| |  | | | | | | | It would seem like a no-brainer: Of course, Jewish-American groups would support the Israeli attack on Iran and the subsequent U.S. strike on Iran's nuclear facilities. After all, Iran was getting closer and closer to having the capacity to produce nuclear weapons, and for decades, it has been vowing to wipe the Jewish state off the face of the earth.
Most Jewish-American organizations have, indeed, rallied firmly behind Israel and the United States during the dramatic events of the past week and a half. But even among those who describe themselves as "pro-Israel," the responses, in some cases, have been notably nuanced.
J Street, which describes itself as "pro-Israel, pro-peace," and New Jewish Narrative – a recent merger between Americans for Peace Now, the U.S. arm of the veteran Israeli peace movement, and Ameinu, an offshoot of the Israeli Labor Party – issued a joint statement late Sunday expressing fear that "Prime Minister Netanyahu and President Trump have – in resorting to the use of force before diplomacy had been fully exhausted – raised the risk of escalation and of harm to Israelis, Iranians and Americans."
To be sure, J Street is not part of the Jewish-American establishment consensus. Indeed, a few years after its founding, its bid to join the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations was rejected presumably because of its highly critical stance on Israel. New Jewish Narrative, by contrast, and the two groups behind it have long been part of the roughly 50 organizations that come under the auspices of the Conference of Presidents.
Even the Reform movement, the largest Jewish denomination in the United States, was rather guarded in its response to the U.S. attack on Iran's nuclear facilities. While praising Trump and Netanyahu for acting "boldly to ensure Iran will not soon have a nuclear weapon," it warned that "while Iran's nuclear weapons infrastructure has been significantly weakened, their nuclear knowledge can never be eliminated."
"That is why the pursuit of a long-term agreement that ensures Iran's nuclear program poses no threat is so vital," it added.
To understand such less-than-euphoric responses, bear in mind that most U.S. Jews did not vote for Trump and are not huge fans of Netanyahu. For them, any plan conceived by these two highly contentious leaders, no matter its merits, would be received with skepticism. It helps explain why despite intense efforts, the Conference of Presidents could not even get all its members on board to sign a basic statement expressing support for Israel's "defensive actions" against Iran just days before America joined the fight and thanking Trump for his as-of-then support in words only for Israel. Some of those organizations could not bear to put their signatures on a statement that deemed any action of Trump's as praiseworthy. | | |
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