Leary of Fallout, Groups Avoid Iraq-War Debate

Ron Kampeas
Jewish Telegraphic Agency

WASHINGTON

Abortion? Check. Condoms? Got 'em. Taxes? We're there. War? Don't mention it!

The organizational Jewish community -- out front on most controversial political issues -- has instead maintained a careful distance from the Iraq war.

The main reason is a wish to avoid displeasing the Bush administration, which has offered unprecedented support for Israel and is leading 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 director of the Anti-Defamation League. "If we want to be tough on Iran, we can't tie his hands on Iraq," he said, referring to President Bush.

As the war passed its fourth year last week, grass-roots pressure was mounting against a conflict that is profoundly unpopular, especially among Jews

The results of that pressure are evident in the Reform and Reconstructionist movements. Last week, the Union of Reform Judaism's executive committee demanded a timetable for a troop withdrawal and opposed the new "surge," the administration's deployment of 30,000 more troops.

The same week, the Reconstructionist Rabbinical Association called for a "rapid and responsible" troop withdrawal.

An aggregate of recent Gallup Polls shows that both 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 to call Jewish organizations to account.

"Every day, the official Jewish institutions 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 mechanism. Jews Against the War was launched Monday by a number of Jewish-studies scholars.

"Like the prophets of Israel, I can no longer take the 'safe' road," Rabbi Joshua Levine Grater of the Pasadena Jewish Temple and Center in California said in the group's opening statement. "This war is wrong, and it needs to end."

'Danger to Democracy'
No major Jewish group ever explicitly 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 stated after Bush outlined his case for military action to the United Nations in September 2002.

Polls at that time showed that most American Jews -- like the rest of the nation -- believed Iraq had weapons of mass destruction.

Differences between American 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.

The Reform movement rolled around to a resolution broadly opposing the war at its biennial convention in fall 2005. That's not untypical of a movement that prefers the slow, upward churn of grass-roots pressure over hasty decisions announced by leadership, according to Rabbi David Saperstein, who directs the Religious Action Center of Reform Judaism in Washington.

Those who continue to support a U.S. military presence in Iraq say such a route may not be the best way of arriving at policy.

"The model of leadership is not what the grass-roots want," said Matt Brooks, executive director of the Republican Jewish Coalition. "This is a time for people who should know what's at risk and what's at stake, and not give in to the prevailing political winds. It sends the wrong message to men in uniform. It sends a white flag to our friends and allies around the world."

One element frustrating opposition to the war is that it's not so simple to come up with alternatives, acknowledged Rabbi Steve Gutow, JCPA's executive director.

Said Gutow: "No one wants it to go on, but how do you end it? It's a hard question."