JTA: The Global News Service of the Jewish People

NJDC: Let’s focus on the federal election

By Eric Fingerhut · November 5, 2009

The National Jewish Democratic Council focused on the House race in New York in its statement on Tuesday's elections.

"We were deeply gratified last night to see that wherever federal issues came into play, Democratic candidates were victorious," said NJDC CEO Ira Forman. "A Republican Party that continues to move far to the right – resulting in defeated candidates like the Conservative Party’s Doug Hoffman – will continue to alienate Jewish voters in the future."

The group also said it was disappointed by the results in Virginia and New Jersey. The full statement is after the jumpRead More >>>

0 Comments | Share This |

McCollum lectures ambassador on J Street

By Eric Fingerhut · November 4, 2009

Rep. Betty McCollum (D-Minn.) didn't like the Israeli ambassador's decision to skip the J Street conference last week, so she wrote him a letter -- a fairly harsh one -- telling him he was wrong.

McCollum wrote that the embassy's statement that certain J Street policies may impair the interests of Israel" was an "interesting rationale for rejecting an invitation for discussion."

"Your government's reluctance to engage in a meaningful dialogue with progressive American Jews and non-Jewish supporters of Israel sends the wrong message to many Americans and to this Member of Congress," she wrote to Ambassador Michael Oren, adding that "if absolute agreement between American interests and Israeli interests is the requirement for dialogue then our bilateral relationship would have been silent for decades."

Identifying herself as an "American, a Christian, and a member of Congress," McCollum says the policies that J Street is promoting do not "impair the interests of Israel" but that ignoring "a large and gorwing American voice working to supporting the U.S.-Israeli relationship ... truly would impair the interests of Israel."

McCollum previously had a run-in with AIPAC in 2006, demanding an apology after she said a representative of the group accused her of supporting terrorists for voting against legislation banning assistance to the Palestinian Authority. She later reconciled with the organization. She also declined to attend a Christians United for Israel event in 2007, calling the views of founder John Hagee "repugnant."

Read McCollum's entire letter here.

2 Comments | Share This |

RJC: Independents have ‘buyers’ remorse’

By Eric Fingerhut · November 4, 2009

The Republican Jewish Coalition is crowing about the GOP win in gubernatorial races in Virginia and New Jersey Tuesday.

"This off-year election was an indication of the 'buyers' remorse' felt by independent voters who have found the 'Hope and Change' mantra of 2008 to be lacking," said RJC executive director Matt Brooks in a press release. He went on to note that both winners, Bob McDonnell and Chris Christie, are "are long-time friends of the Jewish community, pro-Israel, and strong on national security issues."

National Jewish Democratic Council CEO Ira Forman responded that the losses by Democrats Creigh Deeds in Virginia and incumbent Jon Corzine in New Jersey were much more due to local issues such as taxes and jobs in their states, and noted that President Obama's job approval rating in both states, according to exit polls, was at least 50 percent.

The complete RJC statement is after the jump:

Republican Jewish Coalition (RJC)  Executive Director Matt Brooks said today:
 
We congratulate the Republicans who won their races yesterday. This off-year election was an indication of the "buyers' remorse" felt by independent voters who have found the "Hope and Change" mantra of 2008 to be lacking.
 
The American people have seen that Democrats remain committed to higher taxes, increased spending, expanding entitlements, greater bureaucracy, higher deficits, and regulatory restrictions on the free market that hurt every family.
 
Bob McDonnell (VA) and Chris Christie (NJ) actively campaigned in the Jewish community in their quests for the governor's office. Both are long-time friends of the Jewish community, pro-Israel, and strong on national security issues.
 

0 Comments | Share This |

AIPAC, OU praise Goldstone resolution passage

By Eric Fingerhut · November 3, 2009

Statements lauding the House for passing the resolution condemning the Goldstone report have started to roll in, and among the first was AIPAC's.

"As the Obama administration has said, the Goldstone Report is based on an anti-Israel UN Human Rights Council mandate, makes unacceptable recommendations and undermines the peace process, said the pro-Israel lobby in a statement. "Echoing the Obama administration's condemnation and calling for concrete action, Congress is sending a strong message that the United States will not agree to turn the victim into the perpetrator."

The Orthodox Union also has weighed in. "The importance of continued Congressional recognition and condemnation of international bias against Israel cannot be understated, and we applaud today’s effort toward that goal," said the group.

AIPAC's full statement is after the jumpRead More >>>

2 Comments | Share This |

Foxman to Goldstone: Recant

By Ron Kampeas · November 3, 2009

The ADL's Abe Foxman wants Richard Goldstone to reepudiate his report accusing Israel of committing war crimes during last winter's Gaza war.

Foxman's address to the Oct. 30 ADL national meeting was redistributed today, on the eve of consideration of the report by the U.N. General Assembly as an open letter to Goldstone. 

In it, the ADL's nhational director notes Goldstone's accomplishments as a judge and a friend of Israel, but says he was dangerously naive if he thought he could sway the manifestly anti-Israe4l U.N. Human Rights Council, which commissioned the report:

I have had great respect for you over the years.  Your work at the head of the South Africa Reconciliation Commission and in helping to find a just solution to the Bosnian conflict deserves the highest commendation.

Moreover, I know you to be a proud Jew who serves on the Board of Trustees of Hebrew University and who has a daughter living in Israel.

With this background, I wondered in the first place how you could take on the chairmanship of the investigation of the war in Gaza mandated by the U.N. Human Rights Council.  After all, the Human Rights Council has repeatedly demonstrated its bias against Israel and in its stated mission for the investigation began with assumptions presuming Israeli guilt.

And, of course, after the report was finished and became public, I wondered how you could lend your name to a report that turned reality on its head, that undermined Israel’s right to self-defense (was there ever a more just war than this, about a country that absorbed thousands of rockets targeted at civilians for eight years), and that corrupted the vital international war against Islamic extremism and against terror in general.

I want to give you the benefit of the doubt.  I know that you are moral and principled.  I surely don’t agree with the attacks that label you a self-hating Jew.  And I find it hard to believe that considering your independence in the past, that you were pandering to certain human rights groups and left-wing intellectuals always looking for Western nations and institutions to indict out of some deep guilt about colonialism.

How then can I explain your behavior?  I am left with the belief that you actually thought you were tempering an inevitable assault on Israel through the Council by serving as chair and by labeling Hamas as well as guilty of war crimes.  I have to believe that you convinced yourself that you were trying to help Israel not only by creating tremendous pressure on Israel to set up its own independent investigation, but also by placing Hamas on trial for its behavior.

If that were the case, then you are guilty of dangerous naiveté that has placed the state of Israel and the Jewish people in significant danger.

Full text of the release below the jump:

Congress debates Goldstone

By Ron Kampeas · November 3, 2009

The U.S. House of Representatives is debating a resolution condemning the Goldstone report, the U.N. Human Rights Council-mandated report into last winter's Gaza war, and which accuses Israel and Hamas of war crimes.

The non-binding resolution demands that the Obama administration do what it can to keep the report from advancing through the U.N. system.

It's an unusual set up. Debate on such resolutions, if they're mother and apple pie enough, are controlled  by the resolution's sponsor; If it is on a partisan matter, or if there are two sponsors, one from either party, there are two traffic controllers, one for Democrats, one for Republicans.

There are three "traffic controllers" this evening: U.S. Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen (R-Fla.), the senior Republican on the House Foreign Affairs Committee who introduced the resolution; Rep. Howard Berman (D-Calif.), the committee chairman who co-sponsored the resolution; and Rep. Keith Ellison (D-Minn.), the member who visited Gaza in the war's immediate aftermath, and who opposes the resolution.

Another wrinkle:

Ros-Lehtinen objects to Ellison's request to enter the 574-page report into the Congressional Record. Rep. Brian Baird (D-Wash.), who opposes the resolution and who accompanied Ellison to Gaza, objects to Ros-Lehtinen's objection, saying that an opening statement allowing the entry of extraneous documents applies generally.

Berman appears to back Ellison's request, although noting that there is a page limit -- no one seems to know what it is -- beyond which the clerk must estimate the cost. Ros-Lehtinen then emphasizes that she wants to know how much it would "cost the taxpayers for the printing of the biased report."

The resolution passes by acclamation -- the acting Speaker (whom I can't place) casts her eyes about the room and sees two thirds standing in "aye." Ros Lehtinen exercises her right to ask for a count, not because she can't believe she won, but because it's a fun way to target those who voted against come election time.

The count, ultimately, is 344 for, 36 against (all but three are Democrats) and 22 "present."

During the debate, much of the opposition has to do with how the House leadership placed the resolution on the "suspension calendar" which brings it straight to the floor, bypassing committees. This is not unusual -- for mom and apple pie resolutions (from commemorating major U.S. victories to naming post offices).  It is for controversial resolutions. I'll leave it to the reader to decide if 344-36-22 is controversial. (Not being ironical, I genuinely am chickening out of this call.)

Here's Ellison:

Why are you voting on a resolution without holding a single hearing?

Ellison and others on his side want Goldstone to testify, and each person speaking in opposition notes that Goldstone's report treats both sides in the conflict.

Other notable quotes from the opposition:

 -Rep. Donna Edwards (D-Md.) quotes David Ben-Gurion: "Without moral and intellectual independence, there's no anchor for national independence."

- Baird holds up photos, first of Israeli children in Sderot undergoing a bombing drill, and then of a father mourning three dead toddlers in Gaza. He talks so long even Ellison asks him to shut up. Must have been a companionable trip.

- Rep. Barbara Lee (D-Calif.) is one of several opposing the resolution who note that Goldstone's report has an out for Israel: Investigate yourself.

- Reps. John Dingell (D-Mich.) and Betty McCollum (D-Minn.) both argue that the resolution harms U.S. security by damaging its reputation as  an honest broker. "American-made white phsosphorous shells were used by Israel in civilian areas, causing horrible burns to Palestinian children," McCollum says. "There must be only one standard for respecting human rights."

- Rep. Bill Delahunt (D-Mass.) says he will vote "present," because he is upset his colleagues haven't read the report. "I havent had the time to read 575 pages," he says. "The process has been totally inadequate."

- Rep. Dennis Kucinich (D-Ohio), who sounds a little too practised at sounding outraged, comes up with presidential debate -worthy quips about voting for up is down, night is day, etc. (Some anti-Kucinich bug erased my notes on his speech.)

In support:

- Most fiery in support is the majority leader, U.S. Rep. Steny Hoyer (D-Md.). Baird had scored his colleagues for not even having visited Gaza; Hoyer bellows: "They (Hamas) targeted civilians. How do I know?" (Glares in Baird's direction.) "I've been there!"

Hoyer says he respects Kucinich and agrees that the Palestinians deserve Americans' empathy: "We ought to have empathy for the Palestinians who have been put at great risk by their leaders. Why are they there? Because the Arab community does not want to absorb them and its leaders will not seek a meaningful peace."

Hoyer (and Berman in his wrapup) also note what they say are the dangers of allowing the report to progress: Inhibiting warfare against terrorists, dealing with "asymmetrical" threats.

- Ros Lehtinen keeps introducing colleagues by enumerating their committee memberships; it seems a lot of Republicans who don't like Goldstone serve on the Agriculture Committee.

- Rep. Dan Burton (R-Ind.) imagines rockets raining into Indiana from Michigan. This metaphor usually invokes neighboring countries -- Hoyer mentions Canada and Mexico -- not states; my brain is stuck on a snapshot of thousands of infuriated Hoosiers paddling across Lake Michigan.

He also says his colleagues, well, bug him. "There shouldn't be one vote -- not one vote -- against Israel. These people who have been making these comments on the other side of the aisle really bother me."

- Rep. Eric Cantor (R-Va.), the minority whip, is one of several speaking in support of the resolution who note that Israel ceded Gaza in 2005. "Every time it [Israel] makes concessions in peace it results in terrorism."

- Rep. Phil Roe (R-Tenn.) is outraged that the report concludes that Israel was deliberately targeting civilians and says that the report -- and the process that led to it -- should prompt the Obama administration to reconsider its decision to join and fund the UNHRC.

- Berman wraps up and addresses his colleagues' critiques. He too would have preferred more time, but notes that the UNHRC endorsement of the report is due to be debated Wednesday in the U.N. General Assembly:

What's the rush? The only rush -- I would prefer we had more time, I would prefer we had more discussion -- but the U.N. General Assembly wants to send this to U.N. Security Council and then then to the International Criminal Court.

He also makes this eloquent point to those who opposed the resolution and noted Goldstone's record as a judge and prosecutor, helping to bring about an end to Apartheid in his native South Africa, find Nazis in Argentina, prosecute war crimes in Rwanda and the former Yugoslavia. Some of Berman's favorite judges joined in the World War II-era decision to intern Japanese, he says, and continues:

They are still my favorite justices -- but they made a mistake.

0 Comments | Share This |

ZOA: Clinton whitewashing Fatah conference

By Eric Fingerhut · November 3, 2009

The Zionist Organization of America is criticizing Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, saying she "whitewashes and ignores" what occurred at the Fatah Conference earlier this year. Clinton was responding to a letter from Sen. Arlen Specter (D-Pa.) in which he said he was concerned about reports that the August meeting "served as a platform for participants to launch vitriol against Israel, incite violence and further impede the peace process." The conference included participants that refused to renounce violence and passed confrontational resolutions, including one blaming Israel for the death of Yasser Arafat. Clinton responded in an Oct. 23 letter:

At the Congress, President Mahmoud Abbas and the Fatah leadership reaffirmed Fatah's strategic choice to support a peaceful resolution of the conflict and respect for the Quartet principles, including previous commitments of the PLO. Among those who were elected during the Congress to the new Fatah Central Committee and Fatah Revolutionary Council, there appears to be a broad consensus supporting President Abbas, negotiations with Israel, and the two-state solution. As you point out in your letter, however, some individual Fatah delegates issued problematic texts and statements during the Congress. It is important to note that those texts and statements did not represent Fatah’s official positions and the overwhelming majority of Fatah delegates at the Congress made clear their support for peace and a negotiated two-state solution.

The ZOA sent its own letter to the secretary of state epressing its disappointment:

"We are surprised and deeply concerned at your response to Senator Specter," said the organization in its letter. "As Senator, you distinguished yourself by pointing to the poisonous and vile incitement to hatred and murder that permeates the Palestinian Authority. You even said that such incitement would have ‘dire consequences for peace for generations to come’ and that ‘It is clear that the Palestinian Authority, as we see on PA TV, is complicit’ in terrorist attacks and that we should condition U.S. aid to the PA on a ‘cessation of Palestinian propaganda and hateful rhetoric.’ Yet, to our dismay, we find now that you are not only neglecting to recognize the clear extremism of the Fatah Conference ant its platform but actually praising it for its commitment to peace and rebutting Senator Specter’s urgings to condition funding to the Palestinian Authority on it upholding a truly moderate and peaceful approach."

The complete ZOA press release is after the jumpRead More >>>

1 Comment | Share This |

Brownback wants to remove the waiver in embassy law

By Eric Fingerhut · November 3, 2009

Sen. Sam Brownback (R-Kansas) is planning to introduce legislation today or tomorrow that would remove the presidential waiver from the law calling for the U.S. Embassy to be moved from Tel Aviv to Jersualem. He announced his sponsorship of the Jersualem Embassy Relocation Act of 2009 on Tuesday afternoon at a Capitol Hill meeting of the Jerusalem Conference.

The legislation would call on the State Department to move the U.S. Embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem and get rid of the waiver in the 1995 Jerusalem Embassy Law that every president since then has renewed every six months.

The Orthodox Union praised the legislation. Their press release is after the jumpRead More >>>

0 Comments | Share This |

J Street: Israel not doing enough on settlements

By Eric Fingerhut · November 3, 2009

Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said over the weekend that Israel had made "unprecedented" concessions on settlements, then on Monday walked those comments back a little -- still maintaining it was "unprecedented" but saying it wasn't enough.

J Street focused on the "not enough" portion of those remarks in its press release.

"Though we welcome the government of Israel's expressed willingness to restrain settlement growth, we echo the Secretary's statement today in Morocco that offers made to date fall far short of the Obama administration's position and preference," said J Street executive director Jeremy Ben-Ami. "Any settlement expansion is a threat to Israel's future as a democratic home for the Jewish people and undermines American national interests."

The group also, while not naming names, lobbed some criticism at others in the Jewish community (this AIPAC statement, perhaps?)

"We believe it is a serious mistake for friends of Israel and those who seek an end to conflict to claim victory in the PR battle over who deserves more or less of the blame or credit for the current impasse in negotiations," said Ben-Ami. "We share the concern expressed by Rabbi Eric Yoffie, President of the Union of Reform Judaism, that 'time is not the ally of peace in this situation.. [and that we will] wake up shortly to confront an emerging consensus - not only from our enemies but from our friends - that a two-state solution must give way to a one-state solution.'"

Here's the full J Street statementRead More >>>

1 Comment | Share This |

Congress’ updated Goldstone resolution

By Ron Kampeas · November 3, 2009

The office of U.S. Rep. Howard Berman (D-Calif.), the chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, just sent out its additions and emendments to a resolution condemning the Goldstone report and urging its quashing by the Obama administration.

The report into last winter's Gaza war accuses Israel and Hamas of war crimes; the U.N. Human Rights Council, which mandated the fact-finding mission led by Richard Goldstone, last month endorsed the report and launched it through the U.N. system.

The congressional resolution, introduced last week by U.S. Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen (R-Fla.), the ranking member of Berman's committee, wants the United States to do what it can to keep Goldstone's report from advancing further.

Goldstone wrote Berman a letter last week objecting to elements of the resolution; His major objection was to how the resolution condemned his report,  which accuses both Israel and Hamas of war crimes, but focused on the UNHRC's original mandate which accuses only Israel.

The new language addresses Goldstone's complaints, albeit in a way that notes that his efforts to expand the UNHRC's mandate  ultimately were fruitless, however he framed his own report.

The new language also makes more specific how it wants the Obama administration to keep the report from advancing.

The new language is below the jump.