Opinion: Palin and JStreet

The origins of a political farce

By Alan Jay Gerber

Issue of Sept. 26, 2008

By the time you read this article, the now famous anti-Iran rally will be just a dim memory. Rosh Hashanah and its attendant preparations will be foremost in our minds. Yet the political aftershocks of the disinvitation to Republican vice presidential nominee Sarah Palin still reverberate.

Even more ominous, in this writer’s opinion, is the lack of specificity as to the origins of this action by Malcolm Hoenlein and the leaders of the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations. The pressures brought to bear upon them have to be clarified and their origin exposed.

JStreet, a recently formed extreme left-wing lobby group in Washington, was at the bottom of the agitation that literally overturned the political establishment of American Jewry. Coupled with the arrogant action of Hillary Clinton’s self-withdrawal as a speaker at the rally, a firestorm of charges and countercharges ensued among Jewish leaders and political bigwigs as to who was to blame for the snub to Governor Palin. Nowhere in this hubbub was there any hint as to the role of JStreet and its followers. However, here is their description of their role.

JStreet’s prime objection to Palin’s participation at the anti-Iran rally was based, not upon Jewish political self-interests, but upon their own political agenda that focuses upon abortion rights, gay rights, appeasement of Islamo-Fascists as the basis of a new foreign policy initiative, and environmental issues. None of these issues, including Palin’s religious faith, were relevant to the rally’s purpose. Furthermore, very little in their statements related to the nuclear threat posed by the current Iranian regime; rather, they focused upon the legitimacy of Palin’s candidacy, an issue that was irrelevant to the rally’s theme.

JStreet, a recently formed extreme left-wing lobby group in Washington, was at the bottom of the agitation that literally overturned the political establishment of American Jewry.

Within 24 hours of their call, over 20,000 e-mails were sent to Hoenlein’s organization, urging that Palin’s invitation be withdrawn, and so it was. Hoenlein and his group folded like cheap cameras for the world to see. In effect, at least for now, it is Senator Clinton and the JStreet crowd that are dictating Jewish political priorities to the American Jewish community. That is a reality that, until now, has gone unreported. And there’s more.

What I found most galling was their statement that, “The fact that Sarah Palin would be invited to speak to American Jews about anything, let alone an issue as important as Iran, is just ridiculous.” How arrogant!

This is nothing short of being a demand for political censorship by this all-knowing group who, by their lights, will choose whom we shall hear from and listen to. In effect, anyone who differs from what JStreet deigns to be the bearers of their perception of the Jewish political truth are to be excluded from Jewish communal dialogue. This is an intolerable situation that cannot continue.

In addition, by their lights, social and political issues as the environment, gay rights, and abortion rights are to be regarded as Jewish issues, as if they were canons of our religion, to be set as a standard by which we, as a religious community, are to measure our political support. Anyone who falls short of that standard is to be rated as ‘’traif’’ and undeserving of Jewish electoral support. I am sorry to inform the members of JSreet, but that is not the reality anymore on the Jewish street.

Our community must be made aware of this misrepresentation of our views. The Jewish community is not a lockstep left-wing cabal that will march, as ordered, to the demands of an American Yevseksia [Communist Party Jewish leadership]. Those days are long gone and however we choose to vote on Election Day, it will be as a free people with opinions arrived at through choice, not dictation.

We should let it be known that Governor Sarah Palin is more than welcome to speak to our community, to visit us and to meet in an open atmosphere as free Americans.