OLMERT'S TROUBLES COULD BE OURS

Thanks a bunch, Ehud.

You have created the potential for a new backlash against Jews throughout the world. It is a very real possibility in Europe and Middle East countries, and American Jews are vulnerable.

Ehud Olmert, a former prime minister of Israel, was formally indicted Sunday, Aug. 30, for accepting $600,000 in cash from a Long Island businessman; fraudulently billing multiple entities while in government; and promoting the the interests of a former law partner’s clients, according to The New York Times.

Practically speaking, severe repercussions in the United States are unlikely even if Olmert is found guilty. However, the possibility is always there, and Olmert’s case involves more significant inferences.

It is bad enough that American Jews must contend with Bernard Madoff, who demolished family fortunes, and a Brooklynite who stands accused of trafficking in human organs.

Olmert’s situation is more serious. He was prime minister of a young, vulnerable nation heavily dependent on the United States for money, arms and diplomatic support. He is the first Israeli prime minister ever to have been indicted on corruption charges, though some of his predecessors have come close. A conviction will mean that he cheated his own country.

Any American citizen has a right to question if Olmert, while he was at it, cheated the United States. Did he misuse American funds? Did he steer the president and Congress in the wrong direction in relations with other Arab nations? Did he employ military weapons for aggressive purposes?

Israel is accused of transgressions from different corners. Some allegations were true and others were flat-out lies.

Olmert probably never needed to trick the previous administration into anything. President Bush’s crowd was staunchly pro-Israel, and initially it backed right-wing policies. Olmert’s mismanagement of the 2006 war could well have been based on reckless advice from the Bush administration. After Hezbollah committed acts of war at the Israel/Lebanon border, the Israeli military mainly responded by hammering Lebanon with excessive air strikes while delaying ground troop action to the best advantage.

Olmert united all ideological factions in Israel toward the same goal: kicking him out of office. He could not quell a crisis adequately, which is the most fundamental skill required of an Israeli leader. He was also criticized for the unnecessary deaths of civilians and his government’s failure to maintain the military for a state of war.

Olmert’s departure as prime minister was welcomed by Israelis and their supporters for any number of reasons, though the corruption allegations finally drove him out. Because Olmert was indicted, what are outsiders to think? American taxpayers could finally decide it is time to cease sending aid to Israel. That would be understandable, and in a more volatile environment it should be expected.

As one non-Jewish friend told me, most Americans will view Olmert as another corrupt politician whose acts do not reflect on the Israeli people. In fact, people probably agree that Israel makes serious mistakes from time to time, but it is generally in the right and deserves America’s help.

That would be a valid assessment. I find that, overall, Americans have become more fair and reasonable in their judgment of situations. They are more apt to base conclusions on what individuals do, not on their race, religion or nationality. An American Jew won the popular election for vice president in 2000 and we now have an African-American president. Even Europeans who despised Bush knew better than to lump all Americans with him.

Still, the prospect for a backlash should never be underestimated. Too bad that Olmert never considered that possibility.

The Great White Liar

The great WHAT hope?

Lynn Jenkins is either a liar or a blithering idiot. Probably both. The freshman Republican congresswoman, who edged out a Democratic incumbent in a close election last year, invoked the phrase “great white hope” in the search for a Republican savior and then denied that she meant this as racist.

How else could she mean it? She employed the word “white” in the context of an African-American president who is swiftly trying to shift the nation’s ideology, all anathema to right-wing Republicans. Interpretation is not possible here. The words are just too starkly stated.

Jenkins’ comment was not only disgusting but downright silly. True, racism probably accounts for some attacks against President Obama, but would Republicans lay off a white male who leads a comparable policy shift?

In Hiawatha, Kansas, at a forum on Aug. 19, Jenkins proclaimed: “Republicans are struggling right now to find the great white hope. I suggest to any of you who are concerned about that, who are Republican, there are some great young Republican minds in Washington.”

How vague. Really, how much plainer can one get?

When she got caught, Jenkins told the Lawrence Journal-World: “I was unaware of any negative connotation, and if I offended anybody, obviously I apologize.”

Unaware? Jenkins has a college education and has held a number of responsible positions. How couldn’t she figure out that that was insulting?

Jenkins’ phrase originated nearly a century ago when Jack Johnson, a black boxer, became heavyweight champion, which was sufficient to incite white boxing fans to long for a “great white hope,” according to The New York Daily News. James Earl Jones portrayed Johnson in both the play and movie entitled “The Great White Hope.”

Even if this wasn’t a time-worn remark, the semantics alone are offensive.

Other notable aspects raise concerns. Is she yet another model of a Republican woman in politics? Like Sarah Palin, Republican women advocate for women’s concerns, yes, the concerns of wealthy women.

It was also quite the compounded oxymoron when she referred to “some great young Republican minds.” “Mind” and “Republican” in the same sentence?

She might have taken the edge off her assault when she identified three possible “white hopes” in Congress by characterizing Eric Cantor of Virginia as “the great Jewish hope,” Kevin McCarthy of California the “Baptist hope” and Paul Ryan of Wisconsin the “Catholic hope.” Cantor, who reps suburbs of Richmond, is the last remaining Jewish Republican in Congress, so he is the only one left to embarrass me.

One last misrepresentation: To seek a “great white hope” to challenge Obama is inaccurate. Obama’s father was black, but his mother - a native of Kansas - was white. That makes Obama half-white, and contributes to making Jenkins a half-wit.

SICKLY SENATE NEEDS SURGERY

Because James Madison compromised to enact a Constitution, President Obama is now willing to compromise to transform our health-care system.

Had Madison known that Americans would now be debating health-care reform, he probably would have predicted that the U.S. Senate might be the real stumbling block. The man who would become our fourth president believed 222 years ago that the compromise Connecticut plan to create the Senate as we know it would be unhealthy for democracy.

Madison and other delegates to the Constitutional Convention proposed proportionate representation for a national legislature precisely because the minority in this country can obstruct legislation that the majority wants. It is safe to figure that the majority in 23 states with a combined population of 168 million are demanding health-care reform; if we count swing states, including Florida’s 18 million residents, the number would likely top 200 million.

The largest Jewish communities are concentrated in many of these states.

Madison probably would have expected Sen. Kent Conrad’s pronouncement that “there are not the votes in the United States Senate for the public option.” Conrad, a Democrat, represents North Dakota, third from the bottom in population, at 641,000 people. New York and California, whose senators all back a government program for health insurance, together represent one-sixth of the population with a combined population of 55 million.

Conrad and other Democratic senators representing at least five swing states fear they may lose their seats if they vote for a health plan with a public option.

As a result, Obama is willing to compromise, just as Madison was in 1787. Madison’s Virginia delegation introduced its Virginia plan which proposed proportionate representation in the national legislature, but delegates from small states balked out of fear their interests would be subjugated to that of the larger states.

The delegation from New Jersey, a smaller state then but now 11th highest in population, introduced the New Jersey plan to protect their clout. Then came the compromise Connecticut plan - Connecticut is now the 29th most populous state - which left us with our current system requiring a crucial difference in voting powers between the House and the Senate.

Every member of the House has nearly equal clout, each representing the same number of constituents. Each state is represented by two senators, and they hardly have equal clout. California’s senators, Barbara Boxer and Dianne Feinstein, afford their 36.7 million constituents as much power as Wyoming’s senators, Michael B. Enzi and John Barrasso, whose state is the least populous with 532,000 people.

Madison and other delegates ultimately came around simply because they wanted a Constitution. He even helped sell the Constitution to the public when he wrote one-third of the Federalist Papers. He supported the Senate plan, but even then he warned that the system could be “injurious.”

Obama cannot be blamed if a health-care bill as he wants it will be discarded by Conrad and company. The President cannot convince them to come on board so long as they are convinced their constituents oppose the public option. In the Senate, the will of the majority does not matter. What counts is what the majority in the majority of the states want. The tail wags the dog in the Senate.

The system is doubly unfair because we all pay the same tax rates and, presumably, the larger states pour the most tax money into the federal treasury, especially from places like Beverly Hills, New York’s Upper East Side and Greenwich, Conn.

Nice racket. It gives the term “other people’s money” new meaning. The racket must end. That the present Senate should be replaced by a chamber that affords more proportionate representation is long overdue. However, the Constitution itself makes that difficult at best. Two-thirds of both chambers and three-fourths of the states must approve any amendments.

On a practical level, lawmakers from the more progressive states can exploit their power of the purse. If any smaller, conservative states clog up a proposed national policy, the House can withhold money for these states. Maybe they can authorize a nuclear waste dump next door to North Dakota’s state capitol.

Interestingly, Senate Democrats began considering a Senate procedure which would circumvent a filibuster and require only a majority vote to pass a reform bill.

Meanwhile, liberals from Greenwich Village and Berkeley can move to these states to offset the old-school votes. Not me. To paraphrase film satirist Al Brooks, you spend the winter in North Dakota.

CRIME AND HEALTH CARE

Is it a war? Abortion? Israel? A racial clash? An election in Florida? No, health care.

It is really about far more - a shift in ideology and balance of power.

The wonkish health-care debate has degenerated into lynch-mob rage bonded with racist and other bigoted expressions. It has grown into the political lynching of our first President of color, to paraphrase Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas.

Their conduct is inexcusable. They have been crude, racist, disruptive, insulting, somewhat criminal and hypocritical. They resemble the white mobs who taunted black schoolchildren as they entered newly integrated schools 40 or 50 years ago. Organizers of the town-hall meetings have effective means at their disposal to respond, mainly by having police arrest anyone who is disruptive.

These people monopolized the early hearings, shouting at members of Congress who hosted the sessions and drowning out voices in support of health-care reform. That in itself constitutes disorderly conduct, not to mention some of the fights which erupted. Someone painted a swastika on a sign outside the office of U.S. Rep. David Scott in Georgia. The African-American congressman told the Associated Press that some of his mail contained a racial epithet and references to President Obama as a Marxist.

In Portsmouth, N.H., a man carried a sign that read “Obama and Pelosi = Mein Kampf” outside a high school where Obama hosted a town meeting; Nancy Pelosi is Speaker of the House. Sen. Arlen Specter was confronted in Lebanon, Pa., by Craig Miller, 59, who told him: “One day, God is going to stand before you, and he’s going to judge you,” as The New York Daily News reported. Specter is Jewish, and one must wonder what Miller was thinking when he spouted these words.

Calvin Montgomery, 39, of Exeter, N.H., opposes a governmental role in health care, but he makes his living off the government. He told the Daily News that his employer provides him with health insurance, and his employer is a government contractor. Former Pennsylvania insurance commissioner Herb Denenberg chided Congress in a commentary for rushing into a vote, yet I do not recall Denenberg or other health-care critics scolding Congress seven years ago for rushing its vote to invade Iraq.

These spectacles are bad for our health - the health of our democratic process. The critics have every right to speak out, and they should. They may well have legitimate concerns that should be communicated to Congress for the betterment of us all. However, it is very hard to distinguish between rhetoric and genuine concerns amid all the bombast.

It is clear that the Republican Party is trying to undermine Obama; prominent right-wingers are whipping up a frenzy; and companies that will lose profits are probably financing this uproar. However, there are real people who are speaking their minds and identifying themselves for the public record.

Why do we hear from them now? For 28 years, they had no need to assert themselves so forcefully. The Republican Party turned hard right when Ronald Reagan was elected president, and has generally had its way whether it had partial or nearly complete powers during those years. The party has since collapsed of its own weight and now its hard-core followers have very limited clout in Washington.

With Democrats controlling the White House and Congress, Obama and his congressional allies are moving government in a direction abhorred by right-wingers. Obama and his supporters call it public service, and his critics call it “socialism.”

As an aside, racism was injected partly because of Obama’s race, but these goons would be no less obnoxious if a white male led this movement.

The only legitimate response to such uproar is to alert police and press criminal charges. These thugs figure that their hosts are such easy marks that they can get away with anything they want short of violence. However, disrupting these meetings amounts to harassment and disorderly conduct, if not other relatively minor criminal offenses.

They’re bullies. They figure that nothing will happen to them. If the senators and House members sought arrests and criminal prosecution at the outset, these free-for-alls would have been ended swiftly. No self-respecting instigator is going to risk punishment he so richly deserves.

On a communal level, supporters of health-care reform can stand up and be counted. The lynch-mob movement provoked a backlash. U.S. Rep. Joe Sestak, a Pennsylvania Senate candidate who represents a suburban area, shrewdly hosted a meeting in downtown Philadelphia on Tuesday, Aug. 11, drawing far more supporters than critics. I stood in line and participated in a mini-debate where an opponent was alone against four of us health-care backers. A large crowd turned out for a rally in Jenkintown, a Philadelphia suburb, the following Saturday in support of reform.

A sure way to convert Calvin Montgomery, the New Hampshire guy whose employer contracts with the government, would be for the government to cancel the company’s contract, which would in turn lay off Montgomery. Then he’ll become a devoted supporter of health-care reform.

TWILIGHT ZONE OF PREJUDICE

Racial guilt, of sorts, gnaws at me.

With the Cambridge flap looming large, two African-American women were handed a legitimate reason to wonder if I was dissing them. I stepped off a train at Penn Station in Manhattan, entered an elevator holding four other people and stood directly in front of the button panel. I spotted the two women standing outside the elevator and plenty of room was still available for them. Why should I deny them entry?

I never did. The doors closed on the women and I scrambled to find the “open” button. A man’s finger poked the air to my side as he uttered something about finding the right button. He pushed the button that sent us spiraling upward to the station concourse. I was the only white guy there; the others appeared to be Asian. These poor women had a right to wonder if I deliberately barred them from the elevator because of their race.

I felt incredibly stupid. I was tempted to tell the other guy, “Thanks a bunch.”

Harvard Professor Henry Louis Gates Jr. bungled his reaction to a Cambridge police officer’s visit on July 16, but his actions were nonetheless fully understandable. The officer’s investigation touched a nerve, tapping a deep reserve within Gates of centuries-old racism toward him personally and African-Americans in general. The celebrated scholar’s sensitivities were compounded by struggling with a cold and enduring an extremely long flight from China.

Lucia Whalen was performing her civic duty by alerting 911 that two men seemed to be breaking into a house. Sgt. James Crowley responded to a call of a break-in. He claimed that Gates was confrontational from the outset and showed him a Harvard identification which excluded his address, The Washington Post reported.

A smart, responsible citizen always cooperates with any symbol of authority. Gates should have waited until the incident was done and, if he was still upset with the officer’s conduct, report his concerns to the police department. Maybe Gates would have done this if he was thinking clearly at the time. If Crowley was truthful, then he might have been attempting to sort out the matter as Gates harangued him. This would mean that Gates interfered with an incomplete investigation.

Yet, Gates cannot be blamed. Gates could have been responding to the perception of prejudice. We all know the depth of racism in American history - the common practice of lynching young black men in the South; pervasive segregation only 40 years ago; widespread poverty in the black community; and even the barring of African-American campers from a suburban Philadelphia swim club weeks ago.

Boston itself is known as the North’s bastion of racism. I am sometimes the only white person when I ride Philadelphia’s buses and subways, and while visiting Boston I discovered that most passengers on its subways and trolleys were white. The few African-Americans on board were visibly nervous. Maybe Gates was irritated with persistent racial attitudes there.

Who knows what racism Gates experienced in his own life?

Gates might have been stressed out by his long flight from China and his struggle with a cold. He arrives home and maybe can only think about flopping down on his bed. Then a white police officer enters his house demanding that he provide identification on his own property. That sets him off, possibly.

With America’s history of racism and other forms of bigotry, prejudice has dimmed somewhat in this country. That presents an interesting and vexing problem. A situation may bear all the earmarks of bigotry, but it turns out not to be the case. Jewish groups seeking to build schools or synagogues in congested suburbs have charged anti-Semitism when their neighbors - less observant Jews among them - object to their grandiose plans. If a black athlete is arrested, is the “man” trying to bring him down or did he commit a crime? When an imam denounced Jews at a Muslim conference, did he represent only himself or did he verbalize what most Muslims are thinking?

Unlike the bad old days, it is often difficult to figure out what these things are all about. A white social worker who removes a child from a black mother’s home is doing exactly what many black social workers would do. There are non-Jews who criticize Israel because they genuinely believe the government misused its powers. Judge Sonia Sotomayor’s assertion that “wise Latinas” know best does not mean she hates white males.

Few of us can forget the context of our history. It is hard to trust other groups after centuries of discrimination. Some conservative Jews are already calling President Obama an anti-Semite because of his demands on Israel. Lucia Whalen was accused of racism before Cambridge police tapes proved that she did not inject race into her 911 call. Many whites cease considering any arguments on a racial issue the instant that Jesse Jackson Jr. or Al Sharpton open their mouths.

On a personal level, the harsher critics of Israel have called me an apologist and hawkish Jews likened me to Neville Chamberlain, the British prime minister accused of appeasing Hitler. A black jury foreman told me, during a break in deliberations in a case with racial overtones, that there were things I needed to learn. Like what? How to be abrasive and antagonize a somewhat liberal white man?

We have reached a stage that resembles a twilight zone of prejudice, where we must separate the wheat from the chaff. That’s hard work, but who said that keeping a free society free was easy?

THOUGHTLESS AMERICA

What were they thinking? They weren’t.

Not many of Bernie Madoff’s victims. Not two-thirds of Congress in October 2002, among other instances. Not voters who often entrust incapable candidates with public office.

The fury voiced by Madoff’s victims in past weeks begs this question: How could they take such chances with their fortunes, large or small? Would they gamble their entire paycheck on slot machines each week? It is one thing to invest part of their money with Madoff or anyone else, but nearly everything?

I sympathize with these people, but their grousing affirms that they refuse to take personal responsibility. Hirschhorn family members were quoted by at least three news organizations complaining about Madoff. Carla Hirschhorn of Manalapan, N.J., was quoted in The New York Daily News as saying, “He has destroyed us. We are not wealthy, fancy people. Never were, never will be.”

Her family’s loss was $7 million, according to a Jewish Telegraphic Agency article. That’s not wealthy? Who couldn’t live on $7 million?

Madoff blew $21 million of the American Jewish Congress’s endowment, 90 percent of the account, JTA reported. In fact, Madoff was once a board member of AJCongress, which meant that he influenced the agency’s policies while being entrusted with much of its cash. That’s a conflict of interest.

Alluding to Madoff’s 150-year prison sentence for defrauding clients in a Ponzi scheme, acting co-executive director Marc Stern said, “Mr. Madoff is not going to find any sympathy from us…It doesn’t give us our $20 million back…It is satisfaction mixed with the reality that it does not undo the harm that he did?”

That he did? Perhaps the 25 former staff members who lost their jobs lack “any sympathy” for their old bosses. Did Madoff force them to invest the money? Madoff was no doubt skillful in convincing them to invest the money with him, but in the end it was still their decision.

It is this kind of thinking - true, that is a contradiction in terms - which produces so much trouble in our society. People neglect to consider the consequences of their actions. It is common sense to take into account the potential results of a major decision. If they had that kind of money accrued by Madoff‘s victims, many people would make certain to bank a substantial amount of it before considering investments.

Examples throughout history abound of failure to think things through: Custer’s last stand, the Confederacy’s split from the Union, the North’s application of Reconstruction, the Bay of Pigs, the Vietnam war, to name a few. Recently, tax cuts for the rich, the mortgage scandal and, especially, the invasion of Iraq.

Congress in October 2002 voted to authorize military action in Iraq without bothering to consider the risks.

There were risks, among them a ghastly civil war and an administration which set the stage for thousands of deaths, drained hundreds of billions from our treasury, left government buildings vulnerable to looting, tortured prisoners and furnished multi-billion dollar assignments to private firms tightly linked to the White House.

The public either supported the war or did not care. The relatively few dissenters could not gain traction during the early part of the war. President Bush and Congress were warned repeatedly that the invasion of Iraq would be a high-stakes gamble. All anyone needed to do was follow history.

An acquaintance suggested that Congress’s decision to permit the invasion of Iraq resulted from an emotional reaction to the 9/11 attacks. Congress was not created to act on emotions but to deliberate on the pros and cons on given issues that come before them.

If Congress was to operate according to the emotions of the people, there would be no need for Congress. A form of mob rule would be adequate. The idea of bringing together representatives of the public amounts to a meeting of the minds, presumably some of our best minds.

In other words, they are expected to think before voting on measures which could decide the fate of the world.

Doubting Obama on Israel

It is poetic justice that Malcolm Hoenlein was assailed for indicating that many American Jews doubt President Obama’s support for Israel.

I had hoped for years that Hoenlein would be ousted as executive vice chairman for the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations, almost as much as I hoped that this organization would shorten its name. Now is hardly the time for the right-leaning, Republican-friendly Hoenlein to leave the public scene. Or others like him, as they reflect a natural dilemma for American Jews.

A dual loyalty test was thrust upon American Jews from the instant most of us stepped into the voting booths last Nov. 4. President Obama has proven to be a breath of fresh air after George W. Bush’s eight years of abuse of office and incompetence. Nearly 80 percent of American Jews voted for Obama because, most likely, he would make a good-faith effort to resolve our domestic problems and rebuild our relations with, well, the rest of the world.

Yet we have been confused, or worse, about his stance on Israel. The fate of Israel is crucial to the feelings of even the more disconnected Jews here. Israel is the home of 5.3 million of our brethren whose very lives depend upon wise decision-making by Israeli and American leaders.

Obama has demanded concessions from Israel without exploring the feasibility of some of these measures. His call for an independent Palestinian state ignores recent history, that Israel offered the Arabs their own state in 2000 and the result has been three wars in less than a decade. Israel’s exit from Gaza led to two of those wars, and the Arabs have done nothing to improve areas under their control.

The Arabs persist in firing rockets from Gaza, Iran’s president insists on his threats to destroy Israel and an Israeli soldier remains in captivity at this writing, presumably in Gaza, while Obama and other world leaders urge Israel to make risky concessions.

So it should be no surprise if Hoenlein, a Philadelphia native, told the truth when a conservative Web site, called Newsmax, quoted him as saying that Jewish leaders “are expressing concern about what was said” in the president’s Cairo speech last June 4. The weekly Forward, a Jewish newspaper which reported on Hoenlein’s comments in Newsmax, cited another Hoenlein quote: “I’ve heard it from some of his strongest supporters. It’s expected from his detractors. Even people close to him have said to us that there were parts of the speech that bothered them.”

According to The Forward, the National Jewish Democratic Council stated that Hoenlein’s remarks reflected a mistaken reading of Jewish public opinion. The Union for Reform Judaism sent a letter to Alan Solow, chairman of the President’s Conference, criticizing Hoenlein’s comments.

Hoenlein had twice before made mistakes preparing for election-year events that left the appearance that he was giving Republican presidential candidates an advantage. In 2004, he hosted a reception for the Republican Jewish Coalition during the GOP convention, and drew fire for neglecting to do the same during the Democratic convention for the RJC’s counterpart, the National Jewish Democratic Council.

Last year, he helped organize an anti-Iran rally in which Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin, then the GOP vice presidential candidate, was invited to speak, and then she was barred from the rally when it was learned that no senior Democratic counterpart would speak. Practically speaking, Hoenlein’s misadventures probably made no difference in the outcome of either election.

It stands to reason that supporters of Israel are concerned with Obama’s positions on Israel and some of his statements during his June 4 speech. I have harshly criticized Israeli leaders and others for their hawkish views, but I am now worried if Obama will pressure Israel to take steps which could be harmful.

Especially, the president’s urgent drive for a Palestinian state is perilous. Too many questions beg to be answered: Is a Palestinian state even the solution? If such a state is established, what is to stop the Arabs from firing rockets into Tel Aviv? How will settlements factor into the picture?

Hoenlein and other Jewish leaders, even the hawkish ones, are needed more than ever. Right-leaning Jewish leaders have in the past advocated offensive positions which antagonized or confused people who might otherwise be supportive of Israel. Now the Jewish community has legitimate reasons to doubt our president’s intentions.

No matter who occupies the Oval Office or controls Congress, the Jewish community should maintain a watch on our leaders and voice its concerns whenever necessary. Not only the established organizations, which rate mixed reviews, but the entire Jewish community. At one time, Jews were often out in force on issues which affected them, but it does not seem that way now.

Jews who are considered moderates have no movement. Those who wish to become more involved face a serious dilemma. Jews on the left routinely support a Palestinian state, which those in the center or on the right cannot readily advocate.

Jews on the right would undoubtedly concur with less hawkish Jews on some core issues - ending rocket attacks on Israeli towns, countering the Iranian nuclear threat to Israel, questioning the creation of a Palestinian state and releasing Israeli Cpl. Gilad Shalit. Some on the right demand that any movement takes firmer positions such as rigid opposition to a Palestinian state, division of Jerusalem and removing the settlements.

One friend called Obama an “anti-Semite” and another accused the president and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton of “throwing Israel under the bus.”

More power to them if they can launch a large movement on that basis. I do not share their confidence. Perhaps they are right, but many Jews will probably disavow such an approach. No question that common ground exists. It is crucial that we capitalize on this opportunity.