NJ Jewish News on-line | Reform and Iraq, round two Two years ago, the Union for Reform Judaism shrugged off the Jewish community’s relative silence on the war in Iraq to pass a resolution calling on the Bush administration to provide a “clear exit strategy” and to set “specific goals for troop withdrawal.” The resolution welcomed the ouster of Saddam Hussein but also wondered how much Americans were expected to sacrifice for an Iraqi government that seemed either unwilling or unable to take responsibility for its own future. The URJ was ridiculed for its stand, mostly by administration supporters who seemed to be reading drastically different accounts of progress on the ground than was currently available in the press and in the very words of military commanders. Two years later, with the Iraq quagmire having only gotten deeper and wider, with American military fatalities having surpassed 3,000, with Shi’a and Sunni engaged in full-blown civil war, and with no end in sight to the daily carnage, the URJ can take comfort that its 2005 resolution had it absolutely right. It’s cold comfort indeed, and its leaders, like us, have no doubt spent the last two years chilled by the levels of denial among administration officials and their enablers. The URJ, still ahead of the pack, is now considering another Iraq resolution. On March 12, the union’s board of trustees will weigh a proposed resolution that would oppose the escalation of troops and call on the administration to provide a specific timetable for the “phased and expeditious withdrawal of United States troops from Iraq.” It recommends, along the lines of the Baker/Hamilton report, a “more vigorous diplomatic process” that would include reconciliation talks among Iraq’s military, political, and religious leaders. And it calls for a broad regional role for Iraq’s “neighbors” that would include financial support for security and reconstruction and for securing Iraq’s porous borders. Critics of the 2005 resolution said that the Reform movement doesn’t speak for all Jews. It certainly doesn’t, but it has shown in its Iraq resolutions a refreshing tendency to speak boldly on what URJ president Rabbi Eric Yoffie calls the “defining debate of our time.” No doubt the latest URJ resolution will lead to a fresh round of ridicule. If only its opponents would present a plausible plan of their own. However they respond, we hope they do so with the seriousness this debate deserves and a little humility at what the last two years have wrought.

Two years ago, the Union for Reform Judaism shrugged off the Jewish community’s relative silence on the war in Iraq to pass a resolution calling on the Bush administration to provide a “clear exit strategy” and to set “specific goals for troop withdrawal.” The resolution welcomed the ouster of Saddam Hussein but also wondered how much Americans were expected to sacrifice for an Iraqi government that seemed either unwilling or unable to take responsibility for its own future. The URJ was ridiculed for its stand, mostly by administration supporters who seemed to be reading drastically different accounts of progress on the ground than was currently available in the press and in the very words of military commanders.

Two years later, with the Iraq quagmire having only gotten deeper and wider, with American military fatalities having surpassed 3,000, with Shi’a and Sunni engaged in full-blown civil war, and with no end in sight to the daily carnage, the URJ can take comfort that its 2005 resolution had it absolutely right. It’s cold comfort indeed, and its leaders, like us, have no doubt spent the last two years chilled by the levels of denial among administration officials and their enablers.

The URJ, still ahead of the pack, is now considering another Iraq resolution. On March 12, the union’s board of trustees will weigh a proposed resolution that would oppose the escalation of troops and call on the administration to provide a specific timetable for the “phased and expeditious withdrawal of United States troops from Iraq.” It recommends, along the lines of the Baker/Hamilton report, a “more vigorous diplomatic process” that would include reconciliation talks among Iraq’s military, political, and religious leaders. And it calls for a broad regional role for Iraq’s “neighbors” that would include financial support for security and reconstruction and for securing Iraq’s porous borders.

Critics of the 2005 resolution said that the Reform movement doesn’t speak for all Jews. It certainly doesn’t, but it has shown in its Iraq resolutions a refreshing tendency to speak boldly on what URJ president Rabbi Eric Yoffie calls the “defining debate of our time.” No doubt the latest URJ resolution will lead to a fresh round of ridicule. If only its opponents would present a plausible plan of their own. However they respond, we hope they do so with the seriousness this debate deserves and a little humility at what the last two years have wrought.