Reacting to Ackerman’s comments

Reaction to longtime pro-Israel Rep. Gary Ackerman’s comments last week blaming both Israel and the Palestinians for the "downward spiral" of the conflict is starting to trickle in, from both a well-known liberal columnist in the Forward and a hawkish Jewish organization.

Ackerman said that "the downward pressure"  on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict "comes from terrorism and the march of settlements and outposts, from the firing of rockets and the perpetration of settler pogroms," while adding that he was not trying to draw a moral equivalence between Israeli hard-liners and Palestinian terrorists, "but they are all part of the same destructive dynamic."

The Forward’s Leonard Fein ponders whether it’s wise to be "washing our dirty linen in public":

If Rep. Jim Moran, a Virginia Democrat who is probably Israel’s most vehement critic in the House, had said what Gary Ackerman said, there’d have been yelps and howls from virtually every quarter of the organized Jewish community. Yet while it’s still early in the Ackerman story, the reaction so far has been muted (with the exception of comments posted on the Internet).

The issue here is not whether Ackerman’s statement is balanced or even whether it is fair. Neither balance nor fairness is seen in the organized community as a virtue.

The underlying issue here is rather more serious than either the critical left or the apologetic right are wont to claim. Does not public criticism of Israel give aid and comfort to the enemy? The unfortunate answer to that question is that it does. (I myself learned this somewhat painfully years ago, when I said some critical things about Prime Minister Menachem Begin’s settlement policy. The very first letter of commendation I received was from the Syrian ambassador to the United States. Ouch.) It is easy to be so fixated on the events of the day that we overlook — some of us — that Israel’s ill-wishers are very real, and will eagerly pounce on any confirmation of their view that Israel is evil — evil, hence illegitimate.

But there’s a problem: If we are prohibited from washing our dirty linen in public, how will it be laundered? So long as the criticism is responsible, ought the burden not be on those who have dirtied the linen in the first place?

Fein concludes:

If a Gary Ackerman is outside the pale, then the pale’s boundaries are stiflingly narrow. Many will feel themselves left out. And the thoughtful among our neighbors will wonder how it has come to pass that the Jews, of all people, have nothing to say that contributes to the ongoing discussion of the Israel-Palestine dispute. For if we really are always and only predictable apologists for Israel, we will have little credibility in the public square. Israel deserves to be loved not only well, but also wisely.

The Zionist Organization of America disagrees. It released a statement Friday afternoon calling Ackerman’s remarks inaccurate, hurtful and counterproductive.

"It is illogical to say one does not mean to engage in moral equivalence between Jews in Judea and Samaria and Palestinian terrorists and then go on to blame both for the lack of peace," said the group. Here’s their full statement:

The Zionist Organization of America (ZOA) has taken issue with U.S. Rep. Gary Ackerman (D-NY), Chairman of the House of Representatives Middle East Subcommittee, for inaccurately using the terms "Israeli intransigence" and "settler pogroms." Rep. Ackerman wrongly blamed "Israeli intransigence" and the existence of Jewish communities in Judea and Samaria, along with Palestinian terrorism, for a "downward spiral" in the Middle East. He said that while he was not trying to draw moral
equivalence between Israeli hard-liners and Palestinian terrorists, these factors are "all part of the same destructive dynamic." Ackerman spoke of "downward pressure" that "comes from terrorism and the march of settlements. It comes from the firing of rockets and the perpetration of settler pogroms. It comes in daily images of destruction and the constant reiteration that ‘they only understand the language of force.’"

"Settler pogroms" were the terms used apparently to refer to attacks by Hebron Jews on Arabs in December after Israel forcibly removed Jews from a building that appears to have been legally purchased by them. Israeli reports on the violence in Hebron to which Rep. Ackerman was referring indicate that Israeli Jews threw rocks at Palestinian Arabs only after they had been attacked in like fashion by Hebron Arabs, who also tried to drag away a Hebron Jew.

ZOA National Chairman of the Board Dr. Michael Goldblatt said, "We regret and take issue with Congressman Ackerman’s inaccurate and troubling remarks. Factually, he is in error: there has been no Israeli intransigence. On the contrary, the out-going Israeli government has been the most concessionary in Israel’s history. It has released hundreds of jailed terrorists and closed security checkpoints as good will and confidence-building gestures; it has released funds and even given arms to Mahmoud Abbas’ Palestinian Authority (PA); it has sought to make even more territorial concessions to the PA. The ZOA believes these moves were deeply mistaken and has said so in the past but, in any event, no-one can describe such policies as intransigent.

"U.S. Rep. Ackerman also makes a false moral equivalence between Jews in Judea and Samaria and Palestinian terrorists and then goes on to blame both for the lack of peace. It is illogical to say one does not mean to engage in moral equivalence between Jews in Judea and Samaria and Palestinian terrorists and then go on to blame both for the lack of peace. If Jews living in Judea and Samaria are viewed as being responsible for the lack of peace, it can only be because a racist
Palestinian polity refuses to tolerate any Jews living in its midst. The blame for racism does not lie with its targets. Imagine if someone claimed that the existence of violence against African-Americans in the Deep South had been due to the fact that African-Americans lived there.

"Moreover, to label the rare occurrence of non-lethal violence committed by individual Israelis against Arabs to a pogrom, which occurred only after Arab provocation, is simply inaccurate. Of course, this was hardly a pogrom. The definition of a pogrom is a government-sanctioned and sponsored campaign of murder and rape against people, usually Jews.Nothing even resembling this happened here to Arabs.

"We urge Rep. Ackerman to rescind his unfortunate and deeply hurtful and counter-productive remarks."