Dear Rep. Jan Schakowsky,
I write to respond to your specific statement during the press conference following Prime Minister Netanyahu’s historic speech before Congress:
“What I heard today, felt to me like an effort to stampede the United States into war once again. That we should break from the P5+1, yes, we are the one, we should break with them. And I believe that it was to consider war.”
I gather from this remark that you are not a student of history. As you should recall, during the first Gulf War Israel remained silent. As the Iranians do today, Sadam Hussein repeatedly threatened to destroy the Jewish State. It was reported and confirmed that for years he provided significant funds to Palestinian families from which a member lost his\her life in a terrorist attack upon Israel’s civilian population.
In total Iraq launched 88 Russian SCUD missiles, 46 of them were fired at Saudi Arabia and 42 at Israel’s civilian population. Israel did not respond respecting the desires of the United States. While I am not an historian by profession, I do have some knowledge of world history. I do not recall a nation most able to respond to an attack on its home soil, an attack on its civilian population, not acting on its internationally recognized right to respond in kind to an act of war. Do you?
The last person in the world who wants war with Iran is Prime Minister Netanyahu as he knows that the first target of the Iranians, whether Israel is involved in that war or not, will be the civilian population of his nation. Netanyahu took the unusual step of appearing before Congress, with the knowledge that our President was not in favor of his action, with the knowledge that, unlike what the American press has reported, this step may very well hurt him in the upcoming Israeli elections, motivated by one issue only – his desire to protect the civilian population of Israel and the very survival of his nation and the world. It is the Prime Minister’s assessment, and the assessment of the majority of Americans, that what we know of the negotiations by the United States with Iran, will lead to Iran becoming a nuclear power. It already has the ability to deliver a nuclear warhead to Israel and is in the process of developing ICBMs enabling it to deliver a nuclear warhead to New York and Washington. The first atomic bomb it launches will be at Israel. The Prime Minister believes that a tougher stance in negotiations with Iran on the part of the United States will yield the goal we all seek – an Iran unable to develop a nuclear bomb.
Your cynical conclusion that Prime Minister Netanyahu would like nothing better than to have the United States enter into a war with Iran thus allowing American blood to be shed in a confrontation which would significantly accrue to the benefit of Israel, has been from time immemorial one of the traditional canards of anti-Semitism, that Jews manipulate the world to their own benefit. It seems you have forgotten that from the very birth of the Jewish State, it has been a policy of Israel not to involve American troops in its defense. The Prime Minister himself is a seasoned warrior on behalf of his nation, His family lost his own brother in the famous Entebbe raid. He fully understands the horrors of war.
I understand your partisan politics, your desire to stand with our President. Yet, to mouth an accusation against the Prime Minister of Israel which smacks of classical anti-Semitism is unacceptable even from a partisan politician.
Your constituent,
Rabbi Philip Lefkowitz