No holds barred: The American Jewish Committee jumps to John Kerry’s defense

There can be no equivocation or false associations of Israeli policy with unjustified killings. Failure to do so can only be interpreted as an American double standard.

By SHMULEY BOTEACH
US Secretary of State John Kerry. (photo credit: REUTERS)
US Secretary of State John Kerry.
(photo credit: REUTERS)
In 1943 when Peter Bergson was taking out full page ads in The New York Times to alert America to the slaughter of European Jewry and the inaction of the American government, the American Jewish Committee was trying to have him deported. A Jewish activist who protested the Roosevelt administration’s inaction to save the Jews of Europe was seen as an unwelcome irritant by the AJC, who sought to destroy him.
Perhaps I should therefore not have been surprised when the AJC attacked me recently for placing a full-page ad in the Times this past weekend criticizing US Secretary of State John Kerry’s failure to stand with America’s closest Middle East ally, and for his moral blindness on Israel, which devalues Jewish lives.
Does the AJC share Kerry’s view that Jews are being brutally murdered because of the settlements? Does executive director David Harris agree that these atrocities are part of a “cycle of violence,” thereby equating the killers and the victims? I know that David is a passionate Zionist, and a distinguished Jewish leader who could not possibly agree with Kerry’s moral equivalence.
If Harris does share my objection over Kerry’s spurious moral equivalence, then why would he, or someone else using the AJC name, attack a fellow Jew who criticizes our highest officials when they take positions that are indefensible? After all, Kerry is not a dictator, god or king who is immune from criticism.
You would think the AJC would have learned from its embarrassing silence during World War II and its initial opposition to the establishment of Israel.
The job of the AJC and other communal institutions is to summon the courage to speak truth to power. The desire to preserve access to powerful people is hampering Jewish activism as we see a growing onslaught against Israel.
I understand the necessity of having the ear of decision makers, but does the AJC really believe it would lose access if it spoke out against justifications for terrorism? If that were true then the AJC must not be taken very seriously in the corridors of power.
Meanwhile, French President Francois Hollande declared after the horrible atrocities in Paris, “We are going to lead a war which will be pitiless.” He added that the terrorists “must be certain that they are facing a determined France, a united France, a France that is together and does not let itself be moved.”
Where is the US State Department spokesman to tell Hollande to exercise restraint, to avoid a disproportionate response and to break the cycle of violence? Hollande has already, in his righteous might, struck forcefully against Islamic State (IS), with no-one from the Obama administration objecting. It is inconceivable that Kerry would treat Hollande with the same disdain that he has treated Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu when he has spoken out against the barbarous terrorists who are stabbing, shooting, and running over Israelis.
Hollande is not interested in the motivations of the murderers of French citizens.
He understands that France is confronting unmitigated evil, and that his country was attacked because IS is nothing more than a collection of bloodthirsty monsters driven by their desire to cleanse the world of non-Muslims.
It is a mistake, however, to focus all our attention on IS. The West, and much of the Middle East, will not defeat the global terrorist network unless and until all world leaders understand that what is true of IS applies to all radical Islamists, whether they call themselves Hamas, Hezbollah, al-Qaida or Islamic Jihad. And we should have also learned the lesson from the killing of Osama bin Laden that as soon as we kill one terrorist leader, or neutralize an organization, another will emerge, because too many Muslims are being radicalized and are being made receptive to the extremist views spread through mosques, madrassas and social media, and too many are convinced of the virtue of martyrdom.
Islam is a great world religion and Jews and Muslims lived peacefully together in many locales over several historic periods.
Muslims took in large numbers of Jews in Ottoman Turkey, for example, after the Spanish Catholic expulsion. But the number of terrorist attacks being perpetrated in the name of Islam has become something impossible to ignore, notwithstanding how President Barack Obama refuses to use the words “radical Islamic terrorism.”
This is what Israelis mean when they say that the West does not understand the Middle East. The French declared war this week; Jews have been fighting this war against radical Muslim terrorism in their homeland since the days of the Mufti of Jerusalem in the 1920s. I am skeptical that the Obama administration will abandon its double standard toward Israel because of the Paris murders, but the administration should recognize Israel is fighting the same war against radical Islam, only in a different theater.
The United States should support Israel in its war on terrorism with the same vigor as it says it will support France. John Kerry must condemn terrorism against Jews with the same fervor and clarity that he has expressed in response to the Paris attacks.
There can be no equivocation or false associations of Israeli policy with unjustified killings. Failure to do so can only be interpreted as an American double standard when it comes to Islamic terrorists who murder Israeli Jews.
I call on David Harris and the AJC to join me in demanding that the secretary of state unambiguously condemn the murder of Israelis. This is the morally appropriate position for a Jewish leader – even if it is not the politically correct one.
The author, whom The Washington Post calls “the most famous rabbi in America,” is the founder of The World Values Network and is the international best-selling author of 30 books, including his most recent, The Israel Warriors Handbook. Follow him on Twitter @RabbiShmuley.