Letter to the editor

To the Editor:

It is amazing to me that anyone would trust a word of what Mitt Romney says on Jerusalem given that he’s a candidate, not President, but Jeff Dunetz seems ready to fall for the act hook, line and sinker.  This week’s conservative meme is that Mitt Romney gave a speech where he said, with no consequences of course, that Jerusalem was the capital of Israel. 

Of course, that is not US policy, and has not been US policy for several administrations.  US policy is that the status of Jerusalem is subject to final status negotiations.  That has been the policy since the Six-Day War and reflects the American understanding UN Security Resolution 242.  President Reagan did not recognize Jerusalem as the capital of Israel.  Neither did Presidents Bush I, Clinton or Bush II, who, like Obama, would not allow Americans to list Jerusalem, Israel as their country of birth on their passports. 

Jay Carney refused to answer Connie Lawn’s question because the answer is the thing Jeff Dunetz hates most - nuanced.  This was a snow job.  Lawn works for a hard-right Christian radio network that features, among other things, a Jews for Jesus program, and her partner-in-crime, who tried to keep her question going, Les Kinsolving, works for the far-right website World Net Daily, a website that has frequently suggested that the President is a Muslim and was not born in the United States.  It is clear that the entire episode was calibrated to embarrass the President and give conservatives a talking point.  Lawn and Kinsolving should be kicked out of the White House press corp for wasting everybody’s time like this. 

What these two incidents represent is not the differentiated approaches of two political candidates, but the difference between a President with actual responsibility for US foreign policy and diplomacy who must give answers that reflect long-standing US policy and an irresponsible candidate with no responsibility who will lie to us for personal gain, and then continue exactly the same policy as before, perhaps accompanied by rhetoric that is more pleasing to the ears of Jewish conservatives. 

I’d rather vote for the responsible guy who tells us the truth rather than the pandering candidate who lies to us, no matter how sweetly he does it. 

Michael Brenner

Woodmere

Send letters

to letters@

thejewishstar.com or

fax to (516) 569-4942.