Israeli
prime minister’s decision to instigate a high-level confrontation with the
White House is not winning favor in the Jewish community
By David
Firestone
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Binyamin Netanyahu, center, flanked by
then-House minority leader
John Boehner of Ohio and then-House
speaker Nancy Pelosi in 2010.
Photograph: Haraz N Ghanbari/AP
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Only one head of government is in the hall
of fame of Cheltenham high school, just outside Philadelphia: prime
minister Binyamin Netanyahu of Israel.
Netanyahu graduated from the school in 1967, when his father was
teaching at a nearby Jewish college. But the prize alumnus has
angered many members of the large Jewish community in the Philadelphia
suburbsby agreeing to speak to Congress next month to condemn Barack Obama’s
negotiations over Iran’s nuclear program.
“Most of the Jews I’ve spoken to, who are very concerned with
the welfare of the state of Israel, are not comfortable with Netanyahu speaking
to Congress, especially not in the way it’s being done,” said Rabbi Seymour
Rosenbloom, who recently retired after 36 years in the pulpit of Congregation
Adath Jeshurun, a Conservative synagogue in Cheltenham Township, Pennsylvania.
“I think most American Jews don’t see this as a constructive act for Israel.”
An editorial last month in the Philadelphia Jewish
Exponent took Netanyahu to task for angering the leader of
Israel’s closest ally.
“At this delicate juncture, a very public spat with the Obama
administration does no one good, least of all Israel,” the weekly newspaper’s
editors wrote. “PresidentBarack
Obama will remain in office for the next two years, and Israel
needs his continued support.”
These comments may seem mild, but they are actually exceptional
statements from American Jewish voices usually loath to criticize the
government of Israel in public. By aligning himself with conservative
Republicans in Congress seeking to embarrass the White House and torpedo a
nuclear deal with Iran, Netanyahu has provoked an unusually harsh reaction from
many Jewish leaders, and has widened the rift between the community’s liberal
majority and its increasingly strident right wing.
Rabbi Rick Jacobs, the leader of the Union for Reform Judaism,
the largest and most liberal Jewish denomination in North America, said the
speech was “ill-advised”, and called on the prime minister
to back out. He was joined by two more centrist voices: Seymour Reich, former
chairman of the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish
Organizations, and Abraham Foxman, national director of the Anti-Defamation
League, who said the planned speech had become “a circus”.
At the same time, rightwing groups like the Republican Jewish
Coalition (backed by billionaire Sheldon Adelson) and the Emergency Committee
for Israel said Democratic lawmakers thinking about boycotting the speech were
handing a victory to Israel’s enemies and promised to “educate
voters” about their disloyalty. The Zionist Organization of
America compared Foxman and Jacobs to Jewish
leaders who tried to play down Hitler’s rise in the 1930s.
By accepting the invitation of House speaker John Boehner to
address Congress on 3 March, Netanyahu has forced many American Jews to choose
between their support for a liberal Democratic president and their support for
a hardline Israeli prime minister. The White House is furious that it did not
receive the customary prior notice of the visit, and ruled out any meeting with
Obama, though officials insist the reason for the apparent snub was
“long-standing practice and principle” that US presidents should not meet
foreign leaders during re-election campaigns. More than two-thirds of Jews
voted for Obama in 2012, according to exit polls. A Pew Research survey in 2013 showed that 70% of US Jews
identified with or leaned toward the Democratic party, while 80% described
themselves as liberal or moderate.
So far, there are strong signs that Netanyahu’s decision to
provoke a high-level confrontation with the White House is not winning favor in
the Jewish community.
Critical editorials have appeared
in several American Jewish newspapers, which
are usually staunchly behind any Israeli government.
“Someone has to be the grown-up here,” wrote the Jewish Advocate of Boston, urging
Netanyahu to at least delay his speech until after the Israeli elections. The Forward said Netanyahu was embracing
a political party whose values were at odds with the vast majority of American
Jews.
J Street, a Jewish group that supports a two-state solution in
Israel and is regularly critical of the Likud government, says it has collected
20,000 signatures on a petition to delay the speech.
“This speech has really threatened the bipartisan nature of
American Jewish support for Israel,” said Rabbi John Rosove, co-chairman of J
Street’s rabbinic cabinet and senior rabbi
of Temple Israel of Hollywood, a 900-family Reform congregation in Los Angeles.
“By meddling in the foreign policy of the United States, and taking a position
in our partisan politics, the prime minister has crossed a red line. It makes
American Jews very uncomfortable, and I think it’s irresponsible.”
Perhaps the most uncomfortable Jews are the 29 in Congress, only one of whom is a Republican.
Though most have only disdain for Boehner and his use of Netanyahu, they fear
their absence from the speech would be seen as an insult to Israel and most are planning to attend.
“This was a political trap engineered by the speaker of the
House,” said Representative Steve Israel, a Democrat from Long Island who
intends to be there. “He is rooting for Democrats not to show up, so he can
drive a wedge with voters on the issue of Israel. I know it’s a stunt, so why
would I want to give him a victory?”
The congressman, whose district is heavily Jewish, says calls
from constituents are about evenly divided on whether he should attend the
speech.
Representative John Yarmuth, a Democrat from Louisville,
Kentucky, said he would stay away in order not to give the impression that he
supports Netanyahu’s position on Iran over US foreign policy. Representative
Steve Cohen, of Memphis, Tennessee, said he hadn’t decided, not wanting to send
a sign of disrespect to Israel but angry that Boehner and Netanyahu are using a
joint session of Congress as a theatrical showcase for Republican policies in
hopes of pressuring the White House. The publicity will also benefit the prime
minister’s re-election campaign, he said, just two weeks before the 17 March
Israeli elections.
“We can’t use our floor speeches in campaign ads, but that’s
what Netanyahu did the last time he spoke here,” Cohen said. “It’s a political
show.”
He joked that he was thinking about going but sitting high up in
the visitor’s gallery, “just like women do in Orthodox synagogues”.