Leading Jewish Newspaper Editor Refutes RJC Ads in Column

Aaron Keyak — November 12, 2008 – 4:42 pm | Barack Obama | Democrats | Election 2008 | Israel | Republicans Comments (0) Add a comment

Andrew Silow-Carroll, New Jersey Jewish News Editor-in-Chief, refuted the Republican Jewish ad campaign in his column this week.

Here's part of Silow-Carroll's column.

In an op-ed this week, RJC executive director Matt Brooks writes that the ad campaign “helped not only raise…critical issues, but helped the Jewish community get clear answers” from the Obama campaign on Israel, Iran, and the Middle East.

You’d think the RJC had issued a series of policy papers.

But remember how low some of the ads really stooped. One bizarrely implied that because Pat Buchanan once spoke approvingly of something Obama said about the Mideast conflict, Obama may well share Buchanan’s “racist, anti-Semitic, anti-Israel, and anti-immigrant views.” (“Racist”!)

Never mind that Buchanan (a Republican, lest we forget) himself quoted Obama out of context, or that Buchanan never clarified in what ways Obama’s views on Israel were different from McCain’s. By the ad’s mischievous logic, because Elie Wiesel and David Duke both believe in freedom of religion, either they’re both bigots, or they’re both humanitarians, or freedom of religion is “dangerous.”

Or consider the ad that featured a photo of Obama speaking to a crowd in Germany, next to this helpful tag line: “History has shown that a weak and naive foreign policy has resulted in tragic outcomes for the Jewish people.”

Get it? Germany, crowds, Jewish tragedy? Unless, of course, it was coincidence that the RJC picked the Germany photo; after all, it’s not easy finding a picture of Obama speaking to a crowd in, say, the United States of America.

And on it went: Two ads left the misleading impression that McCain, topping Obama, supported an “undivided Jerusalem” (both candidates said the city’s future contours should be negotiated by the Israelis and Palestinians). Another plucked a 1999 quote to make it seem as if the head of the National Jewish Democratic Council supported McCain.

Brooks is within his rights to assert that “there were serious and legitimate reasons to be concerned by Obama’s positions on Israel, Iran, and the Middle East,” except the ads were never about opening debate, but closing it down. If you’re looking for “clear answers” on “critical issues,” you don’t invoke the Nazis or imply anti-Semitism.

And if you do, you can’t hide behind “the Jewish intellectual tradition of debate,” as Brooks does. Nor can you charge that the other side “consistently resorted to ugly intimidation to silence our message and stifle this important debate.” If you play the Holocaust card, the anti-Israel card, and the anti-Semite card, don’t be surprised when the other side pushes back.

It's interesting to note that Silow-Carroll published RJC's op-ed this week as well. This is something RJC should be used to. Throughout the election RJC got push back from the communities where RJC placed its ads.

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