Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas (left) meets with then-Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice on Aug. 26, 2008, in the West Bank city of Ramallah. Phil Freshman argues that Rice was a key member of the Bush administration inner circle that planned the Iraq War, and should not appear on the Beth El bima. (Photo: Omar Rashidi/PPO/BPH Images)
- Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas (left) meets with then-Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice on Aug. 26, 2008, in the West Bank city of Ramallah. Phil Freshman argues that Rice was a key member of the Bush administration inner circle that planned the Iraq War, and should not appear on the Beth El bima. (Photo: Omar Rashidi/PPO/BPH Images)
Inviting the former secretary of state to speak at the St. Louis Park shul implicitly condones her deeply immoral actions while in office
By PHIL FRESHMAN
I was appalled and saddened recently to learn that Beth El Synagogue in St. Louis Park — the congregation to which I belong — will host former Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice on Nov. 8, as part of its National Speaker Series.
A major fund-raising tool for the synagogue, the series has brought in the likes of Colin Powell, Bill Clinton, Ehud Barak and Dan Rather for brief speeches from the bima, followed by a question and answer period. Tickets range from $50 to $180 — and $1,000 for those who want to dine with the speaker and have a photo op before the presentation. The atmosphere is heimish, like having a guest at home. Typically, speakers offer no real challenges to mainstream notions about Israeli and U.S. government policies, and audience questions are relatively tame.
So, given this innocuous — if spendy — set-up, what’s my beef?
By “proudly presenting” Rice in its sanctuary, Beth El is implicitly condoning her deeply immoral actions while in office. She continued to promote it enthusiastically and lied to Congress about it, as she did about the Bush administration’s failure to respond to well-documented terror threats that preceded the 9/11 attacks.
Rice thus shares direct culpability for many thousands of American and Iraqi deaths, for the grief and ruin the war has brought, for the hundreds of billions it has cost (making it far harder than it otherwise would be for the U.S. to address its crucial domestic needs), and for related problems that Bush-Cheney policies have caused here and around the globe, including the further destabilization of the Middle East. Israel arguably is far less safe today because of the iniquitous mayhem Rice, Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld, Paul Wolfowitz and Douglas Feith stirred up.
Publicly, Rice helped fabricate the pretext for the war out of whole cloth. She stoked Americans’ fears of “the next mushroom cloud,” repeatedly offered “evidence” for Iraq’s nonexistent WMD and testified to the “established connection between bin Laden and Saddam Hussein,” all the while knowing there was none.
Maybe you can see why I’m appalled. Why am I also saddened?
By extending this invitation, Beth El suggests that the true implications of Rice’s visit are secondary to her stature as a celebrity and her ability to draw a high-paying audience. More, it suggests a willingness to continue passively consuming routine thinking about the Middle East rather than engaging well-known speakers with a broad range of views who might jostle preconceptions and stir nonhomogenous thinking and discussion.
Rice likely will grab 20 minutes’ worth of canned remarks from her desk, and make sure to oil the audience’s anxieties about Hamas and Iran. The Q-and-A promises to be similarly superficial. Even if one or two hard questions happen to be asked, should anyone expect truthful answers?
Like many synagogues, Beth El needs considerable cash to pursue its mission and serve its congregation well — a need that is very hard to meet in this dire economy. Yet one vital service we expect synagogues to provide, perhaps especially in tough times such as these, is moral leadership.
Displaying tolerance — and it would seem respect — for a warmonger and abuser of numerous American legal values, and core Jewish principles, is hardly a sign of moral leadership. Entering the Days of Awe, Beth El congregants should mull the meaning of giving a platform (plus a hefty check) to Condoleezza Rice and think about the tarnishing message it sends.
***
Phil Freshman lives in St. Louis Park.
(American Jewish World, 9.18.09)
Mr. Freshman is to be commended for this clear eyed look at an architect of our recent past and our national tendency to forget so much of it so quickly. As we note in other circumstances, “never againâ€.
And AJW News is to be commended for its willingness to publish Mr. Freshman’s (unfortunately) contrarian views.
Beth El invites a right wing speaker? I’m shocked!
It is with great dismay that I read the article by Phil Freshman published recently in American Jewish World.
Condoleezza Rice is a highly educated and highly distinguished diplomat who is a great friend of Israel and of Jewish people. She served as a professor and Provost of Stanford University, and advised two American presidents on the affairs of state and diplomacy. She provided advice to US presidents during such difficult periods in world history like dissolution of the Soviet Union, the following European reorganization. It is to her credit that United States gained solid allies in Eastern Europe, and that the post-Soviet transition in that part of the world resulted in democratic governments. Many of these governments subsequently became friends of Israel, and are embarking on restoration of their Jewish heritage.
Ms. Rice’s record as a diplomat is not without blemish. Her efforts for democratic reform in the Middle East that she spent significant amount of time promoting were not met with success. War with Iraq is, in views of many, controversial, and has cost many American and Iraqi lives.
Nevertheless, her efforts and dedication at promoting and defending Democracy throughout the world and in the United States deserve her a lot of respect and admiration from people like myself and many of my compatriots, immigrants from the former Soviet Union, people who experienced first-hand what an authoritarian society is about.
That said, the tactic of lies and defamation chosen by Mr. Freshman is appalling. Blaming Dr. Rice and Bush administration for the events of 9/11 (or ignoring information that led to them) when the administration was only 9 months old is plain stupid (see criticisms of the current administration). Given the complexities of these events, and the amount of time it took to stage and execute them (the planning began around 1996-1997 time frame), accusations of Bush administration (or even Clinton administration), let alone Dr. Rice, are not far away from Mad-Mad Mahmoud’s long-winded rants. Moore’s fantasies make for good fiction and plausible entertainment, but do not hold water under close examination.
The rest of Mr. Freshman’s rant is fairly characteristic of uber-liberal American Jews, of the kind that I saw this winter protesting Israel with the crowd of deranged Muslims during the pro-Israel rally, and who call consistently for the boycott of Israel, and who often promote virulent anti-Semites. Perhaps Mr. Freshman would rather see someone akin to Mad-Mad Mahmoud, Jeremy Ben-Ami, or Khaled Mashaal have the podium at Beth El, rather than a distinguished American diplomat.
Dmitry, you paint quite a characture of Mr. Freshman in setting up a false strawman to take down.
Distinguished American diplomat? Hardly.
Dear Mr. (Ms? Mrs?) M.L.,
As you choose not to publish your real name, I am not sure how to address you.
First of all, I would like to point out that you are not acquainted enough with me to be on a first-name basis, so let’s maintain a cordial attitude.
Secondly, I would like to note that I am not acquainted enough with Mr. Freshman to either assault his character or to paint his caricature. On the contrary, because I am not acquainted with Mr. Freshman, my position is that Mr. Freshman is a decent human being, and I will maintain this position until Mr. Freshman chooses to prove otherwise.
Thirdly, I believe that you misinterpret my note. It’s intent was not to use Mr. Freshman as a straw man in the debate about whether to allow Dr. Rice to speak at Bet El. Rather, I tried to point out ambiguities in the arguments that he put forth, and the unacceptability of his proposition.
I will restate my position that Dr. Rice is a distinguished American diplomat. A diplomat who, throughout her long career serving our country, may have made some perceived mistakes (everyone in her position does). It would be very worth while to query her about these perceived mistakes (and perceived successes, as well) during a constructive dialog, rather than demand that her invitation to speak be withdrawn, utilizing arguments hallucinated out of thin air by an uber-far-left moron with a specific political agenda.
If Moore’s rants about the 9/11 U.S. government conspiracy that he invented are taken for granted then, perhaps, we must have a referendum on our current president’s citizenship. Admittedly, both arguments, one from a far-left idiot, the other one from a group of far-right morons, are exceptionally stupid.
I am, however, saddened that an American Jew (Mr. Freshman did say that he was a member of Bet El) would repeat the same false rants about 9/11 that are the mainstay of many Arab and Muslim anti-American and anti-Israel newspapers.
I am 100% in agreement with Dmitri. I am a former Soviet Jew myself and am very disappointed with all this liberal nonsense about Dr. Rice. She is a very intelligent, eloquent (without teleprompter) first class and world class diplomat. I can only dream now she would have become first “Black President†and first ‘Woman Presidentâ€.
She does not doublespeak like Mr. Obama.
Dr. Charles Krauthammer (a common sense Jew like Dmitry Gringauz himself) brilliantly described it in one sentence “Obama doesn’t lie. He merely elides, gliding from one dubious assertion to another†and Dr. Rice does not. I was delighted to see her interview with Charley Rose a couple months ago on TV and am sure she will be a trophy speaker at Beth El.