Last week’s Five Towns Jewish Times featured an opinion piece that judged a recent essay of mine in Ami Magazine “mind-bogglingly deceptive†and that characterized me as assuming readers are “half-witted†and accused me of inflicting on them “slick propaganda†on behalf of President Obama and of “abandon[ing] Israel.†The writer, going by the name of Yoel Lorberbaum, apologizes for his “sharp tone†which he laments is “a necessity in light of the content†of my article.
His apology is accepted—at least with regard to his tone. He didn’t offer an apology for misleading readers, though, and so forgiveness on that front will have to remain in reserve for now.
What seemed to particularly exercise the writer was my “manipulation†of readers with a presentation of laudable moves by a president regarding Israel and religious rights before identifying the mover as our current commander-in-chief. That, Mr. Lorberbaum contends, is “the technique†of “tricking the reader,†a “ruse†that enticed people to actually read further. I thought it was creative and effective writing. Propaganda, I suppose, is in the eye—no matter how jaundiced—of the beholder.
Nothing in my list was remotely inaccurate, of course. Mr. Lorberbaum concedes as much by quoting each item and then commenting “true, but . . .†or “yes, but . . .†I will get to the “buts†below, but want to point out at the outset that my essay posited that the items I listed are unrecognized by many among us. My suspicions were in fact borne out by the large number of responses I received to my Ami essay from people—some admirers of Mr. Obama, some who are not particularly pleased with him—who acknowledged that they had not known of the facts I recounted, and that they considered them important to be taken into account.
And that, as it happens, was all that my article—which used Mr. Obama only as a “hookâ€â€”was intended to do: remind readers (and myself) that it doesn’t behoove a Jew to make judgments without weighing all the evidence, and that, particularly regarding politics, we do that all too often and all too vociferously. In a very real sense, Mr. Lorberbaum vividly confirmed my thesis.
He also, rightly, insists that intellectual integrity and truth should be sacrosanct. I agree. And so now to the “buts†in Mr. Lorberbaum’s piece.
The very writer quoted by him as negatively interpreting an Obama administration representative’s silence at one point during a Durban Conference drafting meeting, Anne Bayefsky, mere weeks later (in a March 17, 2009 column) acknowledged the clear and principled conditions for the conference set down by the administration, and the fact that the conditions had not been met. And, as a result, Mr. Obama did not allow our country to participate in the Durban gathering—because he felt Israel would be unfairly targeted for criticism.
Mr. Lorberbaum also claims that I was mistaken in stating that the Obama administration rejected the Goldstone Report, citing our ambassador to the UN as expecting it to remain before the Human Rights Council. Well, yes. That’s where the report was born. The issue was whether it would advance to the International Criminal Court, which—thanks, at least in part, to the White House, it didn’t. A White House official, moreover, stated that the Obama administration would use the U.S. veto at the UN Security Council to deal with any “difficulties†arising out of the report.
The administration also told the Palestinian Authority that Washington was not pleased with a PA petition to bring the report’s allegations against Israel to the International Criminal Court; and that the administration considered the report flawed from its conception because it presumed Israel had committed war crimes and ignored Hamas’s role in prompting the war through its rocket fire into Israel.
“Look what he [Mr. Obama] did to Netanyahu on that visit!†exclaims Mr. Lorberbaum, presumably referring to reports that the president treated the Israeli prime minister shabbily during an unscheduled meeting in the summer. Perhaps he did, but Israeli Ambassador Michael Oren didn’t think so. He was quoted by JTA on May 6 as characterizing the reports as distortions. Mr. Oren reportedly told a private group, among other things, that unofficial meetings like the one at issue (it was held only when the president’s plans for an overseas visit were put on hold) do not include photo-ops; that Mr. Netanyahu did not enter, as some had claimed, through the back door but the front one; and that the Israeli prime minister, not the president, ended the first part of the meeting.
The Israeli ambassador also said that his relations with top U.S. officials were “as good as or better†than his predecessors’.
Mr. Lorberbaum derides Mr. Obama for opposing settlement construction in Israel and backing the “two state†solution. Whatever any of us may think of either of those positions, they have been part of American policy for long before Mr. Obama appeared on the scene.
Mr. Lorberbaum writes that I “accus[ed]†my “own constituency†of being anti-black. Although I have in fact encountered racism, disturbingly, among some Orthodox Jews and did raise the issue in my essay, it was, pointedly, in the context of stating my hope and belief that prejudice plays no part in the animus for Mr. Obama in some of our circles. As to my “constituency,†the writer mistakenly implies (both there and elsewhere) that my Ami column is written in my role as Agudath Israel’s public affairs director. That is not true. As my self-introduction in Ami’s pages to its readership clearly states:
My work here, however, will consist of personal, not organizational, commentary, musings and the occasional Torah thought.
I will continue to put forth the Agudah’s official positions in other venues above my name and organizational title. Here, though, my name alone will appear, and it will be my personal thoughts and points of view that I share.
Mr. Lorberbaum begrudgingly acknowledges the president’s request of Congress (later granted) to approve an unprecedented missile defense package for Israel. “But let’s not forget,†the writer chides knowingly, “this was right before the November election . . .â€
It was in May.
There’s more, but I’m not inclined to take even more space here. It’s time for a reality check. So, some more truth:
I bear no personal (and certainly no organizational) brief for President Obama. I wrote clearly that “there may well be reasons to feel negatively toward the current administration (certainly many people, and they are hardly limited to our community, do). History will have its say in time.â€
I simply called attention to how some people seem so bent (for reasons I honestly don’t understand) on disliking him that they focus on real or imagined negative actions of his and utterly ignore (if they even are aware of) positive things he has done for Israel and for the cause of religious freedom in our country. And I used the example to illustrate my essay’s essential point:
So often we seem to feel a need to embrace absolute, take-no-prisoners political opinions; to reject any possibility of ambivalence, much less any admission of ignorance.
Certitude is proper, even vital, in some areas of life. But in the realm of politics it can be, in fact usually is, an expression of overconfidence or worse.
Part of wisdom is knowing what one doesn’t know. And part of modesty is acting accordingly.
And part of propriety, it occurs to me, is hakaras ha’tov, recognizing the good others have done for one. So I would like to thank the editor of the Five Towns Jewish Times for giving me the opportunity to present some facts here—and “Mr. Lorberbaum†for, even if inadvertently, confirming my essay’s point.
Rabbi Shafran writes here as a columnist and editor-at-large at Ami Magazine.
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