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The Emergency Committee on Israel put forth the best and certainly most fitting response to the motion, saying: “You must be kidding.”Then, just last summer, Secretary of State John Kerry presented a cease-fire proposal that clearly favored the demands of Hamas over Israel. So unbalanced was this peace deal that even Netanyahu-hating Haaretz criticized it (which is saying alot). Columnist Ari Shavit argued that Kerry had pushed the Israelis and Palestinians toward an escalation when a cease-fire was in reach. Barak Ravid, Haaretz’s diplomatic correspondent (who never hesitates to attack me for being too right-wing), wrote that Kerry’s plan might as well have been written by the head of Hamas.How did Abe weigh in on all this? “It’s unwarranted and inappropriate to criticize him for an effort to bring peace closer or bring about a cease-fire,” he said.But this week, Abe Foxman outdid his earlier persistent and stalwart defense of the president at the expense of Israel’s defenders. Michael Oren, the renowned historian, Israel’s former ambassador to the United States and current member of the Knesset, published a comprehensive article in Foreign Policy critical of President Obama’s failed strategy in the Middle East. Rather than applaud Oren’s honesty and accuracy in dissecting the Obama administration’s Middle East mess, Abe honed in on one paragraph in which Oren suggested that as “a child raised by a Christian mother [Obama] might see himself as a natural bridge between her two Muslim husbands.”Oren then speculated that Obama’s abandonment by his fathers “could lead him, many years later, to seek acceptance by their co-religionists.” An apoplectic Foxman accused Oren of staging an “insensitive and unjustified attack on the president,” even demanded that Oren “walk back” his words, which he claimed were “borderline stereotyping” and “veer[ed] into the realm of conspiracy theories.”Abe has every right to disagree with Oren’s psychoanalysis.Indeed, I am personally not persuaded by Oren’s argument, even as I find what I’ve read so far of his new book, Ally, to be erudite and compelling. But let’s not forget Oren is entitled to his opinion.Moreover, the type of psychoanalysis employed by Oren and so vilified by Foxman is in no way unusual. On the contrary, historians like Oren frequently psychoanalyze presidents, accusing FDR for example of having mommy issues, Bush 43 daddy issues and Clinton of all types of issues.In all, Foxman defends even the most intolerable actions of the Obama administration all while never tolerating their critics. It’s gone so far, in fact, that I suggest they adopt an apt and fitting name-change, one that requires the insertion of just a single word. From now on, the ADL ought to be called the OADL, or “The Obama Anti-Defamation League.”This name change seems even more appropriate considering the worrying fact that this trajectory isn’t Abe’s alone but signals a change in direction for the ADL as a whole, given that the ADL decided to replace Foxman with Jonathan A. Greenblatt, a special assistant to President Obama.However, in contrast to all this stands a very different model of leadership, laid down by the prince of the Jewish People and moral conscience of humanity, Elie Wiesel.Totally prepared to see his presidential access slip away, Wiesel fearlessly and courageously spoke truth to power, telling president Reagan not to visit the Bitburg Cemetery in Germany, where members of the Waffen-SS were buried.For those who don’t remember, the “Bitburg Controversy” of 1985 constituted one of the most acrimonious confrontations between any US administration and the American Jewish community. Ignoring exhortations to avoid exacerbating tensions with Reagan – who was viewed as a strong friend of the Jewish state – Wiesel stood beside the president on national television after receiving the Congressional Medal of Achievement, and right then and there pleaded with him not to go to Bitburg. “That place,” he said famously, “is not your place. Your place is with the victims of the SS.”Prof. Wiesel furthered this paradigm of true leadership this past March when he joined me in a full-page ad in The New York Times urging President Obama to listen to Prime Minister Netanyahu’s speech to Congress given Iran’s genocidal intent against Israel.By refusing to bend to the will of successive American presidents, Wiesel put to rest for good the stereotype of the “court Jew” who, fearing persecution or banishment, silently accepts the policies of the sovereign, no matter the consequences for the Jewish people.It is this standard set by Wiesel that all Jewish leaders ought to follow. A model where one’s singular goal is to ensure the well-being of the Jewish People by preventing their defamation – no matter the costs.The author, “America’s rabbi,” is founder of The World Values Network, the foremost organization influencing politics, media and the culture with universal Jewish values. He is the international best-selling author of 30 books, including The Israel Warrior’s Handbook, which is about to be released.Follow him on Twitter @RabbiShmuley.
No Holds Barred: Abe Foxman’s uncritical defenses of President Obama
Being a Jewish leader means being prepared to sacrifice one’s access to the White House in order to criticize policies that put Israel's safety at risk.
