Mervyn Danker

To establish its independence, Israel had to win a war against the combined might of the Arab nations in 1948. The Arab failure to destroy the nascent Jewish state became known, in Orwellian Arab vernacular, as “Nakba,” a catastrophe. For the next 20 years, neither Jordan nor any of the other Arab states even spoke of giving Palestinian Arabs their independence, concentrating instead on boycotting and delegitimizing Israel.

Only some years after the Six-Day War of 1967, when Israel, beating back the annilihation attempt by Egypt, Jordan and Syria, found itself in possession of the West Bank and Gaza Strip did the Arabs suddenly develop a passion for Palestinian statehood.

Even though Arab national aspirations in Palestine are little more than a century old and developed in response to Zionism, Israel, whose Jewish roots in the land go back thousands of years, repeatedly has sought a negotiated settlement so that Israel and a Palestinian state could live side by side in peace. Generous Israeli offers were made at Camp David and Taba under President Clinton’s aegis in 2000-01, but Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat walked out on the talks. Prime Minister Ariel Sharon pulled all Israelis out of Gaza, but instead of developing into an embryonic Palestinian state, the region became a Hamas-ridden launching pad for anti-Israel terror.

Subsequent Israeli attempts to restart negotiations have met a wall of Palestinian refusal to recognize it as a Jewish state and insistence on a refugee “right of return” to Israel proper — both positions clearly intended to keep up the conflict, not solve it.

Rebuffing the very idea of a Jewish state means the Palestinians are not ready to concede that Israel was the place of origin of the Jewish people, the focus of its prayers and dreams for centuries and the center of a renewed Jewish people today in the wake of the Holocaust. Indeed, Palestinian negotiators seem to deny that Jews constitute a people at all.

Combining this with the demand that anyone claiming to be a descendant of a Palestinian who left what is now Israel should be allowed to return confirms that the Palestinian strategy is indeed to snuff out the Jewish state demographically, turning Israel into a second Palestinian state alongside the one to be created in Gaza and the West Bank.

Hamas, classified by the United States and the European Union as a terrorist organization, condemned the killing of Osama bin Laden and has categorically rejected any acceptance of Israel. Coming at a time when the Palestinian Authority is allied with Hamas, passage of a U.N. resolution backing the creation of a Palestinian state could put an abrupt end to any hope for the resumption of peace talks with Israel. It also could reverse Palestinian economic progress by triggering a cutoff of the annual $400 million that the Palestinian Authority gets in

American aid and possibly lead to violence in the West Bank when the Palestinians realize that an empty U.N. declaration makes not an iota of difference to the situation on the ground.

In their quest for unilateral statehood, the Palestinians themselves are deeply divided in the vision of their future state. The Fatah faction sees itself as part of a secular Arab world, whereas Hamas envisions an Islamic Palestinian state. The U.N. vote could well create a Palestinian crisis resulting in a destructive civil conflict — a conflict that could spread into Israel, Jordan and other neighboring Middle East states.

While it is tempting to imagine that the United Nations can magically create a Palestinian state, only a return to the peace table and negotiations with Israel can do that. While it may take a little longer, a settlement reached that way is the only kind that can last, preparing the groundwork for an agreement whereby a new Palestinian state and the existing Jewish state agree to an end of the conflict. Once such a deal is reached, Israel should be the first to propose U.N. membership for the democratic and peace-loving Republic of Palestine.

Mervyn Danker is the regional director of the American Jewish Committee’s Northern California office.

Michael J. Weil

Israelis and Jews around the world are awaiting the Palestinians’ push at the United Nations for statehood with trepidation.

The official response of the government of Israel and American Jewish groups has been to do everything possible to prevent any action at the U.N. and to line up votes against it. Only America and a few other nations have joined Israel’s side. Most European countries are likely to either support the Palestinians or abstain. The current Israeli strategy seems certain to fail.

While the Palestinians are unlikely to get the Security Council’s approval because of the U.S. veto, they will get the support of the General Assembly. Legally a General Assembly vote means little, but it doesn’t matter. As far as the world goes, Palestine will have achieved statehood. The new State of Palestine will be recognized by many countries. And it won’t stop there.

Israel will be accused of establishing settlements in a foreign country, and each time Israel acts in response to a rocket from Gaza or an attack from the West Bank, it will be attacked verbally for threatening the sovereignty of a neighboring country. Israel will find itself embroiled in lawsuits at the International Court at The Hague and in other European countries, accused of violating the rights of a sovereign nation. The new “frontline” in the Israel-Palestinian conflict will be about water, airspace, territorial waters, imports and exports, taxation and more.

Israel cannot win in this battle.

There is, however, an alternative to Israel’s current approach and our community’s wall-to-wall condemnation of the Palestinian plan: Israel should support Palestinian statehood in the strongest manner. This is the right approach on both moral and pragmatic grounds.

As an Israeli and a Zionist, I have a moral duty to support any people that desires national self-determination. This was our dream for 2,000 years, and we began the journey toward realizing that aspiration in Basel 120 years ago. We achieved statehood in 1948, and yet we still struggle to have our right to self-determination accepted.

Today, especially as the boycott, divestment and sanctions movement works to challenge Israel’s national legitimacy, we need not only to defend our Jewish state but also to support others seeking self-determination.

Is there any moral reason to deny that right to the Palestinians? True, they have only become a people in recent times, but what right do we have to say that they are not a nation entitled to their own state? Our doomed attempt to prevent recognition of Palestinian statehood at the United Nations will only serve to bolster the cause of those who are trying to delegitimize Israel’s national rights.

Israel would do better by endorsing the Palestinian effort to gain recognition, and it should be the first nation to vote in favor of Palestinian statehood. This should be followed by demands that the Palestinians prove they can fulfill the responsibilities of statehood.

The new Palestinian government must develop an economy that can provide for the well-being of its citizens. It must teach its children to respect all peoples and remove anti-Israel rhetoric from its textbooks and media. The Palestinian government’s police force needs not only to protect its own citizens but also to ensure that terrorism is rooted out.

The new state must embrace democracy and protect civil rights. These have been the demands of the citizens of Tunisia, Yemen, Egypt, Libya and Syria during the Arab Spring, and the Palestinian people deserve the same. They are entitled to a free press, free speech and freedom of religion. The status of Palestinian women must be advanced and their rights protected.

The new Palestinian government faces an especially difficult challenge in dealing with Jewish settlements. Yet a modern state must learn to live with citizens of other countries and peoples of other faiths in its midst. It will behoove the new Palestinian government to protect the Jewish settlers and guarantee their rights.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu should call upon Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas to fulfill the responsibilities of enlightened government. Netanyahu should offer to meet with the head of the new Palestinian state to negotiate borders and resolve all outstanding issues between the two countries.

I doubt that Abbas will respond favorably. Nor do I expect that the Palestinians will be eager to return to peace negotiations. But their refusal will put the Palestinians on the defensive and expose their current statehood push as just an empty public relations tactic. Meanwhile, by supporting Palestinian statehood, Israel would underscore its willingness to move forward and achieve the ultimate goal of peace.

This approach is a lot better than the one now being pursued by Israel. It is also the morally correct, Zionist and Jewish thing to do.

Michael J. Weil is the executive director of the Jewish Federation of Greater New Orleans. He lived in Israel for 30 years and served in the Israeli army. The views expressed in this article are those of the author alone and do not represent the policy of the Jewish Federation of Greater New Orleans.

Marc Stanely

I was amused by Adam Serwer’s recent blog post titled “Is Bibi anti-Israel?” in which he pointed out that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu conditionally offered this month to negotiate with the Palestinians using the pre-1967 borders as a framework.

Amazingly, there was no outcry by American Jews that Netanyahu was abandoning Israel by suggesting a return to supposedly “indefensible” borders.

As Serwer noted, this was in stark contrast to the negative accusations hurled at President Obama after his May 19 State Department address during which he restated — against a backdrop of supportive statements about Israel’s security — longstanding U.S. (and, frankly, Israeli) policy that Israel’s negotiations with the Palestinians should take place along “1967 lines with mutually agreed swaps.”

Obama’s statement was unremarkable for many reasons: President George W. Bush said as much in 2005 while standing next to Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas in the Rose Garden; Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton reiterated the same formula in 2009; and Netanyahu even issued a joint statement with Clinton using that exact phrase last November. In fact, this common understanding has been the basis of bipartisan negotiations for at least 12 years, if not more.

So why was Obama vilified over this statement, but his critics remained silent as Netanyahu took the exact same position? And why do Obama’s critics insinuate that the Israeli government — Netanyahu in particular — has concerns with the president and his commitment to a safe and secure Jewish state? Why haven’t Netanyahu’s quite favorable remarks about the current status of the U.S.-Israel relationship been covered in the media?

In a recent speech in Tel Aviv, the Israeli leader extolled the current U.S.-Israel relationship, noting that the United States has “provided invaluable diplomatic, moral and military support.

Diplomatic support, in our quest for a negotiated peace … grounded in security but grounded also in mutual compromise that can only be achieved in face to face negations. America is very, very clear on this point. And I think President Obama has spoken eloquently about this.”

Netanyahu then talked about the great military support that Israel receives from the U.S.

“We just had a successful deployment of the Iron Dome system. And we’ve intercepted seven missiles that were fired over the skies of Beersheva and Ashkelon,” the prime minister said, “and this was made possible by generous American military support; funding that was approved by the Obama administration.”

After we have all received scurrilous e-mails to the contrary, I imagine many American Jews will be surprised to learn that Netanyahu is pleased with and deeply grateful for the “diplomatic, moral and military support” his government has received from Obama. The president’s critics surely are not going to bring this up.

On an unprecedented level, and truly on the width and breadth of issues they face together, Obama and Netanyahu agree. You can see it in the words they speak, but you can see it even clearer in the everyday actions taken by the Obama administration to help secure Israel.

High-level security cooperation, including funding the critical Iron Dome? Check.

Heavily sanctioning Iran to block its pursuit of nuclear weapons? Definitely.

Committing to stop a unilateral declaration of Palestinian statehood at the United Nations in September, as well as blocking other efforts to undermine Israel’s legitimacy in world bodies?

Absolutely.

From the Gaza flotilla to missile defense cooperation, the list goes on and on.

So are critics being fair to President Obama when they intentionally misquote him and spread lies about his positions? Are they being fair when they portray a rift between the U.S. administration and the Israeli government in the face of clear evidence to the contrary? And are they helping Israel by trying to use Israel as a wedge issue for partisan gain?

While some work to tear down the bipartisan pro-Israel consensus that we’ve built over decades, Obama and Netanyahu continue to work as partners in every sense to secure Israel and ensure lasting peace for the Israeli people. On top of the extensive list of agreements regarding policy and security cooperation, add the fact that Netanyahu has reiterated his support for this longtime basis for negotiations.

Don’t listen to the noise; look at the record. Prime Minister Netanyahu and President Obama are truly on the same page.

Marc Stanley is the chair of the National Jewish Democratic Council.

Morton A. Klein

It’s high time to face an unpleasant fact: President Obama and Israel are not on the same page.

This has been true ever since Obama took office in January 2009, but it was most recently apparent this May when the president ambushed Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu with an adversarial speech the day before Netanyahu’s U.S. visit by advocating that Israel return to the pre-1967 armistice lines (with mutually agreed swaps).

Obama’s speech meant that Israel cannot keep the Jewish neighborhoods of eastern Jerusalem, the Temple Mount, the Western Wall or the major settlement blocs without Palestinian Authority approval. No previous U.S. president ever took this position.

Neither has any previous president ever suggested, as Obama has, that the issues of “territory and security” should be agreed upon first, and only then should the issues of Arab refugees and Jerusalem’s status be decided. Thus in Obama’s view, Israel should establish a Palestinian state and give away virtually all the disputed territory, thereby eliminating its negotiating leverage, before negotiating over Jerusalem and refugees from a weakened position.

An anonymous Israeli official interviewed in early August by Reuters denied recent reports that Netanyahu now accepts the pre-1967 lines as a basis for negotiations, and two senior Israeli officials recently told me the same.

It’s also shocking that Obama made these demands of Israel only two weeks after Fatah, the faction that leads the Palestinian Authority, signed a unity agreement with Hamas, the terrorist organization that calls in its charter for the murder of Jews.

Netanyahu has been clear: He won’t negotiate with a Hamas-linked Palestinian Authority. Yet Obama has refused to make diplomatic or financial support for the Palestinian Authority conditional on its abrogating its unity agreement with Hamas.

Obama’s first major Middle East speech, in Cairo in June 2009, made clear his tenuous commitment to Israel. He ignored the legal, historical and religious basis of the Jewish claim to Israel, instead writing it off as a reward for enduring the Holocaust.

Obama also claimed that the Palestinians have been suffering in trying to establish their state for 60 years, but he ignored the fact that they turned down offers of statehood in 1937, 1947, 2000 and 2008. He spoke about the Arabs being “displaced” by Israel’s founding, ignoring the fact that if there had been no Arab war against Israel, there would have been no refugees.

Most egregiously, the president strongly implied that Palestinian suffering was equivalent to Jewish suffering during the Holocaust. And by framing his call for Palestinians to practice only nonviolent resistance by pointing to the experience of U.S. blacks during slavery and black Africans during South African apartheid, Obama effectively lumped in Israeli Jews with history’s oppressors.

In a January 2010 TV interview, Obama’s Middle East envoy George Mitchell — who has since left his post — told PBS’s Charlie Rose that “full implementation of the Arab Peace Initiative is the objective set forth by the president.” The so-called Arab Peace Initiative demands that Israel retreat to the pre-1967 lines, set up a Palestinian state and accept the right of millions of Arab refugees to move into Israel. That would end Israel as a Jewish state.

And let’s not forget Obama’s September 2009 U.N. speech, in which he spoke of the need to couple “unwavering commitment to Israel” with calls for Israel to “respect the legitimate claims and rights of the Palestinians.” Former U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations John Bolton called this “the most radical anti-Israel speech I can recall any president making.”

Even former New York City Mayor Ed Koch, a Democrat who campaigned for Obama, recently wrote in the Huffington Post, “I weep as I witness outrageous verbal attacks on Israel” that “are being orchestrated by President Obama.” Koch suggested that Obama is “throwing Israel under the bus.”

Perhaps Israel’s deepest concern is the existential threat posed by the prospect of a nuclear-armed Iran. Obama needlessly delayed congressional sanctions against Iran for a year while he tried to get multilateral, U.N.-backed sanctions enacted first. Now that sanctions have become U.S. law, Obama has not implemented them in a serious way.

Obama also sent Vice President Joe Biden to Israel to warn Netanyahu not to launch any military strikes against Iran without U.S. approval.

One of my most revealing experiences was a meeting I attended, along with 40 other Jewish leaders, with President Obama at the White House in March. The president told us, according to my notes: “You must speak to your Israeli friends and relatives and search your souls to determine how badly do you really want peace. Israelis think this peace business is overrated; their life is good, their economy is good, and things are quiet.”

Several times he emphasized that “the PA is sincere in wanting a peaceful settlement” and that “Israel has not sufficiently tried to make an acceptable offer.” He asked, “Is the Netanyahu government serious about territorial concessions?”

Things may get better or worse — more likely the latter — but one thing is clear: Obama and Israel are not of one mind, or anywhere close to being so.

Morton A. Klein is the national president of the Zionist Organization of America.

Newt Gingrich, a Republican candidate for president, speaks at the republican Jewish Coalition's California summer bash in Beverly Hills, June 12, 2011. (Zach Abrams)

BEVERLY HILLS, Calif. (JTA) – Israel and America are at a dangerous crossroads in which the survival of Israel and the safety of the United States both hang in the balance.

Year after year, the forces of terrorism become stronger, and the claims of terrorists become more acceptable to our European allies and more powerful in the United Nations. Year after year the Iranian dictatorship, with its openly stated desire to annihilate Israel and defeat the United States, moves closer to having nuclear means to do so. Year after year, Hamas grows stronger in Gaza and Hezbollah grows stronger in Lebanon.

Today the greatest obstacle toward achieving a real and lasting peace is not the strength of the enemy or the unwillingness of Israel to make great sacrifices for the sake of peace. It is the inability on the part of the Obama administration and certain other world leaders to tell the truth about terrorism, be honest about the publicly stated goals of our common enemies and devise policies appropriate to an honest accounting of reality.

Moral confusion that cannot see for what they are attacks that fit into a carefully defined ideology of radical Islamist terrorism is sadly typical of this administration’s elevation of political correctness above common sense. The Obama administration’s policy towards Israel has been a victim of this dangerous confusion.

In his May 19 State Department speech, President Obama rightly stated that Israel cannot be expected to negotiate with a terrorist organization that denies its right to exist. But he then went on in the same speech to pressure Israel to do exactly that.

President Obama wants Israel to enter into negotiations with a Palestinian Authority that is now in league with the terrorist organization Hamas. The president said that applying this pressure on Israel was not the politically savvy thing for him to do, and that the safe thing to do in an election year is nothing.

He is essentially telling us that he is doing the brave thing by pressuring Israel to negotiate with terrorists who want to destroy it. President Obama and his State Department should recall some basic facts.

Hamas was founded as a terrorist organization dedicated to the destruction of Israel. Its charter openly calls for Israel’s destruction and instructs its followers to kill Jews wherever they find them. Hamas goes well beyond words in its effort to destroy Israel. In 2010, more than 200 missiles were fired into Israel from Gaza.

No country can be expected to conduct peace negotiations with a terrorist organization dedicated to its destruction, or with a Palestinian governmental authority that joins forces with such a terrorist organization.

Twenty years of hopes for the modern peace process cannot change this fundamental reality.

It also means that entering into peace negotiations with any organization that includes Hamas is a fool’s errand.  It is something that no friend of Israel should ever ask Israel to do. I certainly hope this administration doesn’t resort to the meaningless exercise of trying to artificially distinguish between the military and political wings of Hamas as a way of justifying pressure on Israel to negotiate with the latter.

In his recent speeches, President Obama also called for Israel to accept the 1967 lines as the beginning of peace negotiations. He went to great lengths to have us all believe that what he said at the State Department and later at AIPAC was no different than what other American presidents have declared as official policy.

Unfortunately, that’s just not true. President Obama has in fact called for a remarkable shift in U.S. policy regarding the peace process. He wants Israel to accept the indefensible lines of 1967 as the starting point of negotiations.

Accepting such a proposal would be a suicidal step for Israel. Fortunately for Israel, that proposal is a non-starter with the American people.

Like Israel, we are committed to seeing a peace agreement that protects Jerusalem as the undivided capital of the Jewish state. After all, it has only been under Jewish authority that religious freedom, including access to holy sites, for people of all faiths — Christian, Jewish and Muslim — has been protected.

Meanwhile, we must readily see the president’s policies for what they are: the dangerous accommodation of Middle East dictators, and worse, the accommodation of terrorist groups like Hamas.

President Obama’s policies represent a sharp break from the post-World War II American political consensus of providing unwavering support to the State of Israel.

The decision to adopt a policy of accommodation, using the political objectives and code words of those who wish to drive Israel into the sea, affirms the administration’s radicalism in its headlong flight from the legacy of U.S. presidents — from Truman to Bush — and is leading Israel and the Western democracies toward ever increasing danger.

President Obama’s focus on Israel as the obstacle to peace is particularly disturbing considering the existence of a true threat to the peace of the world: the threat from Iran. Today Iran is watching whether the United States keeps its promises with its ally Israel and how we deal with Iran’s proxies, Hamas and Hezbollah. The Iranian regime will also be watching how America and our allies treat Israel at the U.N. General Assembly this September.

We need to acknowledge that 20 years of trying to negotiate peace with evil regimes and organizations dedicated to the destruction of Israel — and in many cases our own destruction — has been a failure, and the time has come to clearly and decisively take the offensive against them.

This begins with a firm and consistent commitment by the United States — in the Reagan tradition — to speak plainly and truthfully about the nature of our enemies.

Next, our policies must reflect the fact that there is no moral equivalency between terrorist regimes and a legitimate self-governing country that abides by the rule of law.

We must reverse the Obama administration’s dangerous policies of incoherence and accommodation and implement instead a foreign policy that is clear about the evil that we face and committed to the actions necessary to overcome it.

(This Op-Ed was adapted from a speech Newt Gingrich, a Republican candidate for president, delivered to the Republican Jewish Coalition on June 12, 2011.) counterpoint

Stuart Eizenstat (JPPPI)

WASHINGTON (JTA) — A strong secure Jewish state of Israel, supported by the United States as a close ally, has been a central feature of my public and private careers.

As a senior government official in several administrations, an American and a Jew, I see Israel from multiple perspectives. Israel plays a strategic role in advancing American interests in the Middle East and beyond; Israel and the United States share a common set of democratic values and have developed a partnership unique in the annals of history. Israel is the Third Jewish Commonwealth, returning the Jewish people to their homeland after 2,000 years of exile, and it is the home of relatives and close friends, and the final resting place of my great-grandfather and grandfather, both of whom made aliyah.

I fervently believe President Obama’s course is essential to achieve the hopes I have for Israel’s future in the 21st century and beyond — notwithstanding the recent controversy over the president’s remarks about Israeli-Palestinian negotiations and differences over Israeli settlement expansion.

First, the Obama administration has generated unprecedented international pressure to confront Iran, Israel’s most dangerous security threat. President Obama is determined in word and deed to “prevent Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons.”

The president and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton have orchestrated increasingly biting multilateral sanctions through the U.N. Security Council, winning support even from Russia and China; strengthened them with comprehensive U.S. sanctions aimed at Iran’s financial sector; and obtained European Union support for similar sanctions.

As a result, Iran is virtually cut off from large parts of the international financial system, its economy is hobbled, and most large American and European companies have left Iran.

The administration also has taken on Islamic terrorism more generally, from gravely weakening al-Qaida with relentless drone attacks and the courageous killing of Osama bin Laden to providing vast financial and military support to help governments throughout the Middle East and North Africa combat radicalism.

Second, with bipartisan cooperation from Congress, the president has placed the military relationship with Israel at an all-time high. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu recognized this in his recent speech to the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, saying that “Our security cooperation is unprecedented” and noting that the president “has backed those words up with deeds.”

President Obama has expanded U.S.-Israeli security cooperation from counterterrorism to preventing arms smuggling to Gaza to missile defense.

Despite the most difficult federal budget challenge in our lifetime, Israel’s military assistance has increased to the historic high of $3 billion. The Obama administration has assured that Israel will maintain a qualitative advantage in a region where the sophistication of arms is increasing by providing additional support of $205 million to help produce an Israeli-developed short-range rocket defense system, Iron Dome, which already has intercepted rockets from Gaza and saved Israeli lives.

Third, the Obama administration has taken head-on the insidious campaign to delegitimize Israel as a Jewish state. Obama is the first president to repeatedly refer to Israel as the “Jewish state of Israel.” He told the U.N. General Assembly that “Israel’s existence must not be a subject for debate” and said, “Efforts to chip away at Israel’s legitimacy will only be met by the unshakeable opposition of the United States.”

The president withdrew U.S. participation in the Durban Review Conference in Geneva in 2009 because of its anti-Israel agenda. And the administration strongly opposed the Goldstone report following the Gaza War.

The controversy over the president’s position on the Israeli-Palestinian peace process has colored the view of some supporters of Israel, who failed to listen to what the president said. His May 19 speech on the Arab Spring and his May 22 AIPAC speech are bookends that should be reassuring to Israeli supporters and are distinctly in Israel’s best interests.

It is critical to understand that the president was not only trying to reignite the stalled peace process, but also to head off a serious looming danger to Israel: a unilateral declaration by the U.N. General Assembly in September recognizing Palestinian statehood within pre-1967 borders, with Jerusalem as the capital of a Palestinian state and the “right of return” for Palestinian refugees.

By giving the Europeans and the G-8 members an alternative, the president’s approach gives him leverage to urge them to join him in voting against the U.N. resolution.

Without this initiative, and in the absence of a concrete Israeli proposal, the chances of heading off the U.N. vote or diminishing its support would have been nil.

Israel is politically isolated because of its government’s policies on Jewish settlements in the West Bank. The Obama initiative provides the opportunity for key nations to support the U.S. government’s determined effort to support Israel at the United Nations.

We must focus on what President Obama said and what he did not say. He emphasized that peace could not be imposed on Israel and that Israel should not be expected to negotiate with Hamas so long as it is committed to Israel’s destruction. He stated point blank that “No vote at the United Nations will ever create an independent Palestinian state,” and that any final agreement must assure that Israel can “defend itself — by itself — against any threat.” He said that the withdrawal of Israel’s military forces from the West Bank should occur only when the Palestinians can demonstrate their capacity to keep the peace, and that a Palestinian state should be “non-militarized.”

Importantly, he stressed that the status of Jerusalem and Palestinian refugees should be left to later — after negotiations on principles that satisfy each side that their respective core needs on borders and security will be met.

Finally, he said that the Palestinians must accept “Israel as a Jewish state and homeland for the Jewish people.” No American president has provided these assurances.

What he did not say was that Israel should be required to withdraw to pre-1967 borders; quite the contrary. President Obama stated clearly that negotiations should be based on “the 1967 lines with mutually agreed swaps.”

This is essentially the position that both former Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak at Camp David in 2000 and former Prime Minister Ehud Olmert took in 2008 in negotiations with the Palestinian Authority.

As the president stressed at AIPAC, this means “by definition” that the “parties themselves — Israelis and Palestinians — will negotiate a border that is different than the one that existed” before the Six-Day War in June 1967. That will allow the “parties themselves to account for the changes that have taken place for the last 44 years,” he said, referring to Jewish settlements in the West Bank.

Lost in the fog of an unnecessary controversy is the fact that continued expansion of settlements does not strengthen Israel’s security; it isolates Israel and makes a two-state solution more difficult.

Two states for two peoples, with as much separation as possible, is essential for Israel’s well-being. When the president said that only a viable two-state solution with Israel within internationally recognized secure borders will enable Israel to remain a majority Jewish, democratic state, the president spoke for me. I believe he spoke for millions of Israelis, too; a recent poll by Israel’s daily Maariv showed that 57 percent of Israelis accept Obama’s principles.

It’s time for the American Jewish community, and supporters of Israel in the United States and around the world, to recognize that President Obama’s broad principles — apparently just accepted by the chief Palesinitan negotiator, Saab Erekat, in a speech in a recent speech in Washington — provide the key to a safe and secure Jewish state.

(Ambassador Stuart E. Eizenstat, now a partner at the Washington law firm of Covington & Burling, served in senior positions in several presidential administrations. Under President Clinton, Eizenstat was responsible for the economic dimensions of the Middle East peace process, and he served as the administration’s special representative on Holocaust-era issues.)

With that statement, Rabbi Shafran has conceded the very point that Magen Tzedek seeks to demonstrate for the Jewish community — Jewish ethical values are no less important than halachic concerns.

We also would like to reiterate a concession we already made. Our initial language regarding hekhsher and kashrut was confusing, and it was to distinguish between this certification and kashrut that we changed the name of the symbol, and subsequently the project, to Magen Tzedek. The outdated language on our website has been corrected.

Magen Tzedek is not a kashrut certification and has never sought to be a kashrut certification. Rather it is an ethical certification program that is only available for food products already bearing a recognized hekhsher.

Far from replacing kashrut, Magen Tzedek will encourage those concerned with Jewish ethical principles to purchase kosher products. Kosher consumers will be assured that kosher-certified foods are prepared in a manner consistent with Jewish ethical values. A clear indication of success for Magen Tzedek would be an increase in the number of Jews keeping kosher.

The Magen Tzedek Commission has labored quietly and diligently for 5 years. We are now in the final beta-testing stages in creating the world’s first and only comprehensive Jewish ethical certification for kosher food. Our seal will uphold the biblical and rabbinic mandates regarding fair treatment of workers, humane treatment of animals and care of the earth.

It is a testament to the wisdom of Torah, halachah and all Jewish tradition that these fundamental Jewish ethical precepts can be translated into measurable standards applicable to commercial food production. These standards were developed in collaboration with SAAS, an organization acknowledged worldwide for its expertise in ethical certification programs.

Judaism is a religion built upon ethical precepts. This conviction is shared by Jews who keep kosher as well as those who do not. What we in our rabbinate clearly see is that there are Jews who can be inspired through its ethical precepts to discover the wisdom of the halachic tradition.

Our invitation to Rabbi Shafran and others remains open: Join with us in strengthening the Jewish people through the promotion of the ethical production of kosher food and of kashrut observance itself. Let us work together to see that the maximum number of Jews in this and the coming generations embrace the totality of their “yerusha,” their inheritance. Together we can inspire even more Jews to embrace this tradition we all cherish.

(Rabbi Michael Siegel and Gerald Kobell are the Magen Tzedek co-chairs.)

That would be the new certification seal for kosher food products, created by a Conservative rabbi and actively being promoted by his movement, that aims to “help assure consumers that kosher food products were produced in keeping with the highest possible Jewish ethical values and ideals for social justice in the area of labor concerns, animal welfare, environmental impact, consumer issues and corporate integrity.”

Originally called Hekhsher Tzedek, the symbol’s name was later changed to Magen Tzedek. This was presumably done in response to objections raised by Agudath Israel of America and others who pointed out that kashrut, which the word “hekhsher” clearly references, is a well-defined halachic concept that has nothing to do with ethical considerations.

To be sure, Jewish ethical values in food production are no less important halachic concerns, and are indeed embodied in independent halachic mandates. But they are something distinct from kashrut. Implying otherwise, it was objected, subtly but unmistakably conflates two distinct realms and, in the process, attempts to “redefine” an important Jewish concept.

So the Hekhsher Tzedek Commission sought to unbake its cake and recast its initiative as not really a hekhsher (i.e. kashrut certification) at all but rather a non-kashrut-related endorsement (oddly, though, only for food), replacing the Hekhsher with Magen. It will be, in the commission’s words, “a supplemental mark … affixed only to foods bearing the symbol of a ritually certifying organization. It does not replace a traditional kosher symbol.”

It was strange that the Hekhsher Tzedek Commission itself nevertheless retained its own name, complete with its kashrut reference. But at least the renaming of the seal would skirt the kashrut issue. The certification, it now seemed, was essentially a “social justice/corporate integrity” stamp of approval. No problem. Indeed, a positive contribution, at least for consumers who for whatever reason do not trust the penalty-empowered governmental agencies that already oversee all those things.

Aye, but here’s the rub: At the same time the new seal was being touted as limiting itself to “bring[ing] the Jewish commitment to ethics and social justice directly into the marketplace” — in other words, to entirely non-kashrut-related concerns — Magen Tzedek still described itself as being the “gold standard of kashrut”  and as offering “kashrut for the 21st century.”

Something’s rotten, it would seem, in the state of definitions.

The decidedly non-kosher elephant in the room here is the fact that the Conservative movement does not really embrace halachah. Nor have its religious leaders ever made kashrut a priority or promoted it to their constituents.

Conservatism pledges allegiance to halachah in theory but has, time and again in a variety of contexts, sought to “accommodate” Jewish religious law to the mores and norms of contemporary American society. The “Whatever Tzedek” is simply the latest manifestation of Conservative leaders’ tradition of exchanging Divine mandates for contemporary constructs. Its seal is a trained one, and its neat trick isn’t balancing a ball on its nose but leading people to confuse kashrut with contemporary social issues.

When Agudath Israel issued a statement recently pointing out the unmistakable redefinition of kashrut inherent in the Magen Tzedek endeavor, representatives of Magen Tzedek responded by erecting and shooting at a straw man, implying mendaciously that Agudath Israel discounts the importance of halachic requirements regarding workers, resource wastage and animals; and that we believe Jewish law in the realm of “between man and man” is less important than that “between man and God.” Needless to say, these charges are absurd.

Even as Magen Tzedek’s promoters fired wildly, though, they seemed to realize the blatant nature of their “now it’s a hekhsher, now it’s not” approach, replacing the words “Kashrut for the 21st Century,” which had appeared prominently at the top of its homepage after the words “Magen Tzedek,” with “An Ethical Certification for Kosher Food.”

The latest change of wording, however, was cosmetic, an attempt to keep the effort’s goal — still defined as to “improve our consciousness, understanding and practice of kashrut by extending the definition beyond ritual to reflect ethical, environmental and social concerns” — less “in the face” of visitors to its website. The “ethical seal,” it seems, is engaging in a cover-up.

But the obfuscation will fool only those predisposed to Magen Tzedek’s goals. Any Jew who recognizes the Divine nature of Torah and the sacrosanctity of halachah knows that the effort’s refusal to address head-on the central issue — the redefinition of kashrut — really says it all.

(Rabbi Avi Shafran is the director of public affairs for Agudath Israel of America.)

Rabbi Eric Yoffie

Rabbi Steven Wernick

We are saddened by the contempt that Rabbi Shlomo Amar, the Sephardic chief rabbi of Israel, expresses for Reform and Conservative Judaism at this High Holidays season.

The Reform and Conservative movements in Israel are small but vibrant, and growing rapidly.

This growth comes despite longstanding Israeli government policy that funnels taxpayers’ money only to Orthodox institutions, forcing Conservative and Reform Jews to fend for themselves.

Government recognition and equitable funding of Reform and Conservative rabbis and synagogues would lead to even faster growth, and polls show that an overwhelming majority of Israelis favor such recognition.

Polls also demonstrate the massive unpopularity among Israelis of the Chief Rabbinate and its religious bureaucracy, which sanctions discrimination against the majority of world Jewry.

Coercive, punitive, inefficient and often corrupt, this bureaucracy has driven Jews from Judaism and brought Torah into disrepute. We find it troubling that Rabbi Amar prefers Israelis to be secular than to identify as passionate Jews through Reform and Conservative institutions.

The Conservative and Reform movements were backbones of the Soviet Jewry movement and have remained engaged in efforts to support Russian olim in Israel. We have always supported those elements of the conversion bill proposed by Knesset member David Rotem that would add flexibility to the current conversion system.

We doubt very much, however, that the Rotem bill would have helped Russian immigrants in a significant way. Because its demands are so stringent, it is likely that it would have helped only a few. And underlying the rhetoric about helping Russians convert halachically is a power play to grant the Chief Rabbinate far more authority over conversions than Israeli law now provides.

If the Chief Rabbinate were given total authority over conversions, we know what would happen: The Rabbinate would use this authority to change the definition of conversion under the Law of Return, overturning the status quo by rejecting Reform and Conservative conversions done in the Diaspora. Some Israeli rabbinical courts already have begun to do this. The jurisdiction of the Supreme Court in cases related to the rights of our converts also would be greatly limited.

Under current law, we have yet to lose such a conversion case before the Supreme Court. But with the law changed, the Chief Rabbinate would reverse the results of our important past victories.

This explains the alarm that swept North American Jewry, where 85 percent of Jews are non-Orthodox. Rabbi Amar is fooling himself and his followers if he thinks that our movements artificially generated this anger. It was the heartfelt response of Jews throughout North America who were outraged by proposals to reject the legitimacy of our rabbis and of the way we practice our Judaism.

When Rabbi Amar asks why members of the U.S. Congress should care about this bill, he should remember that the vast majority of the Jewish caucus in Congress consists of Reform and Conservative Jews. Indeed, there are 535 senators and representatives in Congress, and the great majority of the rabbis they know, the synagogues they visit and the Jews who vote for them are Reform and Conservative. They are gravely concerned when our rabbis and movements are delegitimized by the actions of the Knesset.

If Rabbi Amar and others are worried about the reactions of the American Congress, they should remember this: It is perilous to create schisms that will alienate our friends and split the Jewish people, and they should be prepared to take responsibility for their own actions.

We are stunned by the suggestion that Israel’s religious monopoly represents democratic principles. Such a system exists nowhere else in the democratic world. We appreciate Rabbi Amar’s commitment to his understanding of Jewish tradition, but we wonder why he lacks the confidence to give Israelis free choice in religious matters. The principle that should guide us is that the Jewish state should support all religious streams equally or none at all.

We have very different ideas on how to assure Jewish unity. Israel’s Supreme Court ruled in 1986 that Reform and Conservative conversions must be recognized for the purposes of obtaining Israeli citizenship. The decision noted that Israel was not founded “in order to drive a wedge into the people who dwell in Zion, and divide it into two peoples, Jews and Israelis.”

When the Jewish state takes an inclusive approach to the Jewish people, unity will become possible.

Rabbi Eric Yoffie is president of the Union for Reform Judaism. Rabbi Steven Wernick is executive vice president and CEO of the United Synagogue of Conservative Judaism.

Sephardi Chief Rabbi of Israel Shlomo Amar (Miriam Alster/Flash90)

The media has reported the vehement opposition of the American Conservative and Reform movements and Jewish Federations of North America to the conversion bill proposed by Knesset member David Rotem. I find their opposition puzzling.

Within the framework of halachah, or Jewish law, the Rotem bill expands the scope of conversion, prevents application of stringencies unjustified by halachah, and provides greater convenience, leniency and flexibility in the administration of Israeli conversion courts. It addresses many issues raised by Orthodox rabbis considered liberal by the Israeli media and has their strong support. It is strongly supported by Yisrael Beiteinu, the secular party that represents Russian Israelis.

The bill deserves unanimous support from everyone who genuinely cares about the welfare of 300,000 non-Jewish Russian Israelis. But a segment of the leadership of Jewish Federations of North America and the American Conservative and Reform movements unleashed an artificial fire­storm of opposition, soliciting e-mails from members and letters from the U.S. Congress, and successfully delaying passage of the bill.

Opponents of the Rotem bill claim that it radically changes the status quo, placing power for state-recognized conversion in Israel in the hands of the Chief Rabbinate. This is untrue. Government-recognized conversions to Judaism performed in Israel have been under the control of the Chief Rabbinate since the founding of the state in 1948. The bill merely confirms longstanding practice in response to court cases seeking to challenge the status quo.

Why did leaders of these American Jewish groups take action they knew would hurt many Russian Israelis?

They hoped to leverage their political power in the United States to force Israel to accede to their parochial agenda — namely, granting Reform and Conservative conversions the official recognition accorded to Orthodox conversions.

This request might appear to be reasonable to an American Jew. It is not. The context of Jewish life in the United States is very different from Jewish life in Israel. Rampant intermarriage in the United States explains in large part, though in no way justifies, the push for relaxed conversion standards and the Reform movement’s shocking acceptance of patrilineal descent. Intermarriage is thankfully far less of a problem in the Jewish state.

Moreover, despite strenuous efforts, the Reform and Conservative movements themselves have not taken root in Israel. They arose in reaction to post-Enlightenment pressure on Diaspora Jews. These pressures do not exist in Israel.

Non-Orthodox Israeli Jews may be more or less observant (masorti) or even totally secular (chiloni), but they do not need the crutch of identification with non-halachic movements to sustain their Jewish national identities. They speak Hebrew, the language of the Jewish people, celebrate Jewish holidays and are closely bound to the collective fate of the Jewish people, courageously serving in Israel’s army. Only 1 percent identify with Reform or Conservative Judaism.

Very few non-Jewish Russian Israelis are interested in a Reform or Conservative conversion, regarding them as inauthentic. They are Diaspora transplants that have withered in Israel’s Jewish soil and failed in Israel’s free marketplace of ideas.

Rather than recognizing that their lack of significant progress over the past 62 years of Israeli statehood is due to a flawed product, Conservative and Reform leaders have chosen to blame the Chief Rabbinate. Ignoring democratic principles, they have improperly intervened on the Rotem bill, a matter that affects only Israelis and not American Jews. The bill has no impact outside of Israel.

Principles are not a suit of clothes to be donned and shed at convenience. It is inconsistent for the Conservative movement to insist that Israel recognize Reform conversions performed without immersion in a mikvah or circumcision when they do not recognize such conversions when performed in the United States. The Reform movement, which argues for the absolute separation of religion and state in the United States, inconsistently insists upon official recognition of their spiritual leaders by the government of Israel.

Even more puzzling is the position of the Jewish Federations of North America. How can its leaders justify spending funds raised for charitable purposes on an ideological issue, particularly when it is so controversial? Moreover, when they have not significantly consulted the American Orthodox movements or their own Orthodox contributors, how can they purport to be representing the entire spectrum of American Jewry?

Even critical strategic threats to the State of Israel have been ignored by opponents of the Rotem bill. A Reform Jewish leader was quoted in the JTA on July 26 as bemoaning the fact that the controversy has “even reached the U.S. Congress, causing dismay to all who love the Jewish state.” What an extraordinary statement!

The bill did not simply drift into the Capitol like a feather borne by a random breeze. The Rotem bill came to the attention of Congress because of the determined lobbying efforts of its opponents — the same people who now claim they are distressed by the damage to U.S.-Israeli relations. U.S. congressmen do not spontaneously take an interest in internal Israeli religious issues that do not affect their constituents.

Yet despite the looming Iranian nuclear crisis endangering the very existence of the State of Israel, the bill’s opponents jeopardized Israel’s congressional support, placing their movement’s narrow concerns above the security of the Jewish state. Ironically, they used coercive measures — a sin they habitually attribute to the Chief Rabbinate — to deny the democratically elected Knesset the independent right to determine rules governing Jewish descent in Israel, even though they independently decreed that patrilineal descent determines Jewish identity in the United States.

Finally, let us consider what would happen if efforts to change the status quo are successful. The results would be catastrophic for Jewish unity. Non-halachic conversions could throw into question the Jewish lineage and hence the Jewish credentials of non- Orthodox Jews. Orthodox Jews might be forced to maintain their own lineage lists and marry only within the Orthodox community.

This nightmare scenario is not far-fetched. It has occurred several times in the course of Jewish history, when deviant Jewish sects — which, not coincidentally, have disappeared — strayed from traditional practices relating to conversion, marriage and divorce.

It is self-evident, or should be, that Israel’s laws should be determined only by its residents, who defend its security and bear its burdens. But permit me to suggest an ethical alternative to our Jewish brethren in the Diaspora: Immigrate to Israel.

All Jews are welcome: secular, Reform, Conservative and Orthodox. They are our brothers and sisters, and we will greet them with great joy. As citizens they would then legitimately be entitled to struggle to enact their views into law.

Until such time, however, they should stop opposing the Rotem bill and allow it to pass in January. Their opposition already has caused great damage to tens of thousands of Russian Israelis who wish to join the Jewish people.

Rabbi Shlomo Moshe Amar is the Sephardic chief rabbi of Israel.