World

Let BenMar Property Solutions take good care of your
Florida home when you're not there. Full service home watch,
consulting and preventative maintenance. Built on trust, quality,
innovation and midwestern values! Call today for more
information. We're from Michigan!

Benjamin Gene
248-860-0999

Playing from page A30

Mark Nestor
786-999-6567

PCCPEK,TILJACFC.i i C-

1436760

Clean + Sober

2 Words. 12 Steps. 30 Days. = A New Start

srjoHN

Buchanan Back-And - Forth

BRIGHTON HOSPITAL

HE ■ L I H

Chemical Dependency and
Dual Diagnosis Residential Treatment

Michigan's first and most experienced

addiction treatment facility.

For a confidential assessment call: 1-800-523-8198
Visit us on the web at www.brightonhospital.org

14089.10

5570 Monroe Street • Sylvania, 011 • 419

MARLING & OUTERWEAR SALE

Large Selection Of Women's & Men's Shearlings To Choose From

SAVE

Includes:

Furs • Shearlings • Leathers
25% Cloth Coats •• Down Jackets

Thursday • Friday • Saturday

October 23rd, 24th & 25th

Robert
Mann
...a woman's clothing boutique

Telegraph at Maple • In Bloomfield Plaza
248-855-9545

A32

October 23 . 2008

Rtil

relationships with figures in Israel's
security establishment. The RJC ad
calls McPeak "hostile to American
Jews." Certainly, that could character-
ize his 2003 remarks but does not
describe his whole career.
The ad makes no mention of
Obama's actual senior adviser on Iran
and the Israeli-Palestinian conflict:
Dennis Ross, a former U.S. negotiator
in both Democratic and Republican
administrations, and a well-respected
figure in large swaths of the Jewish
community.

Another ad attempts to link Obama to
Pat Buchanan, the former Republican
presidential candidate who has
diminished the significance of the
Holocaust. The ad is based entirely on
the imaginings of Buchanan himself,
who describes Obama's views on Iran
and the Israeli-Palestinian conflict as
close to his.
There is no evidence that Obama
would accept such a parallel, and, in
fact, Buchanan would seem to differ
substantively with Obama's emphasis
on the need to confront Iran and the
degree to which the Democratic nomi-
nee absolves Israel for Palestinian
suffering.
The RJC ad also insinuates that
Buchanan's support for Obama stems
from Buchanan's marginal and offen-
sive views on Jews and immigrants.
The RJC put the ad out in part to retal-
iate against attempts by Democrats,
based on similarly flimsy evidence, to
link Buchanan to GOP vice presiden-
tial candidate Sarah Palin.
Brooks says the campaign was care-
ful to emphasize that it was Buchanan
who was endorsing Obama's views,
not the other way around.
"Pat Buchanan, who is not an idiot,
who is not unread, has looked at the
record of John McCain and Barack
Obama and said, `My views are in line
with Barack Obama;" Brooks said.
"It's up to people to understand what
about Barack Obama Pat Buchanan
found so appealing."
Two of the RJC ads reference
Obama's comment in May 2007 that
"nobody is suffering more than the
Palestinian people." But the ads fail to
make clear that Obama clearly implied
at the time, and later made clear, that
he blames Palestinian leaders — not
Israel — for their people's suffering.
J Street's Ben-Ami says he worries
that the RJC ad campaign will end up
reinforcing the subterranean, Internet-

driven effort to present Obama as a
Muslim who is lying about his past.
"There are limits in particular in
this environment, when we've had a
season filled with anonymous smears
racing across the Internet:' he said. "To
run paid advertising that taps into the
exact same fears is irresponsible."
Ben-Ami clarified that the cam-
paign does not target all the ads,
only those that might prove libelous
in describing Obama's advisers, for
instance, as anti-Semitic or anti-Israel.
The RJC has run positive ads extolling
McCain; Ben-Ami does not see those
as objectionable.
First Amendment protections in
political speech are broad and Brooks
rejected assertions that his ads
crossed any line; indeed they are in
many ways milder than the McCain
campaign's recent attempts to link
Obama to domestic terrorists.
"I would be happy if JTA or one of
the newspapers wants to schedule a
debate with Jeremy about our ads," he
said. "I would be more than happy to
have that debate. They don't want to
face the truth and reality of what we're
talking about and are trying to intimi-
date media!'

Local Reaction
The ads and the petition to pull
them have generated much debate
among editors of Jewish papers. "We
did receive some letters, all virtu-
ally identical in format and content,
complaining about the Republican
Jewish Coalition ads and question-
ing our decision to run them:' said
Detroit Jewish News Publisher Arthur
Horwitz.
"While we always reserve the right,
in our sole discretion, to accept or
reject advertising, the RJC ads were
consistent with the overall message
already being communicated to Jewish
voters by McCain's own campaign."
The Washington Jewish Week,
among others, has also run the ads,
and its publisher, Larry Fishbein, said
the newspaper would continue to do
so.
As it turns out, the ads were only
placed in newspapers located in swing
states — the Washington Jewish Week
serves northern Virginia — as well
as on the Jewish Telegraphic Agency's
Web site. But the designers of the
J Street Web template mistakenly
allowed members to write newspapers
that had not carried the ads.
In a letter last week, Ben-Ami apol-
ogized for that mistake, but not for the
content of the campaign.

❑

