Iraq War: Profiles in timidity

While the Union for Reform Judaism’s leadership is proposing to take a stand against the Iraq war (see the post below), the rest of American Jewry’s mainstream organizations are having a hard time finding their tongues — much less their nether parts.

The Jewish Council on Public Affairs [JCPA] held its annual policymaking plenary session in Washington, D.C. from Feb. 24–27, and managed to discuss Iran and Syria. But somehow the delegates — who represent the major synagogue movements, the major “defense” organizations, and 122 local Jewish federation community-relations councils — never got around to addressing the war in Iraq.

Oh, wait. We take that back.

The Forward’s Nathan Gutman, reporting in the March 2 edition (click {here} to read his article), noted that there was a debate on Iraq — a rump session that began after midnight, in the early hours of Feb. 27:

Of the hundreds of delegates that filled the room Monday for the lengthy debates and votes on resolutions earlier in the evening, fewer than 20 remained to discuss the Iraq War. Sitting around empty tables with half-full coffee cups and leftover doughnuts scattered on them, the few delegates with an interest in the issue attempted to conduct a late-night debate.

“This room was filled with people voting on nonsense, and then they all walked out,” yelled 79-year-old Robert Zweiman of the Jewish War Veterans organization when he stepped up to the microphone. Looking around at the empty hall, Zweiman asked: “Does that give you an indication of how important this is?”

The JCPA's executive director, Rabbi Steve Gutow, perplexed: “It is very odd that the organizations have not taken stands on Iraq.”

Where is Maimonides when you really need him?

— Barnett Axelrad

Iraq War: RJC vs. URJ = Pee Wee vs. Arnold

On Monday, the Union for Reform Judaism (URJ) leadership meets to consider a resolution calling for a “timetable for the phased and expeditious withdrawal of United States troops from Iraq” and comes down against the Bush administration’s “escalation” of U.S. troop strength there. The policy statement, however, doesn’t demand that Congress cut off funding for the war. [For more details, see our post of March 6.]

Nonetheless, the Republican Jewish Coalition [RJC] is shocked — shocked! — writes James D. Besser in the March 9 edition of the New York Jewish Week. (Click {here} to read his article.)

According to Besser, an RJC spokesman sputtered that the Reform movement is being “hijacked by politically motivated efforts to undermine the war on terrorism.”

But Rabbi David Saperstein, director of the Religious Action Center of Reform Judaism, isn’t fazed. Recent polls, he notes, show American Jews overwhelmingly oppose the war [see our post of Feb. 28.], and two-thirds of non-Democratic Jews currently line up against the war.

Ira Forman, director of the NJC’s counterpart, the National Jewish Democratic Council, gets the prize for pith. “I don’t get it,” he says.

If you read the polls these guys don’t even represent the views of most Republican Jews. Now they are picking a fight with the largest Jewish denomination in America — it’s like Pee Wee Herman trying to pick a fist fight with Arnold Schwarzenegger.”

— Barnett Axelrad

Pundits on parade

Ha’aretz correspondent Shmuel Rosner writes a monthly column in which Israel’s pundits sound off about “whom the consider to be the best [US] candidate for Israel.”

But quite rightly M. J. Rosenberg, director of the Israel Policy Forum’s Washington office, finds this offensive.

“[I]t smacks,” he writes in his March 9 on-line column — click {here} to read it in its entirety — “of a bunch of non-Americans telling Americans how to vote.”

Moreover, as Rosenberg points out, Rosner's pundit panel is wildly out of touch with American Jews’ political sentiments:

The flaws in Rosner’s poll come through loud and clear in his most recent results. The three candidates deemed “best for Israel” are Rudy Giuliani, John McCain and Newt Gingrich. All the Democratic contenders rate well below this top tier. Newt Gingrich! Newt is a significant political figure but I doubt that 5% of American Jews would choose him for President.

And, if history is any guide, when the November 2008 election comes around, American Jews are going to vote overwhelmingly Democratic for President, no matter which Democrat or Republican is the respective party’s nominee.

We know that because since 1928, Jewish voters have chosen the Democratic candidate, usually with at least 75% of the total vote. This is not because they believe Democrats to be more pro-Israel but because, on the wide array of issues facing the American people, they have been more comfortable with the Democrats than with the Republicans.

“Candidates who address American Jews as if their only concern is Israel are out of line,” Rosenberg concludes:

In fact, they cross the line between pandering and out-and-out insulting the Jewish community.

We do care about Israel, and deeply so. That is why we want to see Israel living at peace with the Palestinians. Those who think they will win our support by offering policies that promise Israel nothing but more war – while assuming that their positions on domestic issues are less important to us – will soon learn otherwise. This community has been called many things. “Stupid” is not among them.

— Posted by Adam Simms

US Jews toughest foes of Iraq war

By Haviv Rettig, Jerusalem Post 2/27/07
Read the full article here.

Jews are more strongly opposed to the Iraq War - and have been since before it began - than any other American religious group, according to an analysis of Gallup polls conducted since 2005 that was released over the weekend by The Gallup Organization.

Asked if "the United States made a mistake in sending troops to Iraq," 77 percent of American Jews said it had, while only 21% believed the deployment was not a mistake.

This figure is in marked contrast to the American average, where only 52% indicated opposition to the war and 46% indicated support.

The Jewish opposition to the war, according to Gallup figures, is not new, and preceded most Americans turning against the war. In the first two years of the war (2003 and 2004), when 52% of Americans supported the war, 61% of Jews opposed it. Even before the beginning of hostilities in 2002 and early 2003, US Jews supported the war by just 49% to 48%. Americans generally supported it by 57% to 37%.

The Gallup figures also show that Jewish opposition to the war is not explainable by the high Democratic Party affiliation among Jews. Even within the Democratic Party, Jewish opposition to the war was greater than that expressed by non-Jewish Democrats. In polls taken from 2005 to 2007, 89% of Jewish Democrats opposed the war and just 8% supported it, while non-Jewish Democrats opposed the war by 78% to 20%.

The Gallup Organization itself noted that "these data show that the average American Jew - even those who are Republicans and may support the Bush administration on other matters - opposes the war."

The study also found that, though Protestants as a whole were evenly divided on the war (49% for and 48% against), African-American Protestants (who were grouped with other Protestants because the study divided according to religions) opposed the war in equal measure to the Jews, with 78% opposing the war and 18% supporting.

The Jews even outpaced Americans with "no religious affiliation," who took second-place with 66% opposed and 33% in favor. Catholics came in third with 53% opposed and 46% in favor. Mormons, meanwhile, were most supportive of the war, with 72% in favor and 27% against.

(©) The Jerusalem Post

-- Posted by Barnett Axelrad