COEJL wants a climate change bill (CORRECTED)
The Coalition on the Environment and Jewish Life is ready to work for comprehensive climate change legislation in the Senate.
"Today we urge the United States Senate to move quickly to enact comprehensive climate and energy legislation built on strong, science-based targets for reducing greenhouse gas emissions; targeted protections for low-income individuals and families; and robust financing for international adaptation programs that live up to our obligations to the most vulnerable around the world," wrote Jewish Council for Public Affairs president Rabbi Steve Gutow and Religious Action Center of Reform Judaism director Rabbi David Saperstein, on behalf of COEJL, in a statement.
The full statement is after the jumpRead More >>>
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AJC: Goldstone report ‘utterly discredited’
The American Jewish Committee is calling the conclusions of the Goldstone commission "utterly discredited" and says the UN should "put an end" to it.
AJC executive director David Harris also states: “Judge Goldstone described Israel’s own investigations into allegations of wrong-doing by IDF personnel as ‘pusillanimous.’ I wonder what is the appropriate word for the Goldstone Commission, which convicted Israel before its investigation had even begun, which barely mentioned the suffering of Israelis living with endless Hamas rocket attacks, and which received its mandate from the UN Human Rights Council – a body which, as the US Assistant Secretary of State noted in his statement, pays ‘grossly disproportionate’ attention to Israel.”
The full press release is after the jumpRead More >>>
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Misquoting the Israeli ambassador on Yom Kippur—not a good way to start the year
When I first read this piece on ForeignPolicy.com about Israeli Ambassador Michael Oren's appearance at Washington, D.C.'s Adas Israel Congregation on Yom Kippur afternoon, I wondered how exactly the reporter had such extensive quotes from Oren. Did he take notes in a synagogue on Yom Kippur? Record it? The Atlantic's Jeffrey Goldberg, who was leading the dialogue with Oren at the shul, was obviously even more curious, especially because the reporter had incorrectly reported a statement Oren made on Monday.
Josh Rogin reported that Oren said "Israel had no choice but to hold in reserve its right to strike Iran first, saying, 'If you know someone is going to cause harm to your family, you are compelled to launch a preemptive strike against them. You can't let that person come.' "
Goldberg responds:
In fact, Oren was quoting from the Talmud -- and said he was -- and he was referring to the recent war in Gaza, not to some future theoretical war with Iran. In truth, despite my best efforts, he would barely say anything about Iran. On Gaza, though, he was pugnacious. When I asked him if he believed, per our rabbi's sermon about the need to learn even from your enemies, if Judge Goldstone could teach him anything about Israeli behavior, he brushed the question aside, and then talked about Israeli restraint in the face of Hamas rocket attacks. It was at that point that he quoted the Talmud on the moral necessity of protecting one's family from attack. Iran was not part of the conversation.
And then he asks Rogin how exactly he covered the talk -- and doesn't quite believe the response he received:
I e-mailed Rogin this morning with a question: Had he taped the dialogue, or taken notes on it? For those non-Jews out there, or for my apostate Jewish readers (some of my best friends are apostate Jews), it would be a violation of the law and spirit of Yom Kippur to do either thing. Rogin e-mailed me back the following: "I attended the talk and wrote the story from notes I jotted down when I got home. I assumed a recording device would not be kosher."
What is also not kosher, of course, is quoting from memory! I don't know a single journalist who could accurately reproduce 90-word quotes after a single hearing.
Foreign Policy has since posted what Goldberg calls an "incomplete" correction.
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More on that AJC poll
I have a story up on the new American Jewish Commitee poll. The full results are here at the AJC Website, but the key findings:
Fifty-six percent of American Jews would support the “United States taking military action against Iran to prevent it from developing nuclear weapons,” according to the American Jewish Committee's 2009 Annual Survey of Jewish Opinion. That's an increase of 14 percentage points from the AJC survey taken in the fall of 2008. In addition, 66 percent of those surveyed said they would back an Israeli strike on Iran.
The survey of 800 self-identifying Jewish respondents, interviewed between Aug. 30 and Sept. 17, comes as a wide swath of Jewish organizations are rallying support in the Jewish community and elsewhere for increased economic and diplomatic pressure on Iran -- in particular tough sanctions targeting Iran's importation and production of refined petroleum. With a margin of error of plus or minus three percent, the poll would appear to undercut the claims of some who charge that Jewish organizations are out of step with the Jewish public in pushing for pressure on Iran.....Forty-nine percent of those surveyed favor the establishment of a Palestinian state, with 41 percent opposed.
Sixty percent favor the dismantlement of some or all of the Jewish settlements in the West Bank, compared to 37 percent who say none. On the other hand, 58 percent say Israel should not be “willing to compromise on the status of Jerusalem as a united city under Israeli jurisdiction,” with just 37 percent in favor. And 51 percent of respondents disagree with the Obama administration's call for a halt to new settlement construction, while 41 percent agree.
American Jews are extremely skeptical of Arab intentions in the Middle East. Asked whether they agreed or disagreed that "the goal of the Arabs is not the return of occupied territories but rather the destruction of Israel,” 75 percent said yes and just 19 percent said no. But that is down from 82 percent who agreed two years ago, the last time the AJC asked the question.
Jim Besser at The Jewish Week likes the simplicity of the questions in the survey, but says they also leave him wanting to know more:
The most fascinating number and the one most reporters glommed on to is in question 14: “Would you support or oppose the United States taking military action against Iran to prevent it from developing nuclear weapons?”
I like the sparseness of the question; none of this “would you support military action against the radical leaders in Iran who have repeatedly threatened Israel with annihilation” stuff.
56 percent said they’d support a military strike, 36 said they wouldn’t, and the numbers were a complete reversal from 2007.
Why the huge change? Does it mean plummeting confidence in sanctions? Does it reflect the work Jewish leaders have been doing to alert the community to the dangers? Does it reflect broader public opinion in America? On that last point, the survey data is contradictory.
Meanwhile, Shmuel Rosner at the Jerusalem Post says the numbers on settlements are a surprise:
I think that the major finding - maybe the major blow to Obama's policies - is not-even-well-hidden in the question about settlements: "Do you agree or disagree with the Obama Administration's call for a stop to all new Israeli settlement construction?" - the survey asks. The outcome: 51% disagree, only 41% agree. Hey, but didn't all pundits and commentators (myself included in several cases) thought and wrote that Obama's focus on settlements was politically smart because American Jews have no desire to see settlement expansion, and because they will support his message of freeze? Yes, they, we, did (even American Jewish leaders didn't like the idea of needing to defend settlements. .. ). And is AJC's survey is to be trusted, we were wrong for one of two reasons:
A. Jews don't think what we thought they do. In other words: they do not oppose settlements as much as we believed they do.
B. And I think in this case option B is the one to pick: The Obama administration was going much too far, and the Israeli government was much better at explaining why it can't go this far. In other words: Most American Jews still don't have much sympathy for settlements, but (like Israelis) also didn't understand the rush to push Israel around, and didn't quite see the logic of "total freeze" now.
And the Orthodox Union's Nathan Diament notes the strong support for an undivided Jerusalem:
As has been the case in the past, a clear majority of American Jews (58%) do not believe that "Israel [should be willing] to compromise on the status of Jerusalem as a united city under Israeli jurisdiction" even "in the framework of a permanent peace with the Palestinians." This bottom line is true across all the community's denominations (Orthodox: 77%, Conservative: 65%, Reform: 60% opposed a compromise on Jerusalem).
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Schakowsky, Jewish groups urge good ‘working environment’ at Postville
A Jewish Illinois congresswoman, along with a group of 15 Jewish organizations, are urging the new owner of the Postville kosher meatpacking plant to forge a new and productive "working environment" with the Postville community.
Rep. Jan Schakowsky (D-Ill.) and the group of Jewish organizations each sent letters to the new owners of the former Agriprocessors plant, SHF Industries and Agri Star Meat & Poultry, asking president Daniel Hirsch to meet and form a relationship with the Postville Community Benefits Alliance.
Both letters can be read here.
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160 members join J Street host committee
J Street on Wednesday unveiled a list of 160 members of the House and Senate that serve as members of the honorary host committee for the group's first annual Gala Dinner on October 27 in Washington. That list includes 18 of the 44 Jewish members of Congress, including the dean of the Jewish delegation, Rep. Henry Waxman (D-Calif.)
Other Jewish names on the list include Sens. Al Franken (D-Minn.), Russ Feingold (D-Wis.), Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), Herb Kohl (D-Wis.) and Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) and Reps. Jane Harman (D-Calif.), Barney Frank (D-Mass.), Gabrielle Giffords (D-Ariz.), Steve Israel (D-N.Y.), John Yarmuth (D-Kent.), Steve Cohen (D-Tenn.), Bob Filner (D-Calif.) Adam Schiff (D-Calif.), Jared Polis (D-Colo.), Steve Kagen (D-Wis.), Susan David (D-Calif.) and Jan Schakowsky (D-Ill.)
One prominent Jewish congressman whose name isn't on the list is Rep. Robert Wexler (D-Fla.), a prominent pro-Israel member of Congress who was endorsed by the group last year. But that Wexler is still involved with the group -- he is scheduled to speak at the conference on a panel with other members of Congress.
"The depth and breadth of our host committee demonstrates the growing support in Congress and nationally for strong US leadership in pursuit of a peaceful, diplomatic resolution to the Israeli-Palestinian and Israeli-Arab conflicts," said Jeremy Ben-Ami, J Street's executive director.
The J Street press release is after the jump, and the full list of 160 is hereRead More >>>
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What should the U.S. be doing in Iran?
The Washington Post op-ed page Wednesday has articles advocating two different approaches on Iran -- both of which say the United States should de-emphasize the nuclear issue, but take completely opposite views on increased sanctions.
Columnist Robert Kagan, from the Carnegie Endowment of International Peace, says it would be "better if the administration focused on the regime's instability and ignored the nukes":
This ought to be the goal of the "crippling" sanctions the Obama administration has threatened. Sanctions will not persuade the present Iranian government to give up its nuclear weapons program. Ahmadinejad and Khamenei see the nuclear program and their own survival as intimately linked. But the right kinds of sanctions could help the Iranian opposition topple these still-vulnerable rulers.
Critics of this idea still draw on pre-June 12 logic. A year ago, in the absence of any serious opposition to the clerics, it did seem hopeless to imagine that sanctions could have any effect on the clerics' rule. One could speculate, as some administration officials and French Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner still do, that sanctions would only strengthen popular support for the regime.
This analysis, however, no longer fits in Iran. The government's behavior during and after the election has opened an irreparable breach between the regime and large elements of Iranian society, and even within the clerical ranks. The government may succeed in clamping down on the opposition and driving it underground. But the notion that the Iranian opposition will suddenly rally around Ahmadinejad and Khamenei if the West imposes sanctions is absurd. The opposition leadership is engaged in a struggle to the death with the regime. When sanctions begin to cause hardships, the opposition will press its case that the regime is leading Iran to ruin.
That is the case for moving ahead with crippling sanctions as soon as possible and not waiting months for Iran's leaders to drag out talks. Will crippling sanctions topple the regime? Not necessarily. But the odds that the regime might fall given the right mix of internal opposition and foreign pressure are higher than the odds that it will give up its nuclear program voluntarily -- probably much higher. The Obama administration prides itself on pragmatic realism. It ought to pursue the policy that has the higher chance of success.
Meanwhile, Andrew Albertson, executive director of the Project on Middle East Democracy, and Ali G. Scotten, the 2008-09 Huffington fellow at Georgetown University's Institute for the Study of Diplomacy, argue -- although not convincingly considering what has taken place in Iran since June 12 -- that sanctions will unify its citizens behind the hardline government. Instead, they say the U.S. should "broaden the agenda" of talks with Iran to encompass "human rights":
First, President Obama should reiterate in an address (offered on YouTube, so Iranians can view it unfiltered) the benefits for average Iranians if Tehran lives up to its obligations with regard to its nuclear program: the opportunity to emerge from isolation, to have full diplomatic relations with the United States (which would include student and other civic exchange programs), and to benefit from international trade and investment. Second, the administration should make clear its desire for the agenda to include "full compliance with international human rights regimes" -- by Iran, the United States and any other parties to the talks. To further engage the Iranian people, the administration should call for Iranian and international civil society organizations to take part in the dialogue.
This approach would strengthen reformers in Iran and increase pressure on the Ahmadinejad government. Pro-democracy dissidents such as Akbar Ganji have asked the international community to play a more active role by holding the Iranian government to a higher standard on human rights, one that would be more commensurate with the regional role and modern image to which Iran aspires.
Years of sanctions and threats have not weakened the regime. Attacking Iran only unifies its citizens behind its hard-liners. But what did strengthen our position was Obama's clear message to the Iranian people this spring that the United States is not a threat to Iran and that it wishes to see the country emerge from diplomatic isolation. That message shifted Iranians' focus to domestic issues, which include corruption, inflation and economic mismanagement. Rather than rallying people against the United States, this tactic got America out of the way and allowed the Iranian people to confront their unresponsive government on their own terms. Taking a public stance that is respectful of Iranian nationalism while strongly supportive of human rights would further empower and embolden the Iranian people.
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Obama as Rabin
New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman warns that the demonizing of President Obama in the health care debate echoes the demonizing in Israel of Yitzhak Rabin before his assassination in 1995 by a Jewish nationalist:
A poisonous political environment... was interpreted by one right-wing Jewish settler as a license to kill Rabin — he must have heard, “God will be on your side” — and so he did.
Others have already remarked on this analogy, but I want to add my voice because the parallels to Israel then and America today turn my stomach: I have no problem with any of the substantive criticism of President Obama from the right or left. But something very dangerous is happening. Criticism from the far right has begun tipping over into delegitimation and creating the same kind of climate here that existed in Israel on the eve of the Rabin assassination.
What kind of madness is it that someone would create a poll on Facebook asking respondents, “Should Obama be killed?” The choices were: “No, Maybe, Yes, and Yes if he cuts my health care.” The Secret Service is now investigating. I hope they put the jerk in jail and throw away the key because this is exactly what was being done to Rabin.
Even if you are not worried that someone might draw from these vitriolic attacks a license to try to hurt the president, you have to be worried about what is happening to American politics more broadly.
Full column here.
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Dowd on being a Jewess wannabee, Safire on being a newsman, period.
Maureen Dowd writes today about how she finally insinuated herself into a William Safire break-the-fast by accounting for her many sins of the Jewish flesh:
He would have appreciated the fact that his obits ran on Yom Kippur. He had a famous dinner every year at his home in Chevy Chase, Md., to break the fast that gathered many of the city’s most influential players.
Curious, I pestered him for years for an invite. He patiently explained it was just for Jews or people who were, or had been, married to Jews.
After years of pleading, including many protestations that I had had Jewish boyfriends and that I would one day find a Jewish husband, he broke down and let me come.
She also correctly uses, under Safire's posthumous tutelage, "mishegoss," (although I suspect her original use of "meshugas" likely originated with someone acquainted with modern Hebrew -- that bastradized rendition is common in Israel).
Anyone, it's a nice memory, and one well-remembered.
I've seen a lot in the left blogosphere -- mostly in the comments to otherwise affectionate posts -- about Safire's role in touting the Iraq war. He attached himself to a bogus Iraq-Mohammed Atta connection way past its due date and never recanted, as far as I know.
This is cited as evidence that he was not as independent of Republican Party strictures as memorialists would have it.
Poppycock. Reporters, unfortunately -- and especially as we grow older -- maintain a morbid attachment at times to stories that look glossy and keen at first glance, but which soon fade. Safire's affection for the tall Atta tale does not make him a shill.
He was as independent as they come. I met him only once -- at Israel embassy spokesman Mark Regev's going away event in 2005 -- but I already knew this about him.
This was because I worked in a major DC newsroom on Sept. 11 2001, when the planes attacked. Rudy Giuliani, New York's mayor, famously made his way to Ground Zero almost as soon as it happened. President Bush famously made his way to Nebraska, to a secure location.
This, of course, was eminently sensible, but it didn't stop the less sensible from wondering where the president was in our time of need, etc. etc.
But instead of pointing out the utility of protecting the president in a time of peril, his aides -- and this kind of shenanigan unfortunately was emblematic of the second Bush administration's dogged insecurity -- made up a story about an imminent threat to Air Force One.
Now, as I said, I was working in a major newsroom. We ran the story, as did many others -- and I happen to know that lead reporters and editors were quite certain it was not true. But, for a couple of days it was out there: The terrorists said they were going to get Air Force One next. (I wondered at the time -- even before I heard that it wasn't true -- why would you head straight for Air Force One if it was a target? It didn't make sense.)
I imagine we weren't alone in knowing the truth about the Air Force One myth -- it must have been common knowledge in Washington. (It was far from my call, I wasn't even close to the story and was in any case a drone.) Sept. 11 had upended journalistic traditions like nothing I'd ever seen; there was a real culture of protecting the public from information, which in my opinion (then and now) is just nuts.
It took Safire to boot this myth into the wastebasket where it belonged.
He wrote a column on Sept. 13 that, very politely, pointed out that if indeed there was a credible threat, the attacks were much more serious than they appeared:
The most worrisome aspect of these revelations has to do with the credibility of the ''Air Force One is next'' message. It is described clearly as a threat, not a friendly warning -- but if so, why would the terrorists send the message? More to the point, how did they get the code-word information and transponder know-how that established their mala fides?
That knowledge of code words and presidential whereabouts and possession of secret procedures indicates that the terrorists may have a mole in the White House -- that, or informants in the Secret Service, F.B.I., F.A.A. or C.I.A. If so, the first thing our war on terror needs is an Angleton-type counterspy.
The Air Force One bubbiemeiser cracked on impact. Karl Rove was soon making the kind of "heh heh heh, all a misunderstanding" calls at which he seems to excel.
So: a fabulous institutional memory; a willingness to follow a story wherever it leads, however scary its prospect; a willingness to piss off your best sources, and friends, in the name of the public's right to know.
I didn't like everything Safire wrote (and I'll bet he didn't want anyone to like everything he wrote), but he was a newsman when we most needed newsmen.
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