Francis B. Sayre Jr. was born in the White House 93 years ago, a grandson of President Wilson, and died on Martha's Vineyard the other day. Quite an arc, as we say in Hollywood.
Sayre was an Episcopal leader, the dean of the Washington National Cathedral for a quarter century. He supported the civil rights movement, the anti-Vietnam War movement, and Martin Luther King Jr. He made one big mistake: he also supported Palestinians. The Washington Post obit gives this a curious spin:
least temporarily abandoned by many of them [emphasis Weiss's of course] when his 1972 Palm Sunday
sermon about the "moral tragedy of mankind" sharply criticized Israel
for "oppressing" Arab residents of Jerusalem.
What does that mean? According to the book Israeli Foreign Policy: South Africa and Central America by Jane Hunter, Francis Sayre said his career was "truncated" after he spoke out for Palestinian human rights in 1972. Journalism gurus: Can you be a "progressive" if you support the Israeli occupation? I don't think so. Can you be a progressive if you put oppression in quotation marks? Hie unto the West Bank. When will the omerta end, i.e., when will liberal cultural leaders acknowledge the price paid by anyone who has a heterodox view of this situation?
