When Jews Take A Stand On Iraq

"Hello, I must be going"
Animal Crackers

According to the New Jersey Jewish News, "As Jewish majority lashes Bush on Iraq, a vocal minority insists on staying the course":

After staying largely in the shadows for several years, the organized American-Jewish community has jumped full throttle into the debate over the Iraq war.

... As the volume of pro- and anti-war debate continues to grow in the Jewish community, a poll of American Jews by the American Jewish Committee shows at least 70 percent of those polled oppose the conflict — a figure that has risen 4 percent since last year and 16 percent since 2003.

In contrast, a recent CNN/USA Today/Gallup poll found that 52 percent of Americans believe that sending troops to Iraq was a mistake.

... [URJ president Rabbi Eric Yoffie said]“We are, to be clear, committed to freedom for the Iraqi people; we disagree with the Republican Jewish Coalition about how to bring that about. One of our goals in passing a resolution at our Biennial [meeting] was to stimulate a debate on the war within the American-Jewish community. We are pleased to see that debate beginning.”

Let's see.

The war started in March--March 2003.
The accusation that the US was "rushing to war"--a claim made many times--was first made in The Nation--in August 2002, 7 months earlier. Debate was raging back then.

And now, "the organized American-Jewish community has jumped full throttle into the debate over the Iraq war"?

Yoffie is please to have started "to stimulate a debate on the war within the American-Jewish community."

There is alot for Jews to argue about and disagree about in the war on Iraq, but I'd like to know--

1. Where is their information about the war coming from? If it is the mainstream media--the same media which has shown a negative agenda when it comes to Israel--then just how reliable do they really think it is?

2. Why so late to raise the issue? It's more than an oddity--it's a question that deserves an answer.

3. Why oppose the war at a time when, after Bush has finally started to rebut the claims of the media and the Democrats in a series of addresses, Americans are having a favorable view of what is happening in Iraq. According to Rasmussen Reports:

Fifty percent (50%) of Americans now believe that the U.S. and its allies are winning the War on Terror. That's up from 44% immediately preceding the speech. It's also the highest level of confidence in more than a year.

4. There are already statements from the White House of cutting back troops as Iraqi troops have been trained.

My daughter is sitting a watching the Disney version of Alice in Wonderland while I write this.

How fitting.

See also: Responding to Kennedy on Iraq I

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