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PrintOp-Ed: Tough questions about Obama needed to be asked
By Matt Brooks
WASHINGTON (JTA)—Over the next few years, the Jewish community will face serious challenges. Throughout this presidential election campaign, we always understood that whomever was elected president would shape how our country deals with these challenges.
From the beginning, the Republican and Democratic candidates competed for support in the Jewish community. They elaborated on their solutions for critical issues like our troubled economy, the threat of a nuclear Iran, continued Hamas violence against Israel and the need for energy independence. The Republican Jewish Coalition helped not only raise these critical issues, but helped the Jewish community get clear answers.
Since the first days of the election campaign, the RJC challenged President-elect Barack Obama to articulate his positions on these issues, and through our actions, let him know that the Jewish community would carefully examine his responses. As a result, neither party nor candidate took the support of the Jewish community for granted. The RJC is proud to have played a role in facilitating this important debate.
Early on, there were serious and legitimate reasons to be concerned by Obama’s positions on Israel, Iran and the Middle East. Nervous Jewish Democrats mobilized as never before. Numerous third-party groups formed and scores of high-profile surrogates flooded the community dedicated to addressing these concerns and to electing the Democratic candidate for president. The Obama campaign itself deployed an unprecedented amount of resources and manpower into the Jewish community to maintain this traditional support.
Despite this tsunami of Democratic resources, Obama was unable to exceed Bill Clinton or Al Gore, and only slightly improved on John Kerry’s support in the Jewish community. Unlike many other constituencies that had huge increases in support for Obama, Jewish support for him showed only slight gains and lagged far behind other key demographics.
Throughout the fall, through our efforts, the RJC challenged the candidates to specify their policies. If Obama’s positions on Israel, Iran and the Middle East evolved throughout this election, it stands testament that he, and his campaign, understood the RJC’s message and adjusted theirs.
While we congratulate President-elect Obama on a hard-fought campaign, we are disturbed by some emerging trends that we hope do not continue. Throughout the campaign, Democrats consistently resorted to ugly intimidation to silence our message and stifle this important debate. It even went so far as the Obama campaign and other Democratic entities refusing to debate RJC surrogates.
When the RJC brought up legitimate policy differences, some Democratic surrogates reflexively called our questions “smear and fear” tactics and refused to discuss the important issues. Some discourse was marred by episodes of vicious attacks against our organization—at times even becoming personal. One Democratic surrogate, and former Clinton administration official, likened the RJC to Yasser Arafat. Clearly this goes beyond any acceptable level of discourse.
Unfortunately, the trend of Democrats punishing those who disagree with their policies seems to be continuing past Election Day. Only two days after President-elect Obama’s victory, there are reports that Sen. Harry Reid (D-Nev.), the Senate majority leader, is contemplating threats, rebukes and penalties against Sen. Joe Lieberman (I-Conn.) over Lieberman’s decision to back McCain’s presidential campaign. Throughout the campaign, Obama promised a post-partisan era of cooperation. If he is truly sincere about that commitment, seeking retribution against Lieberman is not the right way to start his administration.
The kind of behavior Reid is exhibiting is an all-too-familiar hallmark of the Obama campaign and other Jewish Democratic entities. Particularly regarding the actions of Jewish Democrats who engaged in these blackball, retributive tactics, it is unfortunate that they do not revere, as we do, the Jewish intellectual tradition of debate. Our tradition teaches us that we hold the capacity to accept multiple opinions—even to value opposing positions. The Talmud says these opposing positions are to be valued as they may prove to be correct someday.
Today, our nation moves forward into a new chapter. We come together in the Jewish community not as Democrats and Republicans, but as Jewish Americans united in our resolve to move our country forward. We pray that President-elect Obama will stay true to his campaign commitments and promises to the Jewish community.
Our Jewish tradition, however, teaches us not to shy away from debate not stand by idly. The RJC stands guard over our right to always raise the issues of critical concern to our community and sound the alarm when necessary.
(Matt Brooks is the executive director of the Republican Jewish Coalition, a grass-roots political organization based in Washington, D.C.)
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Suffice it to say that the campaign that Mr. Brooks remembers is not the one experienced by me or ( I believe) most of the other 78% of American Jewish voters who ultimately voted for President-elect Obama. To cite just two examples:
1. I recall no attacks on Senator McCain’s support for Israel, but numerous false attacks on the President-elect’s views. He was and is a strong supporter of Israel’s security, and there never were and are not now “serious and legitimate reasons to be concerned by [his] positions on Israel, Iran and the Middle East.”
2. Senator Lieberman’s fate is undetermined as I write this, but in light of the fact that he not only endorsed Senator McCain but spoke at the Republican convention and [despite promises not to do so] criticized President-elect Obama during the campaign, any decision to replace him as chairman of one of the Senate’s most important committees can hardly be viewed as a threat, rebuke, or penalty. The Democratic Caucus did not leave Senator Lieberman—he left it.
Dear chevra— Advertising that voting for Obama was inviting a Holocaust—now that wasn’t smear and calumny? Supporting the distribution of a vile attack on all islam (the “"Obsession" film) through ads in newspapers distributed specifically in “swing” states—that wasn’t vile calumny? Refusing to denounce a candidate who claimed that Senator Obama was palling around with terrorists—that was responsible campaigning? Attacking Obama for having conversations with a Palestinian-American scholar and learning from him how Palestinians see the world—that attack wasn’t abysmal stupidity and smear? All these were actions of the RJC.
Thank God—and I do mean thank God, and the deep Torah-rooted values of our community— these attacks seem to have motivated more, not less, Jewish support for a calm, focused, even-tempered, and highly intelligent man who has sought to understand the wide variety of opinion in the world, and integrate all of it into his ability to lead America and the world; who keeps saying (and setting forth policies that say), “We ARE our brothers’ keeper; we ARE our sisters’ keeper.”
If the RJC would remember that it was Theodore Roosevelt, scourge of corporate greed and protector of nature, who put the first Jew in an American cabinent—Oscar Straus—they might become both better Jews and better Republicans.
-- Rabbi Arthur Waskow ()
This article gives new meaning to the word “mendacity.” After a constant barrage of hate, half-truths and outright lies, the RJC is now trying to pretend that they engaged in some sort of salon-room debate. What they did do is take a page from the Joseph Goebbels/Lee Atwater/Karl Rove txtbook of political discourse and make Israel into a wedge issue within the Jewish community. Now, if one doesn’t toe the Likud line as promulgated in the US by AIPAC, The RJC, Malcolm Hoenlein and the like (let’s just call them the “American Friends of Likud” or AFL) then you must be pro-Arab and willing to give up on Israel. This outrageous undermining of the Zionist project will do nothing but lose support for Israel among younger Jews while those of us who have been around a while are going, like me, to start asking how many members of the AFL are on the allocation committee before we write our next check to a Jewish organization. Obama got 78% of the Jewish vote because most Jews, no matter how much we earn or how much the AFL tries to scare us, still know the difference between right and wrong. A lesson the AFL has yet to learn and, based on this article, has no intention of learning..
Just because a lengthy list of rabbis, Jewish scientists, and other Jewish notables supported Obama doesn’t make those supporters right - and contrary to Mr. Stolow’s assertion that we Jewish non-Obama supporters engaged in ‘outright lies,’ it’s no lie that Barack and Michelle Obama were members of Jeremiah Wright’s church for TWENTY years. (Yes, I know they left the church - when it was politically expedient.)
Surely not all of his associates - Bill Ayers, Rashid Khalidi, Khalid al-Mansour, Tony Rezko, Edward Said, and more - are merely tangential.
And I have to ask - What kind of First Lady spends her leisure time with the woman sitting front and center in this photo?:
B’H
How sad that we are judged by association. McCain had associations that also might have been attacked, as do we all.
We have different views and the accuracy of them will unfold with time. I find some hint of hope in the new chief of staff.
I find some sadness in the partisan bickering that still holds sway. I do not find that the RJC handled itself in an open and straightforward manner. I felt that much of their message was sent out in the form of attack ads and attack dogs. This is unfortunate. A good debate, without rancour opens the mind. Name calling and attacking associations and ill-informed fear mongering does not.
The election is past. It is time to work together on so many fronts. As Jews, we have a responsibility to our spiritual homeland and to the homeland that has nurtured us. Rabbi Isaac Meyer Wise spoke of Minhag America. I look at the broader meaning than services and rituals. I see it as our place in this country. Let us be good conservators of Minhag America, arguing our postions in honest good faith. Let us leave the muck-raking to another era. And when conflict of opinion does occur, let it be as gentle as the conflict of rain on a leaf.
Many blessings
Reb Bahir
For Mr. Brooks to claim that the RJC in any way contributed to constructive and intelligent debate during the camapign is not only extreme “chutzpah”,but untrue. By resorting to inuendo and smear,the RJC embarrssed itself and all Jews. The ads they ran each week in our local Jewish News could have been taken from any fringe group that seeks to gain support through intimidation and fear.
So far, I’d say “What’s the beef?” Obama has answered every right-wing Zionist prayer so far. He has followed the Israeli line to the letter. No talks with Iran or Hammas. Emmanuel as gate-keeper.
On April 22, when Hillary Clinton was asked what she would do if Iran attacked Israel with nuclear weapons, her response was that she would have U.S. forces attack Iran.
President-elect Obama’s response was that her language was much too strong. I guess he would want to have dialog with the Iranians to discuss next steps.
We all know that President-elect Obama has publicly rejected the support of Louis Farrakhan.
We also know that Barak Obama left the Trinity Church at the very end of May of 2008 when the he took heat about the somewhat radical sermons and writings of his religious mentor, Rev. Jeremiah Wright.
I would like to hear the answer to one simple question. Why did Barak Obama not leave Trinity Church at the beginning of November 2007 when the church held a gala event at the Chicago Hyatt Regency and honored Louis Farrakhan there with a lifetime achievement award? This wasn’t something that happened many years ago, like the William Ayers issue. This happened just 12 months ago.
I try to imagine the uproar that probably would have occurred if it was revealed that John McCain attended a chuch that gave, say for instance, David Duke its Man of the Year award.
Please help me understand this.
Blessings to all.
Did Rabbi Waskow just describe the film Obsession, which makes clear its concerns are about all victims, (including Muslim victims) of radical Islam, a “ vile attack on all Islam?”
Do you have to have any common sense or intelligence to be a Rabbi ?
Did the good RABBI condemn the fraudulent Israelis for Obama video, which Israeli Generals had to come out and dispute, as they did not endorse Obama? Did he condemn Rep. Robert Wexler, who purposefly smeared Gov Palin as a supporter of Buchanan, when she adores Israel and endorsed Steve Forbes?
Does the Rabbi condemn the hate speech of Dennis Ross, who compared Jewish Republicans to Arafat ? Or MJ Rosenberg, who lied and claimed the RJC engaged in Race Mongering and called Obama a Muslim Terrorist ?
Take the far left wing bias elsewhere, Rabbi. Shame on you.
Brooks and the RJC have shamed themselves and will rightly harvest the bitter fruits of their despicable smear campaign. They deserve a term in the wilderness, and should not return to the scene until they are able to engage in civil and constructive discourse. Judging from Mr. Brooks’ post-election statements and degree of self-deception (his success in deceiving others is clearly minimal), that is likely to take some time. Serious atonement is in order.
--The Wise Bard
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