World

Capital Hill Dialog

Senators engage Jewish leaders in heart-to-heart discussion.

A

midst the recent flurry of dip-
lomatic activity in the Middle
East and fast on the heels of the
widely reported parley at the White House
with President Obama, national Jewish
leaders were invited to Capitol Hill to vet
their concerns with U.S.
Democratic senators
at a forum hosted by
Michigan's junior sena-
tor, Debbie Stabenow.
Under the aegis of
the Senate Democratic
Steering and Outreach
Committee
of which she
Sen. Stabenow
is chair, Stabenow con-
vened the July 22 closed-
door meeting with representatives of 18
major Jewish organizations as part of the
committee's ongoing efforts to dialog and
engage with the nation's diverse constitu-
encies and interest groups. This wasn't
the first time Jewish groups addressed
Stabenow's committee.
"The purpose of this was really for
senators to get a sense of what key Jewish
leaders are saying — to take the tempera-
ture, as it were," explained Ben Cohen,
associate communications director for
the New York-based American Jewish
Committee.
The steering committee's communica-
tions director said that many subjects
were broached by the Jewish communal
leaders, including environmental issues,
health care and hate crimes legislation.
But concerns regarding Israel and Iran
emerged as the dominant issues during
the one-hour meeting attended by 22 U.S.
senators, including six-term Sen. Carl
Levin of Michigan.

Focus: Israel
American Israel Public Affairs Committee
Executive Director Howard Kohr of
Washington encouraged the senators to
support the Obama administration's diplo-
matic efforts with Iran in a "time-limited
way and should that not work in the near
term, to follow up with meaningful sanc-
tions" as articulated in the Iran Refined
Petroleum Sanctions Act, AIPAC spokes-
man Josh Block told the IN. Nearly three-
quarters of the Senate has co-sponsored
the measure. On the House side, Foreign
Affairs Committee Chair Howard Berman
has indicated that he would move the
House sanctions bill through the process

some time next month, Block said.
"It was a very positive meeting with
Howard emphasizing the need [for
Congress and the Obama administration]
to speak out forcefully about the Arab
states' fundamental responsibilities to
reach out and begin normalization with
Israel if there is going to be a successful
peace process!'
David Harris, executive director of the
American Jewish Committee, used the
platform to "offer a caring critique from a
friend!' In his remarks to the committee,
he took the president to
task for misstating in
his "groundbreaking"
Cairo speech that Israel
was created from the
Holocaust. Harris called
the error "unfortunate"
and noted, in reminding
David Harris
the senators of Israel's
biblical and historic
antecedents, that it is important to cor-
rect the record because "the Arab world
has long challenged Israel's legitimacy by
arguing that it is a Western implant in the
Middle East, created to appease the con-
science of a Europe with Jewish blood on
its hands!'
Harris also took exception to the
"regrettable equivalence" made by
President Obama in the Cairo speech
between the plight of Palestinians and that
of African Americans and other suffering
people across the globe.
"I would not for a minute deny that
Palestinians have suffered," Harris said.
"...Yet I also know that the Palestinian
condition is, above all, self-inflicted. To
suggest that Palestinians are the modern-
day version of those who endured ines-
capable oppression is to give them, and
especially their leaders, a free pass. Those
leaders should be held accountable for
failing to move Palestinian society from
victimization to responsibility"
Harris expressed disappointment at the
president's public pressuring of Israel and
blaming Jewish settlements as the impedi-
ment to regional peace while ignoring
Palestinian and Arab responsibilities and
failures to fulfill past accords and obliga-
tions."Palestinians seem to have inter-
preted — or misinterpreted — President
Obama's stance as a license to sit back
while Israel is forced into concessions:'
Harris told the senators.

Normalize Relations
Although several international news
outlets have reported that the Saudis
have rebuffed U.S. Mideast envoy George
Mitchell's requests for more positive
engagement with Israel, there are con-
gressional letters circulating urging the
president to up the volume on the need
for Arab states to normalize relations with
Israel as a demonstration of their commit-
ment to the peace process.
The only members of the Michigan
congressional delegation to sign the letter
written by Reps. Brad Sherman, D-Calif.,
and Edward Royce, R-Calif., are Democrats
Gary Peters and Bart Stupak and
Republicans Peter Hoekstra, Thaddeus
McCotter and Candice Miller. Not sign-
ing the letter were Democrats Sander
Levin, John Conyers Jr., John Dingell,
Dale Kildee, Carolyn Cheeks-Kilpatrick
and Mark Schauer and Republicans Dave
Camp, Vernon Ehlers, Mike Rogers and
Fred Upton. On the Senate side, Stabenow
has not yet signed the letter co-authored
by Senators Evan Bayh, D-Ind., and James
Risch, R-Idaho. Sen. Levin told the IN
that while he has yet to read the letter, "It
sounds fine to me."
Several major newspapers — including
the Washington Post — have recently
published editorials also calling into
question Obama's public dressing down
of Israel and fixation on settlements as
the phantom panacea to end the Mideast
impasse. The approach, critics contend, is
backfiring and only hardens the implaca-
bility of Palestinians and other Arab coun-
tries. Rep. Shelley Berkley, D-Nev., told the
recent Christians United for Israel (CUFI)
conference, "To pin the peace process" on
the settlement issue "is absolutely fool-
hardy. "To publicly dress down the State of
Israel is a huge mistake."
Also speaking at the CUFI conference,
Sen. Joe Lieberman, I-Conn., said: "The
chief obstacle to peace in the Middle East
is not Israelis living on the West Bank, but
the regime in Tehran."
The AJC's Harris also suggested to
the senators that it would be beneficial
for Obama to travel to Israel to speak
directly to the Israelis in an effort to ease
the strain that has developed between
Washington and Israel.
Writing in a New York Times op-ed
last week, Aluf Benn, editor of Israel's left-
leaning Ha'aretz, also appealed to Obama

to address Israelis just as he has addressed
the Arab world. A recent global Pew poll
identifies Israel as the only foreign coun-
try among 25 surveyed to view America
less favorably than before.

National Issues

Domestic social issues
were also on the docket.
Anti-Defamation
League Deputy National
Director Kenneth
Jacobson of New York
applauded the efforts of
Sen. Levin and others in
securing passage of an
Kenneth
amendment providing
Jacobson
for expanded hate crime
coverage, now awaiting action in Senate-
House conference. Jacobson proudly
noted that the ADL originally formulated
hate crimes legislation that serves as the
model in 45 states. He explained that
the new law would broaden the scope of
prosecutable hate crimes to include those
based on gender, gender identity, sexual
orientation and disability.
Speaking on the subject of cap and
trade and climate
change globally, the
Jewish Council for
Public Affairs (JCPA)
executive director, Rabbi
Steve Gutow, impressed
upon the senators the
need for "adaptation
Rabbi Gutow
provisions" to provide
special assistance to
help poorer nations "who have contrib-
uted to least to the carbon in the atmo-
sphere" to meet new carbon reduction
standards.
Gutow shared with the senators a
new initiative soon to be unveiled called
"Fighting Poverty with Faith." He said
JCPA is spearheading this undertaking
with Catholic Charities and 30-40 major
national faith groups "focusing laser-like"
on the creation of green jobs that are
environmentally sound and that assure
"good and decent" salary, benefits and
safety.

Other Takes

Due to a scheduling oversight, the
Zionist Organization of America was not

Capital Hill Dialog on page 16

August 6

2009 15

