I have been deluged over the past ten days with e-mails, calls, etc. from “the pro-Israel community” expressing outrage over Mary Robinson being awarded the Medal of Freedom, our nations’s highest civilian honor. The intensity of feeling about this issue demands a response. So here’s mine:
With apologies to those who care about Israel no more than I do, given the list of 16 people awarded the Medal of Freedom last week, there doesn’t seem to be anything terribly wrong with one of those being former Irish President Mary Robinson. Is her track record perfect? Far from it. In fact, her chairmanship over the 2001 World Conference Against Racism in Durban, South Africa, was a major failure in leadership.
Ms. Robinson’s failure lay with the fact that she allowed her understanding of justice and her antipathy toward Israel, about both of which reasonable people can disagree, to provide cover for Jew-baiting and ethnic hatred. Whether she supports that kind of behavior or not, and it’s doubtful that she does, she did nothing to stop it. As the conference chair, that was a real failure of leadership, both institutional and moral.
On the other hand, it would be wrong to allow that single failure to undermine a life’s work which has included many significant accomplishments on behalf of both the Irish people and people in need around the world. Moreover, those who opposed her receiving the Medal of Freedom are advocating for a litmus test which they themselves neither could, nor should be asked to pass.

If the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) and the other organizations that lead the charge against Ms. Robinson ever asked to limit the list of those they honored to individuals who were morally and politically flawless, they would never give out an award to anybody. In fact, among the many things I admire about AIPAC is the sophistication of its leadership and their ability to keep their eye on the big picture of supporting the U.S.-Israel relationship.
That big picture thinking transcends party and ideological difference because all those involved know that such differences pale in comparison with the alliance between our nation and the region’s only real democracy. That is precisely the same approach to take with Mary Robinson. The good far outweighs the bad, and it was for the good which she was being honored. But her being honored should have opened the door to a frank conversation about the pain caused by some her more significant missteps.
Being reassured that one’s life work is worthy of celebration and honor should also make it possible to explore the moments in one’s career which are not so worthy. That’s how it is with any relationship – the stronger our commitment to it, the freer we should be to offer loving critique. That’s why Ms. Robinson should have gotten more than a medal.
She deserved a medal for the great work she has done, and she should have also had the opportunity to explore some of the damage she has done. President Obama managed to make that happen over beers for Professor Skip Gates and Sgt. James Crowley. He could have done something similar here and it would have been a good idea. But Ms. Robinson’s detractors ought not to confuse a lost opportunity with a moral failing on the part of either the President or his administration.
Instead of condemnation, her being awarded the medal should have been accompanied by an invitation. Imagine a meeting, presumably over Bushmills rather that beer, which could still happen. My only questions are how Ms. Robinson takes her whiskey and where are we meeting.