Two major Jewish groups are at odds regarding penalties for the Palestinians in the wake of their enhanced U.N. status.
AIPAC in recent weeks has backed two congressional bids to shut down the Palestine Liberation Organization office in Washington as retaliation for the Nov. 29 United Nations General Assembly vote granting Palestinians the status of nonmember observer state.
Conversely, the Reform movement has emphatically urged President Barack Obama not to retaliate against the Palestinians. The movement also has resolved to oppose the shuttering of the PLO office.
The lines dividing the two organizations are not set in stone. The Reform movement has suggested it might back penalties should the Palestinians use their upgraded status to charge Israel in international courts. And an official suggested the American Israel Public Affairs Committee would wait and see whether the Palestinians go to international courts before it decides its next legislative moves.
Still, the markedly different tone in AIPAC’s call to its activists to back the proposed congressional penalties and the Reform movement’s plea to the president to ignore such calls could portend a split within the pro-Israel community’s center.
An AIPAC official, speaking on condition of anonymity, noted that a congressional letter sent to Obama on Dec. 21, calling for the closing of the PLO office and the suspension of funding to U.N. affiliates that enhance the Palestinians’ status, also urged a resumption of peace talks.
“Everyone in the pro-Israel community should be pleased that a solid bipartisan majority signed a pro peace talks letter in support of direct talks and opposed to attempts to delegitimize Israel,” said the official.
Israel has made clear that the Palestinians’ U.N. moves should have consequences. It announced a flurry of new building projects in eastern Jerusalem and the West Bank and diverted millions of dollars in taxes earmarked for the Palestinian Authority to Israeli utilities providers that have been dunning the Palestinians for payment.
But leaders of the largest American Jewish denomination have called for U.S. restraint in responding to the Palestinians’ U.N. bid.
In a Dec. 14 letter to Obama, the president of the Union for Reform Judaism, Rabbi Rick Jacobs, and the CEO of the Reform movement’s Central Conference of American Rabbis, Rabbi Steve Fox, noted a Dec. 3 resolution jointly approved by the boards of a number of Reform organizations. The resolution condemns the Palestinians for moving ahead with the advanced status, the letter said, but also “urges Congress to eschew any action that would serve as an impediment” to resuming Israeli-Palestinian peace talks.
The resolution also “opposes” Israel’s retaliatory plans to build Jewish homes in eastern Jerusalem and the West Bank and supports “appropriate measures if the Palestinians use their new status at the U.N. to initiate formal action against Israel via the International Criminal Court or other agency.”
The Reform movement made the Dec. 3 resolution public, but the Dec. 14 letter to Obama was released by mistake to a JTA reporter. A spokesman for the group said the failure to publicize the letter to the president was an oversight, noting that it was sent when the nation was preoccupied with the Newtown school massacre that same day.
Some dovish Jewish groups also have made clear their opposition to penalties for the Palestinians, among them J Street and Americans for Peace Now.
In a fundraising letter, J Street’s president, Jeremy Ben-Ami, counted the 239 signatures on the AIPAC-backed congressional letter sent Dec. 21 as a victory for his movement, noting that only 67 Democrats signed.
“We’re seeing the impact in Congress where two-thirds of the Democratic Caucus refused to sign AIPAC’s latest letter calling for closing the PLO’s diplomatic mission in Washington,” Ben-Ami said in the letter. “Such letters used to be signed by 4 out of every 5 Members of Congress. Not any more.”
The AIPAC official acknowledged that the organization had hoped for more signatures, but added that the letter was circulated toward the end of a congressional session — one that was preoccupied with a compromise on spending and taxes.
On its website, AIPAC touted the congressional letter as a key element of its legislative agenda.
“The Palestinians must face consequences,” AIPAC said. “The United States should continue to press the Palestinians to refrain from such harmful actions and outline repercussions if they move ahead, such as closing the PLO office in Washington.”
AIPAC is also backing a Senate amendment that would shut the PLO office and, if the Palestinians proceed to the International Criminal Court, cut P.A. funding.
The amendment, proposed by Sens. Charles Schumer (D-N.Y.), Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) and John Barrasso (R-Wyo.) on the same day as the U.N. vote, has not made it to the Senate floor.