Letter April 7, 2006
Editorial Romanticizes U.S. Support for Israel
In a March 24 editorial on John Mearsheimer and Stephen Walt’s controversial polemic on the “Israel lobby” (“In Dark Times, Blame the Jews”), the Forward states that “Israel has had the support of successive American administrations in large part because it enjoys the sympathy of much of the American people. In part this flows from Christian convictions. In part it reflects admiration for Israeli spunk. In part it stems from a perception of shared values.”
The editorial expresses the hopeful view of the apple-pie America seen through a kindergarten window. It is an America that does not exist, and never has.
It reminds one of how Jews thought while strolling innocently along the springtime avenues of Berlin in the early 1930s. The political reality in which Jews live in this country is to be found in the observations pointedly made by Mearsheimer and Walt of the activities of organized Jews in America.
The “sympathy” the editorialist finds in Americans for Israel is imaginary — on their part after watching a Holocaust film, on the Forward’s part in assuming their thin grief to be an abiding state.
You say sympathy arising out of Christian convictions? Foolhardy the man who protects his family by resting on the religious convictions of his neighbors.
As for the “perception of shared values,” the administration that attempts to draft American soldiers to die in support of Israel need not return to its offices the next day. The electricity will be turned off, the plumbing ripped out and American soldiers, in search of politicians, probably will be walking toward the Capitol, copies of Mearsheimer and Walt’s polemic in their hip pockets.
Harry Reynolds
Scarsdale, N.Y
A March 24 article reports that Jewish organizations are relieved that John Mearsheimer and Stephen Walt’s paper on the “Israel lobby” has not received much attention (“Scholars’ Attack on Pro-Israel Lobby Met With Silence”).
However, given that most of those who have been publicly critical of the paper are familiar voices in disputes of this kind — Charles Krauthammer, Max Boot, Alan Dershowitz and Ruth Wisse — what is interesting is the large number of significant foreign policy figures who have not come out against it.
True, David Gergen has been heard from, but one could list 50 very senior figures with governmental experience, from both Democratic and Republican administrations, who have not attempted to dispute or delegitimize the authors’ position. Their silence speaks loudly.
Norman Birnbaum
Washington, D.C.
My Niece, the Astronaut
A March 17 article on Jews in space neglected to mention my niece, Ellen Shulman Baker (“A Jew on Mars?”). She is an astronaut who has been in space three times. She is also a New York Jew whose mother, Claire Shulman, is a former Queens borough president.
Herman Shulman
Baltimore, Md.
Cheers for Dick Cheney
Opinion columnist Leonard Fein is puzzled by the 4,500 attendees at the recent American Israel Public Affairs conference who enthusiastically cheered Vice President Dick Cheney (“The Jackson-Robertson Test,” March 31). To provide an answer, he divides the Jewish community into two worlds by posing a simple test: “Who’d you rather hang out with: Jesse Jackson or Pat Robertson?”
While I, as an American Jew, am not particularly interested in hanging out with either of these gentlemen, I am certain about one thing: I can turn my back on Pat Robertson without fear of being — metaphorically speaking — knifed. I can’t say that about Jesse Jackson.
If Fein understood this, then he would understand Aipac’s wild applause for Cheney.
David Schimel
Great Neck, N.Y.
Prepare Kids for Seder
Yes, the Seder, as a service, does require a bit of performance from everyone in order for it to work as a group celebration instead of as a spectator sport (“How Not To Embarrass the Seder’s Youngest Readers,” March 31).
Certainly children should not be subjected to performing when they are not prepared. But it is the parents’ responsibility to prepare them and their responsibility to protect them from such a situation.
Think of what your children can do comfortably — read the English text, recite the English text from memory, read one line of the Hebrew text in transliteration, read the whole thing in Hebrew — and prepare them days or weeks before. Let your children have a dry run in front of you.
If your children have trouble reading and you want them to do more than recite the Four Questions, give them a text in advance and let them practice — as is fair for any performer, regardless of age or ability. If you are to be a guest at someone’s house, call ahead and let the host know what your children are capable of or comfortable with, and ask that they not be called on to do more.
Aurora Mendelsohn
Toronto, Ontario
U.N. Reform Debased
If opinion columnist Kathleen Peratis and the organization that she serves as a trustee, Human Rights Watch, spent as much time on promoting human rights at the United Nations as they do on launching attacks on the United States and Israel, perhaps we would not now be faced with the debased imitation of U.N. reform known as the Human Rights Council (“The U.N. Reforms, Despite Bolton’s Best Efforts,” March 24).
Peratis faults the American ambassador to the U.N., John Bolton, for his stalwart defense of meaningful human rights reform, attributing to him such ideas as a two-thirds majority vote for membership in the council. In fact, the ideas that Bolton defended were not his, but those of U.N. Secretary General Kofi Annan.
In two speeches last year, on March 21 and April 7, Annan proposed five important reforms that he felt should characterize the Human Rights Council. The only one of his proposals to be adopted was the one calling for the council to report to the General Assembly rather than to the Economic and Social Council.
The four other critical proposals were rejected. Their main idea was to keep the human rights violators off the council. Instead, these violators were given a role in the negotiations for the council, which they used to block or weaken almost every major reform, including the four proposed by the secretary general.
To keep their efforts out of the public eye, the negotiators met mostly in closed sessions, from which concerned nongovernmental organizations were barred. As a result, we now have running for a seat on the council such states as Saudi Arabia, Iran, Myanmar, China, Cuba and Venezuela.
It is especially noteworthy that Peratis makes no mention of the ambiguous language relating to the role in the Human Rights Council of NGOs, language that opens the door to abuse. It gives council members the power to decide what constitutes “the most effective contribution of these entities.”
The main threat is that individual NGOs may lose their right to speak out. For this reason, as well as those mentioned above, more than 40 NGOs spoke out for changes in the draft. Regrettably, these were not adopted.
Harris Schoenberg
President
UN Reform Advocates
New York, N.Y.
Vote Wasn’t for Pullout
A March 31 article reports, “This was an election in which Israelis chose to disengage — from the territories, from the Palestinians” (“Voters Warm to Kadima Pullout Plan”).
The numbers, however, tell a different story. There was virtually an even split between the left-of-center pro-withdrawal parties and the right-of-center anti-withdrawal parties. The left gained 53 seats: 29 for Kadima, 19 for Labor and five for Meretz. The right gained 50: 12 each for Likud and Shas, 11 for Yisrael Beitenu, nine for the National Union/National Religious Party and six for United Torah Judaism.
Prime minister-elect Ehud Olmert’s repeated emphasis on unilateral withdrawal in the final weeks, and his declaration that he would not permit any party into his government that did not accept this condition, saw support for his left-of-center Kadima party drop precipitously to only 29 seats — 24% of the vote — after being above 40 seats only a month earlier. If the Israelis really wanted withdrawal to proceed, Olmert’s support would have strengthened in the last few weeks, not dramatically weakened.
Even with a coalition of left-wing parties and the new Pensioners Party, Olmert still will be short of a majority and will need to include in his coalition at least one right-of-center, anti-withdrawal party.
In addition, Kadima benefited at the polls from sympathy for Ariel Sharon’s tragic medical condition, from antipathy toward former finance minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s economic policies and from Likud voters’ loyalties to the 14 Likud members who switched to Kadima.
Virtually none of this support for Kadima had much to do with the withdrawal plan.
Morton Klein
National President
Zionist Organization of America
New York, N.Y.
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