Yoffie Lashes Out On Settlements

[Classical_Liberal]

Yoffie Lashes Out On Settlements

James D. Besser

Most Jewish leaders — at least those not affiliated with groups like Peace Now — run for cover every time the word “settlements” is mentioned. Many have spent decades refining their “don’t ask, don’t tell” approach to the issue.

Not Rabbi Eric Yoffie.

The president of the Union for Reform Judaism — until last week the Union of American Hebrew Congregations — is convinced that a majority of American Jews think settlements are a grave danger to the future of Israel.

In his keynote address to the Reform movement’s biennial meetings in Minneapolis last week, the outspoken Rabbi Yoffie repeated — and intensified — his criticisms of Israel’s settlements policies. He warned that Americans in general, while understanding Israel’s plight as it copes with three years of unremitting terror, “are deeply troubled by the settlement issue. They ask us, ‘If Israel claims that it will make painful compromises for peace, why does it build settlements that make compromise impossible?’ ”

But American public opinion, he said, is secondary to the threat settlements pose to Israel’s survival as a Jewish state. “In 1980, there were 5,000 settlers in the West Bank and Gaza,” he told delegates. “In 1993, there were 115,000 settlers, and today there are 230,000 settlers. If settlement growth continues, in a very short time the Jewish and Palestinian populations will be so intertwined that separation will be impossible.”


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