PLAYING ETHNIC POLITICS AT GROUND ZERO
SAM SMITH, PROGRESSIVE REVIEW - One of the reasons Rep. Jim Moran thinks
Jewish leaders are powerful is because the ones he sees are. Jews
outside of Washington - like gun-owners, doctors, and Chamber of
Commerce members outside of Washington - don't have a strong sense of
just how precisely their "community" is defined daily by capital
lobbyists.
There is no doubt - if one considers the 'Jewish community' as the
American Israel Public Affairs Committee and various large Jewish
campaign contributors - that Rep. Moran was quite correct in saying that
they could have a significant effect on the course of our policy in the
Middle East. For example, it took only three days for them to have a
significant effect on the course of Rep. Moran's career, getting his
cowardly colleagues to force out of his House leadership position.
Earlier, they helped to have a similar effect on Rep Cynthia McKinney,
who went down to defeat thanks in part to an influx of pro-Israel money.
The fact that this Washington leadership may not accurately reflect the
diversity of its national constituency is not uniquely a Jewish problem;
it is part of the displacement of democracy from the consensus of the
many to the will of a select few that is speeding the decline of the
Republic. And never have the selected been fewer than under the present
Bush.
In talking about all this, politicians and the media use two different
approaches. One is the sanitized patois of ethnic sensitivity as in this
from the perpetually predictable Eleanor Clift: "Moran apologized, but
the historical echoes that he awakened are so antithetical to what
Democrats claim to stand for that he might as well bid goodbye to his
political career."
But in the same article in which he quotes Clift, Greg Pierce of the
Washington Times also writes, "One political analyst said he counseled
two Democratic presidential campaigns to call for Moran's resignation.
'It would be a cheap way to reassure Jewish voters,' he said. 'I don't
understand why they haven't done it yet.'"
In other words, what is considered anti-Semitic when stated at a town
meetings, becomes in another context just your standard keen political
analysis.
When you look at the facts rather than the Washington rhetoric, you find
that Moran was even more right than it appeared at first. A study by
Belief Net found that only Jewish groups and the South Baptist
Convention supported the military approach and every other major
domination listed opposed it. True, the Southern Baptists were
unequivocally in favor of war while the Jewish groups - Orthodox Union,
Union Of American Hebrew Congregations (Reform), and United Synagogue Of
Conservative Judaism - wanted to exhaust other alternatives first, but
every other religion Belief Net checked opposed the war including the
Evangelical Lutheran Church of America, Episcopal Church, Greek Orthodox
Church in America, Mormons - Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day
Saints, Presbyterian Church (USA), Quakers - American Friends Service
Committee, United Church of Christ, United Methodist Church, United
States Conference of Catholic Bishops, Council on American-Islamic
Relations and the Unitarian Universalist Association. The Catholics
weren't included but the Pope has taken a clear stand against the war.
So why go to such efforts to deliberately conceal and prevaricate
concerning the role of key Jewish organizations in supporting the Iraq
invasion?
Part of the answer can be found in none other than the hypocritically
outraged Washington Post, in an article written by its White House
correspondent, Dana Milbank, last November:
"A group of U.S. political consultants has sent pro-Israel leaders a
memo urging them to keep quiet while the Bush administration pursues a
possible war with Iraq. The six-page memo was sent by the Israel
Project, a group funded by American Jewish organizations and individual
donors. Its authors said the main audience was American Jewish leaders,
but much of the memo's language is directed toward Israelis. The memo
reflects a concern that involvement by Israel in a U.S.-Iraq
confrontation could hurt Israel's standing in American public opinion
and undermine international support for a hard line against Iraqi
President Saddam Hussein. . .
"The Iraq memo was issued in the past few weeks and labeled
'confidential property of the Israel Project,' which is led by
Democratic consultant Jennifer Laszlo Mizrahi with help from Democratic
pollster Stan Greenberg and Republican pollsters Neil Newhouse and Frank
Luntz. Several of the consultants have advised Israeli politicians, and
the group aired a pro-Israel ad earlier this year. 'If your goal is
regime change, you must be much more careful with your language because
of the potential backlash,' said the memo, titled 'Talking About Iraq.'
"It added: 'You do not want Americans to believe that the war on Iraq is
being waged to protect Israel rather than to protect America.' In
particular, the memo urged Israelis to pipe down about the possibility
of Israel responding to an Iraqi attack. 'Such certainty may be Israeli
policy, but asserting it publicly and so overtly will not sit well with
a majority of Americans because it suggests a pre-determined outcome
rather than a measured approach,' it said."
This is not the first time this strategy has been tried. For example, in
January 1991, David Rogers of the Wall Street Journal wrote:
"When Congress debated going to war with Iraq, the pro-Israel lobby
stayed in the background - but not out of the fight. Leaders of the
American-Israel Public Affairs Committee now acknowledge it worked in
tandem with the Bush administration to win passage of a resolution
authorizing the president to commit U.S. troops to combat. The
behind-the-scenes campaign avoided Aipac's customary high profile in the
Capitol and relied instead on activists-calling sometimes from Israel
itself-to contact lawmakers and build on public endorsements by major
Jewish organizations. "Yes, we were active." says Aipac director Thomas
Dine. "These are the great issues of our time, If you sit on the
sidelines, you have no voice. . . "
"Rarely have the stakes been higher-or has a case of money and ethnic
politics been more sensitive and complex. The debate revealed a deep
ambivalence among Jewish lawmakers over what course to follow, pitting
their generally liberal instincts against their support of Israel.
Friends and families were divided. And even as some pro-Israel advocates
urged a more aggressive stance, there was concern that the lobby risked
damaging Israel's longer term interests if the issue became too
identified with Jewish or pro-Israel polities.
". . . Aipac took pains to disguise its role, and there was quiet relief
that the vote showed no solid Jewish bloc in favor of a war so relevant
to Israel. "It isn't such a bad idea that we were split," says one
Jewish lawmaker. . .
"Pro-Israel PACs have poured money into campaigns for Southern Democrats
not immediately identified with their cause. For example, the Alabama
delegation voted in a bloc with Mr. Bush in both the House and Senate.
At first glance, this can be ascribed to the conservative, pro military
character of the state. But pro-Israel PACs have also cultivated
Democrats there in recent years."
It is hard to imagine such a frank description of ethnic politics today.
Thus it is not surprising that few know that the aforementioned Thomas
Dines, then executive director of AIPAC and now head of Radio Free
Europe and Radio Liberty - is a member of the advisory committee of the
Committee for the Liberation of Iraq.
The Post, which didn't mentioned Dines' involvement in plotting the
seizure of Iraq, described the new organization as "modeled on a
successful lobbying campaign to expand the NATO alliance."
In fact, the last time the Post even mentioned AIPAC was back in August
before the Iraq invasion plot took full shape. So you have to look
elsewhere to find out what the Jewish leadership has been up to. For
example, the Jerusalem Post reported last October:
"After weeks of debate and consideration, the Conference of Presidents
of Major American Jewish Organizations, which represents 52 Jewish
national groups, announced its support for US military action against
Iraq "as a last resort." In a statement released Saturday, the
Conference of Presidents announced that all of its member groups
"support President [George W.] Bush and the Congress in their efforts to
gain unequivocal Iraqi compliance with the obligation to divest itself
of weapons of mass destruction and the means to develop such weapons."
The statement also endorsed the Bush administration's "efforts to enlist
the United Nations and international cooperation to secure Iraqi
compliance, including the use of force as a last resort."
The chairman of the group, Mortimer Zuckerman went a bit further,
declaring that the failure to attack Iraq would "ruin American
credibility in the Muslim world."
In its news release, the conference of presidents said:
"Mortimer B. Zuckerman, Chairman, and Malcolm Hoenlein, Executive Vice
Chairman of the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish
Organizations issued a statement today 'reflecting the consensus of the
member organizations of the Conference of Presidents,' in which they
declare support for "President Bush and the Congress in their efforts to
gain unequivocal Iraqi compliance with the obligation to divest itself
of weapons of mass destruction and the means to develop such weapons.
Iraq must conform to the resolutions adopted by the Security Council and
the other standards which President Bush has specified. Such disarmament
must not be hindered by Iraqi attempts to continue the pattern of
obfuscation and other means of non-compliance.' The statement of the
Jewish leaders continues, 'We support the efforts to enlist the United
Nations and international cooperation to secure Iraqi compliance,
including the use of force as a last resort.'"
Now let us imagine that the 52 Jewish organizations had instead reached
a consensus that invading Iraq was illegal, unwise, unconstitutional,
and an act of reckless endangerment against the whole world. Would that
have influenced American policy? Of course it would.
The irony of all this is that it is primarily worth writing about
because the Democratic House leadership, the Washington Post, the White
House and some Jewish organizations have lied and tried to pretend it
isn't so, not to mention viciously libeling a congress member who
wouldn't go along with the gag. At a time when the Post is urging its
readers to stock up on several days' food and buy gas masks because of
the possible consequences of the internationally criminal policies it so
vigorously supports, we should no longer have time or tolerance for such
cynical games. If you want to die for your own faith, fine, but you have
no right to take the rest of the world with you.
The danger of the dishonest debate about the Middle East was well
described by Joan Didion in a recent New York Review of Books, quoted by
Bill and Kathleen Christison in Counterpunch:
"[We need to] demystify the question of why we have become unable to
discuss our relationship with the current government of Israel. Whether
the actions taken by that government constitute self-defense or a
particularly inclusive form of self-immolation remains an open question.
The question of course has a history.
"This open question, and its history, are discussed rationally and with
considerable intellectual subtlety in Jerusalem and Tel Aviv. Where the
question is not discussed rationally, where in fact the question is
rarely discussed at all, since so few of us are willing to see our
evenings turn toxic, is in New York and Washington and in those academic
venues where the attitudes and apprehensions of New York and Washington
have taken hold. The president of Harvard recently warned that
criticisms of the current government of Israel could be construed as
'anti-Semitic in their effect if not their intent.'
"The very question of the US relationship with Israel, in other words,
has come to be seen as unraisable, potentially lethal, the
conversational equivalent of an unclaimed bag on a bus. We take cover.
We wait for the entire subject to be defused, safely insulated behind
baffles of invective and counter-invective. Many opinions are expressed.
Few are allowed to develop. Even fewer change."
What we are facing is, in major part, a religious war in which bin
Laden, Bush and Sharon comprise a triptych of theological terror that is
putting everyone at great risk. They are each involved in a vicious
heresy, falsely defining their own immoral, sadistic ambitions as their
religion's moral faith. This is no time for politeness, politics or
silence. And while Jews are far from alone in needing to call their
leadership back to sanity, neither are they exempt.
A PROGRESSIVE JEWISH RESPONSE
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