northampton, MA, and Abigail Miller of Portland, ME; a granddaughter; and two great-grandsons.<\/p>\n

___________________________________<\/p>\n

Alison Weir<\/em> is executive director of\u00a0 <\/em>If Americans Knew<\/em><\/a><\/em> and president of the <\/em>Council for the National Interest<\/em><\/a><\/em>.<\/em><\/p>\n

Go to Original \u2013 secure.campaigner.com<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

One of the top journalists to report on Palestine-Israel has died May 10. Many activists in the growing Palestine solidarity movement are unaware that he exposed critical facts about Palestine with unparalleled precision and elegance. Much of the information he uncovered is still significant today.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[226],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-60833","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-obituaries"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/60833","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=60833"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/60833\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=60833"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=60833"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=60833"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}