A small flag of protest Some Jews muster against pending war on Iraq

by Paula Amann and Rachel Pomerance

Washington Jewish Week – Online

December, 2002

Shira Keyes, a resident of the District's Dupont Circle neighborhood, has a new daily ritual since Nov. 21. With other women from the ad hoc interfaith group, Code Pink: Women for Peace, this Jewish activist keeps a three-hour vigil in front of the White House. Keyes and her friends oppose plans for a pending U.S. pre-emptive strike on Iraq.

"A war on Iraq will be an incubator for terrorism," said Keyes in a phone interview after her shift in the cold last week. "If we believe a war on Iraq will make a safer world, we're deluding ourselves."

The former arts administrator and public health professional is part of a tiny, but apparently growing number of Jews mobilizing against a U.S. military attack on Iraq.

District activist Cherie Brown played a leadership role in an Oct. 14 meeting in Philadelphia that included Philadelphia's Shalom Center director Rabbi Arthur Waskow and Shefa Fund Torah of Money director Rabbi Mordechai Liebling. All three serve on the steering campaign of a Jewish network called Break the Silence that has organized ad campaigns in favor of Israeli-Palestinian peacemaking since its founding in 1998.
In early December, the group joined United for Peace, a national coalition of groups opposing war with Iraq.

"We wanted to make sure there was a Jewish voice in the coalition," said Brown, who also serves on the board of Brit Tzedek v'Shalom, a grassroots Jewish group founded earlier this year to champion a strongly dovish pro-Israel stance in the United States.

Concerns about anti-Israel rhetoric from some involved in the Oct. 26 rally on the Washington Mall led Break the Silence to refrain from taking part in that event, she stressed. During the past several weeks, however, Brown sees the anti-war movement growing more mainstream and acceptable to activists like her who also support the Jewish state.

But Jewish Community Council executive director Ron Halber sees most local Jews backing a potential strike on Iraq.
"American Jews, like their fellow Americans, will support American military forces while engaged in action abroad," Halber said. "The time for debate over national policy is now, but once American forces are involved, they will receive the overwhelming support of the Jewish community and Americans in general."

Halber views the likely war against the Persian Gulf state as serving both the United States and Israel.

"As long as [Saddam] Hussein maintains a significant military capability, it's reasonable to assume that it could be turned against Israel," said Halber, noting that Hussein holds less of a military edge than he did in 1991. "The destruction of Iraq's war capability is not only in the United States' best interests, but in Israel's interest."

The local debate takes place against the backdrop of national events on Tuesday of last week, when International Human Rights Day became the pretext for a number of public protests against U.S. military action in Iraq. Anti-war demonstrations were held in more than 100 cities throughout the country, as well as in Europe.

Three rabbis were among 100 people arrested in New York that day after blocking the U.S. Mission to the United Nations to protest a possible war with Iraq.

While Jews have historically embraced anti-war movements, they have not been in the forefront of this one -- in part because of concern about Iraq's threat to Israel and in part because a majority of American Jews, like a majority of Americans, appear to back President George W. Bush's link between action against Iraq and the war on terrorism.

While individual Jews were represented at the rallies -- Waskow spoke at the New York rally as did Ben Cohen, co-founder of Ben & Jerry's Ice Cream -- Jewish involvement in the fledgling anti-war movement appears minimal.

Other left-wing groups speaking out against war include Tikkun, headed by Rabbi Michael Lerner, and Jewish Voice for Peace, a San Francisco-based Jewish organization that advocates for peace between Israelis and Palestinians.

But most mainstream Jewish organizations, across the religious and political spectrum, have come out at least in cautious support of a war.

There's a perception in the Jewish community that "to remove Saddam Hussein would somehow strengthen the security of Israel," said Rabbi Michael Feinberg, who directs an interfaith organization in New York and also was arrested at the New York rally.

"I think a war against Iraq could inflame the tensions and the violence that already exists in the whole region and turn it into complete conflagration which would help no one's security, not Israelis, not Palestinians, not Iraqis and not Americans."
But Malcolm Hoenlein, executive vice chair of the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations, had a different take.

Jews "understand that the war on terrorism is vital to the security of the United States of America's interests abroad, to the stability of the world, to any prospect of stability in the Middle East, for peace for Israel. This is an integral part of that war."

But according to Waskow, supporting war with Iraq endangers Israel.

"The Bush policy puts Israel in enormous danger, and the Jews should be opposing that policy with all their energy," he said, citing CIA officials who claim Iraq would only employ weapons of mass destruction if faced with no negotiating room.

And the most likely target of an attack would be Israel, said Waskow.

He believes Bush's intentions are to strengthen his own standing and to empower "big oil," without regard for the U.N. inspections process.

Waskow, who is organizing fast days in support of the anti-war effort, thinks that Jews have not been active in the anti-war movement because they are waiting for other Jews to step forward.

"We are making it visible that there are committed Jews who are opposed to war and as that becomes more visible, I think many more Jews will" become activists, he said.
John Bermen, who hushed another activist shouting "Free Palestine" during Tuesday's demonstration in New York, is hoping to broaden the tent for Jews in the anti-war movement.

There is a "silent majority" of Jews because "they see the U.S. administration as a big Israel ally right now," he said.

But that's a dangerous alliance, Berman said.

"I think the Bush administration is profoundly reactionary and really goes against what I consider fundamental Jewish" values of peace and social justice. "I think we're making a pact with the devil."

But according to Hoenlein, war with Iraq may be a necessary part of the war on terrorism.

It may increase tension for Israel in the short term, he said. "In the longer term, I think it will be extremely beneficial if it is pursued properly and successfully.

"If we fail to act or act and fail, and Saddam emerges again as he did after 1991, I think it will embolden more terrorists and more Islamic extremism in the region.

Meanwhile, Rabbi Gerald Serotta of Temple Shalom in Chevy Chase reports having spoken Dec. 4 at his hometown congregation, Greater Miami's Temple Israel, as part of a panel discussion, "Iraq -- The Winds of War: Where are they taking us?" that he said drew some 200 people.

"To me, this war scenario is morally dubious for the United States and extremely dangerous for Israel," said Serotta.

This Reform rabbi noted a response on preventive war released earlier this fall by the Central Conference of Reform Rabbis that wrestles with the moral questions inherent in such a conflict. The document seems to strike a middle ground between concerns about overreaction to potential harm and lack of needed self-defense in the face of danger.But Serotta finds wisdom in looking at recent historical parallels.

This Reform rabbi noted a response on preventive war released earlier this fall by the Central Conference of Reform Rabbis that wrestles with the moral questions inherent in such a conflict. The document seems to strike a middle ground between concerns about overreaction to potential harm and lack of needed self-defense in the face of danger.But Serotta finds wisdom in looking at recent historical parallels.

"Most people think Israel was justified in the Six Day War in pre-emptively attacking the Arab armies massed against it," Serotta said, "in contrast to the Japanese who thought a preventive strike against the United States at Pearl Harbor would diminish our capabilities to declare war on them. Most people see that [attack] as ill-advised, morally wrong and militarily and politically counterproductive."

Rabbi David Shneyer, director of the Am Kolel Judaic Resource and Renewal Center in Rockville, says he's willing to join any coalition with room for both strong support of Israel and concerns about peace and justice in the Middle East.

"My own position is let the inspectors do their job," Shneyer said. "This country should not unilaterally invade Iraq."

Asked why Jewish organizations have not protested a war with Iraq, Brown points to the close ties between Bush and Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon.
"Making the link that going to war in Iraq is part of the war on terrorism makes it harder for Jews to speak out," she said.

Keyes, who opposed the Vietnam War in the 1960s, but let her activism lapse since then, sees such a conflict as having grave risks for Israel.

"The unintended consequences are unpredictable, but could be a disaster for Israel," she said, drawing a historical parallel with the brinkmanship of the 1962 Cuban missile crisis. "The real danger comes from not knowing what you don't know. If, during the Cuban missile crisis, President Kennedy had not been able to think outside of the box built by his hawks, we would have had a nuclear catastrophe on our hands."

For now, Keyes pledges to keep up her visits to the park outside the White House at least through International Women's Day, March 8.