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The P.L.O. Many blacks feel that the continued denial of self-determination for the Palestinians is a human-rights issue, one in which they share an interest, and that the P.L.O. represents the Palestinians. The Israelis differentiate between the Palestinians and the P.L.O., insisting that the P.L.O. is simply a terrorist gang, with whom they will never negotiate. When Israeli U.N. Ambassador Yehuda Blum lectured black leaders for meeting with the P.L.O. representative to the U.N. and implied that blacks ought to leave Middle East policy to those who understand it, blacks were furious at being patronized. Replied the Rev. Joseph Lowery, president of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference: "Who are you to tell us who we can't talk to? To heaven with you!"
Southern Africa. The black manifesto demanded that Jews bring pressure on Israel to halt "its support of those repressive and racist regimes" in South Africa and Zimbabwe Rhodesia. Israel does in fact maintain a flourishing trade with South Africa ($120 million last year), and it provided military assistance that has been used against black guerrillas. Ties between Israel and South Africa started when both nations needed whatever allies they could find. Israel also used to help black Africa until the Africans themselves broke off these relations in order to take a more pro-Arab position.
Affirmative action. More rankling than any foreign policy issue is a division that has emerged between blacks and Jews about how far society should go in pushing "affirmative action" programs to place more minority people in job-training programs and professional schools. Blacks insist that affirmative action, which means, in effect, special consideration, is needed to help them overcome the handicaps imposed by centuries of discrimination in the U.S. Many Jewish organizations agree in principle—but several filed briefs in the celebrated Bakke and DeFunis cases, arguing that the U.S. Supreme Court must not permit racial quotas, a stand that blacks fear could prohibit the setting of specific goals and timetables for minority hiring or admissions. Jews have bitter memories of the days when such quotas were used to limit their numbers in fields where they are now relatively numerous, such as medicine, law and teaching.
Beyond the stated agenda of grievances, there are some that blacks are reluctant to discuss openly. Many of the whites whom ghetto blacks meet face to face are Jews (one reason: some black ghettos were once predominantly Jewish neighborhoods, and often Jewish businesses have stayed in place even though their owners now live elsewhere). Blacks often see them as exploiting landlords, store owners and credit managers or as teachers who fail to educate black pupils. Jews working in or living near the black ghetto, in turn, fear the violence they see around them (as, of course, do blacks).