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Iraq Avoided
Jewish groups tackle all but war.
Washington
T
he organizational Jewish
community, out front on
most front-line politi-
cal issues, has maintained a careful
distance from the Iraq war since its
inception. The main reason is a wish
to avoid displeasing the Bush admin-
istration, which has offered unprec-
edented support for Israel and is lead-
ing the effort to force Iran to halt its
suspected nuclear-weapons program.
"It's a case of American Jews saying,
`Thank you for your support of Israel:"
said Abraham Foxman, national direc-
tor of the Anti-Defamation League. "If
we want to be tough on Iran, we can't
tie his hands on Iraq," he said, refer-
ring to President Bush.
As the war passed its fourth anni-
versary this week, grassroots pressure
was mounting against a conflict that
is profoundly unpopular, especially
among Jews.
Last week, the Union of Reform
Judaism's executive committee
demanded a timetable for a troop
withdrawal from Iraq and opposed the
"surge," the administration's deploy-
ment of an additional 30,000 troops.
The Reconstructionist Rabbinical
Association called for a "rapid and
responsible" troop withdrawal.
Recent Gallup polls show that Jews
and black Protestants are likelier than
other religious groups to believe the
war was a mistake, with opposition
running at 77 percent. The polls have
ratcheted up the pressure on Jewish
organizations.
"Every day the official Jewish insti-
tutions delay bringing their moral
and political clout to bear means
some delay in getting Congress to end
the war:' said Rabbi Arthur Waskow,
who heads the Shalom Center in
Philadelphia.
The polls also spurred the formation
of a new Jewish group. Jews Against
the War was launched Monday by a
number of Jewish studies scholars.
No major Jewish group ever explic-
itly endorsed the war, but a number
made it clear that they were not
opposed to an effort that would unseat
Saddam Hussein. The Iraqi president
launched unprovoked missile attacks
at Israel during the 1991 Persian Gulf
War and funded anti-Israel terrorism.
Iraq is "the most clear and present
danger to democracy and freedom,"
Foxman said after Bush outlined his
case for military action to the United
Nations in September 2002. Polls at
that time showed that a majority of
American Jews, like the rest of the
country, believed Iraq had weapons of
mass destruction.
Differences between U.S. Jews and
their organizational leaders emerged
after the case for war began to unravel
as the WMD intelligence proved faulty.
By the beginning of 2004, polls showed
a majority of U.S. Jews were against
the war.
Yet organizational support for the
administration's efforts continued,
not in explicit expressions, but in
subtle nods of approval. The American
Jewish Committee wrote Bush in
December 2005, congratulating him
on successful elections in Iraq. The
letter was released, coincidentally or
not, just as the AJCommittee published
an annual poll of Jewish voters that
showed opposition to the war.
The Conference of Presidents of
Major Jewish American Organizations
also did not explicitly support the
war, but its popular Daily Alert e-mail
linked overwhelmingly to arguments
in favor. Malcolm Hoenlein, the confer-
ence's executive vice-chairman, said an
umbrella group that must achieve con-
sensus among more than 50 groups
has to tread with care.
The American Israel Public Affairs
Committee also avoided backing the
war, but at its May 2004 policy confer-
ence, 6,000 delegates loudly cheered
President Bush, who focused his key-
note speech on his case for war.
The Reform movement rolled
around to a resolution broadly oppos-
ing the war at its biennial convention
in fall 2005. That's not untypical of
a movement that prefers the slow,
upward churn of grassroots pres-
sure over hasty decisions announced
by leadership, said Rabbi David
Saperstein, who directs the Religious
Action Center of Reform Judaism in
Washington.
The broader silence on the war is
unusual for a Jewish community that's
not afraid to tackle controversy. Li
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