Anti-Semitism feared if war begins

By Alan Cooperman
Washington Post

WASHINGTON — American Jewish organizations, divided over the issue of invading Iraq, are increasingly worried about an anti-Semitic backlash in which Jewish officials in the Bush administration would be blamed for any U.S. casualties.

Jewish groups voiced outrage yesterday over an article by conservative commentator Pat Buchanan that says Jewish "neo-conservatives" in the White House and Defense Department are driving the United States toward war.

Buchanan's article followed similar remarks by Rep. James P. Moran Jr., D-Va. Both cases show "it has now become in vogue to blame the war on Iraq on Jews," said Rabbi Marvin Hier, founder of the Simon Wiesenthal Center in Los Angeles.

There is reason to "think there will be an undercurrent of resentment against Jews if this war turns sour," said Charles Moskos, a sociologist at Northwestern University who studies minority groups in the military. He noted that he recently has received several e-mails and telephone calls from strangers asking, "How many Jews are there in the Army? How many blacks will die for Israel?"

Moran has apologized for his statement at a March 3 anti-war forum in Reston, Va., that "if it were not for the strong support of the Jewish community for this war with Iraq, we would not be doing this." He was forced to step down from his leadership post as regional whip. Buchanan denies his views are anti-Semitic and has not apologized for them.

"We charge that a cabal of polemicists and public officials seek to ensnare our country in a series of wars that are not in America's interests. ... What these neoconservatives seek is to conscript American blood to make the world safe for Israel," Buchanan wrote in the March 24 issue of the American Conservative, a magazine he edits.

An American Jewish Committee survey in December and January found that 59 percent of U.S. Jews approve of taking military action to topple Iraqi President Saddam Hussein, while other polls showed 58 percent of the general population supports an invasion.

Pollster Andrew Kohut said yesterday that an analysis of surveys by the Pew Research Center found that Jews express less support for military action than whites of other faiths do.

"It's a bizarre notion that Jews are wildly enthusiastic or supportive of military action. It's simply false," said Rabbi Eric Yoffie, president of the Union of American Hebrew Congregations, an association of Reform Jewish temples.

While Catholic and mainline Protestant groups have solidly opposed war on Iraq, Jewish groups have taken a broad range of positions. On the left, Rabbi Michael Lerner, of San Francisco-based Tikkun Community, called this week for nonviolent civil disobedience if war breaks out. On the right, the Union of Orthodox Jewish Congregations has declared it supports the use of force. Centrist groups representing the bulk of Reform and Conservative Jews have endorsed military action only if the United States exhausts all diplomatic alternatives.