Tuesday, August 17

Tikkun blasts Kerry's "100%" Support of Sharon

The Jewish Left blasted John Kerry in A Letter on the Middle East to Senator Kerry

We the undersigned are members of the National Advisory Board representing the 7,000 members of the Tikkun Community, an interfaith organization of American Jews and our non-Jewish allies who strongly believe that the security of Israel is imperiled by the continuation of the occupation of the West Bank and the persistent conflict that such occupation necessarily implies. Recent polls indicate that over 60 percent of American Jews would support an end to the Occupation. Most of them do not support the policies of Ariel Sharon. Those polls demonstrate the unfortunate fact that the Jewish community leadership, the people you are most likely to encounter when you visit Jewish settings, do not reflect the views of most American Jewish voters.

Senator Kerry, it is a moral error and political blunder to embrace so unconditionally the current policies of the State of Israel. Those policies are not only harmful to the interests of the United States—because their transparent insensitivity to the needs of the Palestinian people generates anger around the world, particularly in the Arab and Muslim worlds—but they are also harmful to the interests of the Jewish people (stimulating new levels of anti-Semitism) and of Israel (locking Israel into an endless cycle of violence and confrontation with a people that seeks its own national self-determination).