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Jewish Peace Letter Vol. No. Published by the Jewish Peace Fellowship April Andrew J. Bracevich War & Our Public Intellectuals Activestills Eleanor Beardsley Women Jews & Muslims in Black in France Against the Occupation A Light Shines Plus David K. Shipler • Iran Murray Polner • The Hidden History of American Wars Stefan Merken • Passover 5775 ISSN: - From Where I Sit Stefan Merken Passover — Nissan 15-22, 5775 hen I was young, my father always opened our But we didn’t stop there. We realized we had to think and Passover Seder by telling everyone at the table that talk about the meaning of freedom in our time. What are we we Jews had been celebrat- modern Jews freeing ourselves from? Wing and retelling the Passover story for In the original Passover story we were more than three thousand years. I never slaves in Egypt. But are modern Jews forgot that. Now, I begin our Passover slaves? We certainly don’t suffer from Seder with the same statement, namely lack of freedom, or from oppression that we have been telling and retelling or tyranny. But there are some in the the narrative of slavery-to-freedom so world who still suffer under these con- that every generation celebrates and ditions; and some modern Jews have remembers this extraordinary journey. roadblocks in their personal lives that Years ago, my wife and I decided prevent them from living the kind of to adopt some changes to our Seder. life we want to live, regardless of what We wanted to emphasize issues we felt society and some traditions demand of the original Haggadah did not. For ex- us. ample: that the drops of wine for the Why, then, is it so important for plagues represent what we experienced Jews to sit every year and retell this sto- in Egypt. We realized they were not the ry? Because it emphasizes some of the same issues we experience today. So more critical ethical values on which we added an option for people at our Seder to add in their own Judaism places so much importance. For example: we cannot words the things in their lives that challenge and haunt them. As and should not occupy or maltreat others — a valued lesson for a result, some interesting conversations have resulted. Some of young and old alike. Every Passover we have the opportunity to the more vivid life events encountered by our Seder companions embark on a transformational journey, just as our forefathers have been racism, age discrimination, police brutality, financial and mothers did thousands of years ago when they began their hardships and many more. Our changes have brought the whole journey with no idea where it would lead them. issue of the Passover story into the twenty-first century. The Jewish Peace Fellowship and the editors of Shalom wish you and your family and friends a most happy and Stefan Merken is chair of the Jewish Peace Fellowship. healthy Passover. Y Jewish Peace Letter Published by the Jewish Peace Fellowship • Box 271 • Nyack, N.Y. 10960 • (845) 358-4601 Honorary President Rabbi Philip J. Bentley • Chair Stefan Merken • Vice President Rabbi Leonard Beerman z"l Editors Murray Polner & Adam Simms • Contributing Editors Lawrence S. Wittner, Patrick Henry, E. James Lieberman Established in 1941 E-mail: [email protected] • World Wide Web: http://www.jewishpeacefellowship.org Signed articles are the opinions of the writers and do not necessarily reflect the views of the JPF. 2 • Shalom: Jewish Peace Letter April 2015 Jewish Peace Fellowship Assessing the Stakes David K. Shipler Iran: Threatening and Threatened Everyone is entitled to his own opinion, but not to his own facts. Daniel Patrick Moynihan hy would hardliners in Iran want to forego the prospect of becoming a nuclear power, espe- cially when faced with hardliners in the US and WIsrael, both in possession of nuclear weapons? The question is raised again by the condescending little lecture on the American constitutional system, delivered by fory-seven Republican Senators in the form of an open letter. Without Congress or the next president’s approval, they told Iranian leaders, no agreement by President Obama would by hon- ored by Washington. Undermining the full faith and credit of the US has now been extended from financial matters to foreign policy. Re- publicans, who lament our supposedly weak president, work relentlessly to weaken him. (Don’t think Vladimir Putin fails to take notice.) And while I admit to knowing no more about Iran than any informed citizen — never having been there and having read too little about that complicated country — I really wonder why policymakers there would want to take the huge gamble of abandoning their weapons program when their apparent enemy the US cannot be counted on to uphold its side of a bargain. Yes, Iran would like to get out from under the crippling sanctions, which have grown internationally and strength- ened during Obama’s tenure. They deny Iran markets for its oil and access to international financial institutions. Yes, Iran’s theocracy is tempered by cross-currents of moderation among those partial to opening the country to Europe, the President of Iran Hassan Rouhani US, and the rest of the industrialized world. And yes, Iran has refrained from actually going nuclear, notes Gary Sick, an Iran expert at Columbia, despite its reported ability to do concluded with high confidence that Iran has not made a de- so for the last decade. “The entire US intelligence community cision to build a bomb,” Sick writes. and most of our allies — apparently including Israel — have Why not? It could be that Iran thinks it can string us along — us being not just the US but the other partners in David K. Shipler is a Pulitzer Prize-winning author these negotiations, Russia, China, Britain, France and Ger- and former foreign correspondent of The New York Times. many — while hiding its nuclear work. International inspec- This article first appeared on his blog, The Shipler Report, tors are dissatisfied with Iran’s failure to give access to scien- at shiplerreport.blogspot.com. tists, documents, and a critical military site and to provide www.jewishpeacefellowship.org April 2015 Shalom: Jewish Peace Letter • 3 adequate information about its past development efforts, sponse are limited by the nuclear threat. That’s the deterrent particularly on detonators for triggering bombs. “Iran not factor. The weapons are also useless in the burgeoning world only defies inspectors,” Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Ne- of non-state movements such as the Islamic State. Iran, as a tanyahu told Congress last week, “it also plays a pretty good sponsor of such movements elsewhere — Hezbollah in Leba- game of hide-and-cheat with them.” non, Hamas in Gaza — must know this very well. He should know, because Israel did just that with Ameri- Yet it’s clear from the rough sketch of the emerging can officials as it secretly built its own nuclear bomb-making agreement that the US and its partners have given up on try- facilities in the 1960s, Walter Pincus notes, in The Washing- ing to induce Iran to obliterate all of its accumulated nuclear ton Post. “Iran is following Israel’s path to a nuclear weapons technology and know-how. Unfortunately, that would seem capability,” he writes provocatively. Therefore, it doesn’t take to be a bridge too far. It’s why Netanyahu denounced both a leap of logic to conclude that Iran would like to retain the Iran and the Obama administration to Congress, and why nuclear option, even if it’s deferred, and progress suspended, Republicans kept jumping to their feet and roaring like to get sanctions eliminated. drunken college kids at a football game. It would be reassuring to think that moderates in Teheran If the display was supposed to cow Teheran into capitu- — President Hassan Rouhani, Foreign Minister Javad Zarif, and lation, it might have done the opposite. It can’t help but give others — recognize the terrible nuclear arms race that could be credence to hardliners asking why anyone in his right mind set off in the Middle East, with Saudi Arabia, Egypt, and oil-rich would not want the ultimate defense against such an angry, Gulf states joining in, and nukes possibly falling into dangerous impulsive adversary that seems to be ruled by a mob in suits. hands. To the certifiably insane nihilists who have risen out of Obama managed a sardonic smile in reaction to the Repub- the rubble of Middle East wars and coups, as Thomas Friedman licans’ open letter, as he remarked ruefully on the irony of noted, “‘mutually assured destruction’ is an invitation to a party their “wanting to make common cause with the hardliners — not a system of mutual deterrence.” The Economist assesses in Iran. It’s an unusual coalition.” the current threat of nuclear war or mishap at a high. He’s right that these negotiations are, for the moment, Does the doomsday scenario scare Iranian leaders more all that stand in the way of Iran’s speeding toward a bomb. than their lack of nuclear capability? Do they think that We’ve seen this before, Gary Sick observes. After the Bush a nuclear arsenal will protect them sufficiently from the administration rejected Iran’s proposal in 2003-5 to limit rampages of nation-state collapse and tribal disorder? The itself to three thousand centrifuges (too many, Washington bomb would surely make them unassailable by responsible believed), “we all know what happened. With sanctions in- countries that operate rationally, if those were the only ac- creasing almost by the day, and with increasing threats of a tors.

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