The future security of the state of Israel is being used as an arguing point for the president’s plan to open up portions of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge to oil drilling — and San Francisco Rabbi Martin Weiner doesn’t like that at all.
Sen. Frank Murkowski, an Alaska Republican and lead sponsor of the National Energy Security Act of 2001, has taken to actively courting Jewish groups in hopes of winning enough Democratic defections to push the oil-drilling measure through the U.S. Senate.
The senator argues that the oil gained from the Alaskan wilderness will reduce dependence on Mideast nations, many of which are openly hostile to Israel.
Weiner, president of the Reform movement’s Central Conference of American Rabbis and senior rabbi at Congregation Sherith Israel, could only offer a sad chuckle when contemplating the senator’s rationale.
“I am truly troubled by the use of Israel as an appeal for this ill-conceived plan,” he said.
“Clearly, we would like to decrease our dependence on Arab oil. But the six months’ worth of oil in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge will not be of any real help to America or Israel.”
The CCAR’s strong opposition to the president’s plan was voiced in a letter written last week to members of the Senate by Rabbi David Saperstein, director of the Religious Action Center of Reform Judaism.
Saperstein contended that drilling in the Arctic refuge would serve only as an extremely temporary smokescreen, providing just a fraction of the nation’s oil demand while defiling the Alaskan wilderness and adversely affecting the indigenous Gwitch’in people in the process.
Dependence on foreign oil “cannot be achieved by drilling in a pristine wilderness whose oil supply will, at best, amount to only 3 percent of the current U.S. demand,” wrote Saperstein.
“In the wake of Sept. 11, advocates of drilling in the coastal plain have renewed their argument that such an action is necessary in order to reduce our dependence on foreign oil. The truth, however, is that the oil in the coastal plain will not have any discernible impact on decreasing foreign oil consumption…Instead, we should be focused on conservation, on increasing our fuel economy standards, and on developing and using widely renewable energy sources and energy efficiency technologies.”
Quoting the Book of Genesis, Saperstein pointed out that God instructed Adam and Eve “L’ovdah u’l’shomrah, to till and tend” the Garden of Eden.
“Jewish tradition teaches that our overriding concern must be to protect God’s creation from unnecessary destruction,” wrote Saperstein on behalf of the CCAR’s 900 congregations and 1,700 Reform rabbis. “Because drilling in the coastal plain cannot result in any significant reduction on our oil dependence, it would fall into just this kind of illegitimate destruction.”
Jewish groups are not unanimously in agreement with Weiner and Saperstein, however.
Members of the Jewish Institute for National Security Affairs and the Orthodox Union have voiced support for Murkowski and were slated to appear at his side during a Wednesday news conference.
“Jewish groups should be lining up to support any legislation that provides for the diversification of sources of energy,” said Shoshana Bryen, JINSA’s special projects director. “That includes ANWR.”
Murkowski is aggressively lobbying the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations and AIPAC, the pro-Israel lobby.
Sen. Joseph Lieberman (D-Conn.), meanwhile, is one of Murkowski’s leading opponents on the matter and has begun lobbying Jewish groups as well.
Weiner, however, urges everyone to eye the bottom line: If the Arctic wilderness is ruined, it will be gone forever.
“All Americans are deeply concerned about the environment and the precious wilderness areas that are part of God’s creations,” he said. “We cannot allow these treasures to be destroyed for our generation or those of the future.”