Bad For The Jews

There they go again. Some self appointed Jewish-American “leaders” and some of the Presidential candidates who covet their favor hit a new low point last week when they beat up on Howard Dean, twisting innocuous and sensible comments he made about the Middle East and unfairly accusing him of insufficient ardor in his support of Israel. (see Salon )

These attacks are unlikely to seriously damage Dean who, in any case, can’t expect to become President without having to deflect such nonsense and worse. However, the supposedly pro-Israel demagogues not only tarnished their own credibility but they added to the odious trend of narrowing the space for much-needed creative thinking and dialogue in dealing with the Israel-Palestinian problem.

The contretemps was set off by an interview Dean did with the Associated Press in which he used the words “even-handed” and said that in the context of Israeli-Palestinian negotiations which the U.S. mediates like those at Camp David, “it’s not our place to take sides”.

Several self-interested demagogues pretended that Dean was not simply referring to such mediations but that he meant that the U.S. shouldn’t “take sides” in terms of our general policies in the region.

It is worth noting that Dean’s wife Deborah Steinberg Dean is Jewish and their two children were raised as Jews. Dean's national campaign co-chairman, Steve Grossman, a former president of the ardently pro-Israel group AIPAC stated what was obvious to all concerned. "Howard Dean sees himself as a president who from day one will be deeply engaged and will build credibility with all parties to the conflict."

Nonetheless Senator Joseph Lieberman who has been badly trailing Dean in New Hampshire and Iowa, accused Dean of advocating “ a major break from a half a century of American foreign policy." Lieberman supporter former Congressman Stephan Solarz added, "It's a deeply disturbing expression of moral and political neutrality."

"Either he's not very knowledgeable or he's on the wrong side," chimed in Mark Mellman, a pollster for another Dean opponent, Senator Kerry. "Howard Dean is saying he wants to take American policy vis-à-vis Israel in a radically different direction than it has been under Democratic and Republican policy for the last 30 years."

Not only are these hysterical reactions totally unfair, it is almost certain that the people making the charges know it. He was talking about playing a role similar to that of President Clinton. In fact the main message of Dean’s interview was that President Bush should ask Clinton to play such a role now. To espouse anything other than Dean’s position would be to eliminate any role for the U.S. in a future Middle East peace process, which would be terribly damaging for both the U.S. and for Israel.

Dean’s second supposed transgression was even more ephemeral. Asked by CNN’s Wolf Blitzer whether he opposed or approved of Israel’s "assassinations of Hamas militants" Gov. Dean replied, "… there is a war going on in the Middle East and members of Hamas are soldiers in that war and therefore it seems to me that they are going to be casualties.” In other words, Dean was supporting Israel’s moral right to kill members of Hamas. Jack Rosen, President of the American Jewish Congress huffed on the Fox News show 'The Beltway Boys', “According to international law, as well as common sense, Hamas terrorists are not soldiers but murderous terrorists who kill children. It's clear Governor Dean didn't bother to differentiate between terrorists, murderers and innocent civilians that are being attacked by Hamas.“ Of course, Rosen knows that Dean had not been asked to make that particular distinction but whether or not it was okay for Israel to kill Hamas members. Nonetheless, the AJ Congress sent a hysterical email with the gleeful headline “Alert!!!! Alert!!!! Alert!!!! Dean Slips Up Again“ (and, yes, they really used four exclamation points after each “Alert!!!!”).

Desperate for traction in his lackluster campaign, Kerry entered Willie Horton territory when he shamelessly distorted Dean’s meaning by claiming that "In going out of his way to term members of Hamas as 'soldiers,' Gov. Dean insults the memory of every innocent man, woman and child killed by these suicidal murderers."

As if in acknowledgement of the intellectual dishonesty of their attacks, many of these same critics quickly shifted their criticism of Dean from substance to style. Implicitly acknowledging that Dean was no threat to Israel, they accused him on “inexperience” in using words that could be “perceived” that way. Of course no one perceived Dean inaccurately except the very same people who intentionally pretended to do so in order to attack him for their own political agenda.

Howard Dean may yet stumble and fall in his ambitious and unlikely race to become President, but he would have to descend significantly to disgrace himself as much as Kerry, Lieberman, Solarz, Rosen and others have who cynically play word-games about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict at a time of great peril for both Israel and the United States.