Should the United States unilaterally declare war on Iraq?
As the Bush administration inches closer to doing just that, Reform rabbis seemed to be just as conflicted as everyone else over what to do about Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein.
Some were allowed to voice those concerns in a session devoted to the topic at the Pacific Central West Council’s biennial of the Union of American Hebrew Congregations, the congregational arm of the Reform movement, at the Santa Clara Marriott last weekend.
“War now seems like an inevitability,” said Rabbi Michael Berk, UAHC regional director. The session on the Iraq conflict, he explained, was hastily added to the schedule in light of the previous week’s events, most notably Secretary of State Colin Powell’s speech. “The Bush administration has thrown down the gauntlet,” Berk said
Several hundred rabbis, cantors, lay leaders and youth-movement leaders attended the biennial, which also included such topics as medicinal marijuana, poverty and social concerns, and vehicles for increasing the level of spirituality at services.
Members of Women of Reform Judaism passed out buttons in support of Oakland resident Ed Rosenthal, recently convicted for cultivating and distributing medicinal marijuana.
Speaking on the war topic was Rabbi David Saperstein, director of the Reform movement’s Religious Action Center, based in Washington, D.C.
Saperstein first gave a brief history of just-war theory, saying that the Vietnam War was the first U.S. conflict in which it was applied.
During that time, he said, religious groups began to explore what religious sources had to say about what was surfacing in the opposition groups. But that discourse did not make it into the mainstream.
In the 1980s though, a group of Catholic bishops authored a statement pushing for nuclear disarmament. Not only was it “a brilliant document,” Saperstein said, but the publicity surrounding it caused other religious leaders to enter the debate.
By 1991, the House of Representatives actually applied just-war theory to the Persian Gulf War.
Saperstein traced the origins of just-war theory back to Cicero, also speaking of Hugo Grotius, the Dutch theologian who is widely considered the father of international law.
In Jewish just-war theory, according to Saperstein, Jewish sources say there are two kinds of obligatory war. One is in cases where enemies are out to destroy the Jewish people such as the Amalekites, and the second is known as a war of permission, used to expand Israel’s borders when there is a long-term threat.
Additionally, Jews are commanded to pursue peace at all costs for three days before attacking, and if their opponent doesn’t respond, they have justification.
In contrast with other faiths, Saperstein said, “Judaism has a unique concern for non-human targets.” Citing that a Jewish army should not attack the enemy’s fruit-bearing trees, he added, “The theory behind it is that you can use force, but it must be restricted in such a way that human life can resume afterwards.” Certainly Saddam did not respect that law when burning Kuwait’s oil fields in the Gulf War, he observed.
“If we’re concerned with civilians, we must not decimate infrastructure. It’s very hard to reconcile that with Jewish values.”
Saperstein pointed to three factors that make modern-day warfare different from the more conventional tactics of the past:
*The use of non-conventional weapons.
*The use of terrorism and the fact that acts of war are often perpetrated by non-governmental forces.
*Martyrs who don’t mind dying for the cause. “In some ways it’s a fulfillment for them,” he said. “How do you contain them?”
Saperstein laid out arguments both pro — “It will make the Middle East more stable” — and con — “If we react, anyone can declare war whenever they want to, against what the international community says.”
This is “clearly a case where the moral values Judaism puts to us are at the core of the debate,” he said.
The UAHC has put out a position paper saying it supports the war only as a last resort, that a U.S.-led invasion is preferable along with international cooperation, that non-military means should be given time, and that the president should not act without support of Congress.
Saperstein did not give his own opinion, but he opened the floor to let those assembled ask questions and discuss their own feelings about it.
Rabbi Evan Goodman of San Francisco’s Congregation Beth Israel-Judea asked whether the Bush administration had shown any interest in just-war theory since it was so aligned with the Christian right.
The first President Bush did, Saperstein said. “He talked about it a lot in smaller groups. But his son seems a little less interested.”
The younger Bush, said Saperstein, “believes he has the moral point of view, but his religiosity brings him a different perspective. He doesn’t think about it.”
Toward the end of the discussion, Saperstein noted that the UAHC was the first mainstream Jewish group to come out in favor of military intervention in Bosnia, Kosovo and Rwanda, and he was proud of that fact. “The argument that you can’t do everything everywhere shouldn’t be used to not do anything anywhere,” he said.