Ambassador
James B. Cunningham

Biography

Speeches

Ambassador’s remarks at the US-Israel Civil Liberties Law Fellow Program, Rabin Center, June 25,2009

Professor Schwartz, Mr. Yaari, Prof. Grossman, former MK Zehava Galoon, respected guests.

My wife Leslie and I are honored to be with you tonight to celebrate the 25th Anniversary of the U.S.-Israel Civil Liberties Law Fellow Program. This gathering tonight is a testament to the vision of Professor Schwartz who started the program in 1983 in partnership with the New Israel Fund and American University’s Washington College of Law in Washington, DC. The U.S.-Israel Civil Liberties Law Fellow Program has built a legacy of success helping to strengthen Israel’s civil society while continuing to train lawyers committed to the principles of justice and equality that underpin all democracies.

When Professor Schwartz conceived of this program, there were only two lawyers in Israel practicing civil rights law. Professor Schwartz recognized the need to develop a cadre of qualified attorneys to advance civil liberties in Israel, and he has succeeded. The first law Fellow, Joshua Schoffman, helped establish the Litigation Department at the Association for Civil Rights in Israel. Neta Ziv-Goldman co-founded both the Women’s Legal Defense Center and the Center for Human Rights of Persons with Disabilities. Others have worked as public defenders and with groups advocating for environmental protection, victims of AIDS and the rights of Israel’s Arab citizens and other underserved populations. The list is long and impressive.

In my country, the issues of rule of law, civil rights and individual freedom go to the core of our existence. We believe the rule of law and respect for civil rights are the necessary foundation for successful societies. Though we often talk about the strength of our two democracies — Israel’s and the United States’ — they also have different points of departure. But some of the fundamental issues we face are common. Let me speak a bit about the path America has followed.

Next week, we will celebrate the 233rd anniversary of our Declaration of Independence. When Thomas Jefferson penned the immortal words, “We hold these truths to be self evident that all men are created equal,” he captured a concept of enduring impact.

Jefferson, who owned an extensive collection of Old and New Testaments as well as a copy of the Holy Koran, was surely influenced by his deep knowledge of religion. I also find echoes of his words in the Declaration of the Establishment of the State of Israel which says:

“The State of Israel… will foster the development of the country for the benefit of all its inhabitants; it will be based on freedom, justice and peace as envisaged by the prophets of Israel; it will ensure complete equality of social and political rights to all its inhabitants irrespective of religion, race or sex…”

The U.S-Israel Civil Liberties Law Fellow program has taken advantage of the history of American civil rights litigation. As we look back at American history, we see the search for equality and civil rights has been long and difficult. Indeed, for much of our history, it was not at all obvious that we would reach the stage we have reached today.

Despite the ideals of the Declaration of Independence, “equality” for our people has proven to be an elusive goal. Jefferson and many of our Founding Fathers who wrote the Declaration of Independence were slave owners. When Jefferson and others gathered in 1787, twelve years after the Declaration of Independence, to draft our constitution, there was not a woman or a person of color or a Jew or a Muslim present in the room.

The constitution that emerged from those deliberations decreed that male black slaves would only be 3/5 of a man for census purposes. Women and blacks were to remain disenfranchised for many, many decades.

The ultimate participation of minorities and women in our civil society took a lot of hard work. Though the import of African slaves was banned by our Congress in 1808, slavery remained legal. In one of the landmark Supreme Court decisions of the pre-Civil War era, Dred Scott v. Sandford in 1857, the United States Supreme Court ruled that people of African descent were not protected by the constitution and could never be citizens of the United States.

We fought a bitter Civil War which decided the issue of slavery once and for all, a war so terrible that it produced more casualties than all other American wars combined.

It was not until the end of the war in 1865 with the passage of the 13th, 14th and 15th amendments to our Constitution that slavery was abolished and Black Americans received full citizenship and voting rights.

But that still was far from the end of the story.

It was not until 1920, with the passage of the 19th amendment to our Constitution, that women received the right to vote, though the women’s suffrage movement in my country had begun 72 years earlier with the convening of the Seneca Falls Convention on women’s right.

As for Black Americans, despite the enshrinement of their rights in law, the post-war constitutional amendments were really only the beginning. In the years after the Civil War various states enacted laws that severely curbed the civil rights of African Americans. And in 1896, the Supreme Court upheld the constitutionality of racial segregation under the doctrine of “separate but equal.” Separate but equal, which of course meant anything but equal, enshrined discrimination in law. It was not until 1954, in the landmark Brown v. Board of Education decision, that the Supreme Court took the rare step of overturning its previous decision.

Contrast the inspiring images of Barack and Michelle Obama walking down Pennsylvania Avenue this past January 20 with the experience of Mary Church Turell as she described Pennsylvania Avenue in 1906.

She wrote, “As a colored woman, I may walk from the Capital to the White House, ravenously hungry and abundantly supplied with money with which to purchase a meal, without finding a single restaurant in which I would be permitted to take a morsel of food…”

For my country, the pursuit of civil liberties for all our citizens has been a long and painful road, one we continue to travel. The election of an African American as our President is due in significant part to lawyers who worked for decades to challenge the status quo and to establish a body of case law that broke down the legal barriers to full civic participation in our society. They and many others fought, and still fight, to establish “the more perfect union” conceived by the framers of our Constitution.

In speaking about Iran the other day, President Obama used a quotation from Dr. Martin Luther King that I had not heard before. King said, “the arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice.” I like the encouraging sense of that phrase – combining time, purpose and result. We know that democracy is never finished, by its nature it is work in progress.

Americans respect Israel for its vibrant democracy. Israel’s history and reality are vastly different from those of my country, but clearly the lawyers who have graduated from the U.S.-Israel Civil Liberties Law Fellow program and returned to Israel have benefited from the ground breaking legal work done by their American counterparts. We are gratified that the American experience can play a small part in strengthening the on-going project of Israeli democracy.

In his speech in Cairo several weeks ago, President Obama said, “But I do have an unyielding belief that all people yearn for certain things:  the ability to speak your mind and have a say in how you are governed; confidence in the rule of law and the equal administration of justice; government that is transparent and doesn't steal from the people; the freedom to live as you choose.  These are not just American ideas; they are human rights.  And that is why we will support them everywhere.”

I would add that they are also the ideas which succeed. In a never-ending struggle to achieve the ideal of equality for our citizens, we seek that “bending toward justice” of which Dr. King spoke, wondering whether we will find it. Those of you who have participated in and supported the program over its quarter century have demonstrated that you don’t just care about developing law and precedent, but that you care about improving the lives of your clients while ultimately improving the lives of all Israeli citizens. You have refused to remain complacent and I salute you for your dedication.