We ask you to contact Congressman Hoyer and Congressman Cantor to let them know your feelings about the issues below (call (202) 224-3121 and ask for their offices, and then call Congressman Jim Moran at (202) 225-4376) to indicate your support for his stance in Tikkun). Your call to these people will actually make an impact!
Update: We have just learned that Congressman Waxman is circulating a petition demanding Congressman Moran apologize for his comments in Tikkun. Please call Waxman at (202) 225-3976 voicing your support for Moran!
It took tremendous courage for Congressman Jim Moran to tell Tikkun magazine of the power and influence of AIPAC and other sections of the Israel Lobby. AIPAC is often described in the media as the most powerful lobby in Washington, D.C., so it is no surprise that its friends and supporters are now mobilizing to vilify Congressman Moran's comments in the Sept/Oct issue of Tikkun.
In the last few days major media have been publishing attacks on Congressman Jim Moran, distorting what he said. Now that attack has been joined by a leader of the Republican party and a leader of the Democrats in Congress, and their distortions are even more incredible. House Republican Chief Deputy Whip Eric Cantor likened Congressman Moran to Adoph Hitler on September 18th. "Unfortunately, Jim Moran has made it a habit now to lash out to the American Jewish community. I think his remarks are reprehensible, I think his remarks are anachronistic, and hearken back to the day of Adolph Hitler, of the others, Mein Kamp, of the protocols of the elders of zion, other sources that have become reference to now, I'm sorry to say, a resurgent anti-semitic sentiment world wide." And House Democratic Majority Leader Steny Hoyer issued a statement which seemed to add to the witch hunt by stating that Moran had claimed that "the Jewish community controls the press, the media, the Congress, and other institutions" and that therefore Moran "certainly oughtta retract remarks, and indicate he believes that he was inaccurate on the facts."
Congressman Moran said no such thing.
You can read what he did say at Tikkun as part of my article on The Israel Lobby in the Sept/Oct issue of Tikkun magazine. Congressman Moran never made any statement about "the Jewish community," but only accurately described the power of one section of the Jewish community which has immense influence in the media and in Congress--AIPAC. And we can watch now as that influence is mobilized to isolate and demean the one Congressperson with the courage to say publicly what many have consistently said to all the Jews who support the Israeli peace movement are told: "We don't dare criticize these policies publicly, lest PACs and other forces aligned with the Israel Lobby attack us and make us politically vulnerable."
Steny Hoyer, who defeated anti-war Congressman John Murtha for the Democratic leadership post he now holds, and who is reportedly one of the major forces inside the Democratic leadership rejecting any serious attempt to withhold funds for the war in Iraq and limiting what Congresswoman Nancy Pelosi might otherwise try to do to challenge Bush's war, is a perfect example of the power of the Israel Lobby to shape public discourse. It is incredible that this is the one thing that Democrats and Republicans can unite on in Congress: blind allegiance to the Israel Lobby.
Or, actually not that incredible, because they demonstrate exactly what anyone who speaks out against Israeli policy toward Palestinians has faced for years. Jews who support the peace camp are described as "self-hating" Jews, and non-Jews are told that they are anti-Semites.
What's new is that now that same McCarthyism (which labeled as "anti-American" anyone who criticized U.S. policies around the world, tactics actually first developed by the Stalinists all around the world who called "anti-socialist" anyone who criticized the brutal dictatorship of the Soviet Union), is now being used not on someone criticizing Israel, but on someone who dares criticize an American organization (AIPAC) that has played a leading role in defending the most right-wing policies of the State of Israel. As former Israel Minister of Justice Yossi Beilin points out in an interview in Tikkun magazine, AIPAC does not defend and support the Israeli government's policies when Israel tried to move toward peace under Yitzhak Rabin—in fact, he reports, they actually sought to undermine Rabin's peace efforts.
In his interview in Tikkun, Congressman Moran goes out of his way to assert that his criticisms of the role played by AIPAC and other conservative voices in the organized community is not representative of the vast majority of American Jews. Moran affirmed what polls of American Jews have consistently revealed since 1991—that the leadership of Jewish organizations is far more conservative than the majority of its members, and the members of the organized Jewish community is far more conservative than most American Jews.
And in a detailed study released in early September by Steven M. Cohen and Ari Kelman, the authors reveal that there ahs been a decline attachment to Israel itself fron one generation to the next, a consistent increase in alienation in each younger generation of American Jews. Rabbi Michael Lerner, editor of Tikkun magazine, predicted in his 1994 best-seller Jewish Renewal, predicted that the insistence in the Jewish world that one give blind loyalty to the policies of the State of Israel toward Palestinians would lead to alienation from younger Jews, and that is now being confirmed. Now, in the Sept/Oct issue Lerner warns against "Jewish political correctness" forcing many non-Jews into silence about Israeli policies that they know to be both immoral and destructive to the best interests of Israel itself. Lerner warns that this will eventually lead to deep resentments that will explode in (unjustifiable but nevertheless pervasive) anti-Semitism.
If ever there was proof of the Israel Lobby's immense power, it has been the response to Congressman Moran. Within days of Tikkun being on the newsstands (and quickly sold out of many places where it normally sells), the attack began, with media sources from the Washington Post to CNN making this into a significant news item. Needless to say, when other Jewish journals or newspapers attack the progressive voices in the Jewish peace movement, there is no similar media attention. The media attends to AIPAC because it is so deeply aligned with AIPAC and is quick to publish false and defamatory statements about those who dare criticize AIPAC. This same process has faced Tikkun Magazine ever since we began criticizing Israel's response to the Intifada. Despite the fact that Tikkun was one of the very few Jewish magazines that is explicitly pro-Judaism (and now, also, explicitly pro-Christianity, Islam, Buddhism, Hinduism etc as it has morphed into an interfaith voice) and often runs supplements advising readers on how to make the Jewish holidays more spiritually alive (most recently its "Repentance in Time of War" supplement for the 2007 Jewish High Holidays), the Israel Lobby and its friends described it as "radical" or "self-hating Jews" or "marginal" (though it had more readers than most Jewish magazines in the U.S.).
And this same defamatory process is now facing Professors Mearsheimer and Walt in response to the publication of their book The Israel Lobby (the thesis of which Tikkun has both praised and also criticized in part).
In Solidarity,
Rabbi Michael Lerner
Tikkun Magazine
Network of Spiritual Progressives