By Toby Klein Greenwald
EFRAT, Israel — A bi-partisan group of congressmen recently (the week of Oct. 11-18) had the opportunity to go places and meet people that are not usually on the agenda of American diplomats or politicians who come to Israel. Scott Garrett R-NJ, Jim Jordan R-OH, Raoul Labrador R-ID, Alan Lowenthal D-CA, and Mark Meadows R-NC, and their wives, came, saw, and told Israelis who came to hear them that they support the country and will be taking back the message to the U.S. of the reality here, that has not been accurately portrayed by many of the media channels in America.
Among those with whom they met were Prime Minister Netanyahu and Defense Minister Yaalon, Knesset members, and both Israelis and Arabs in the Etzion Bloc, where they also had a jeep tour. They visited Sderot, which has suffered thousands of rocket attacks from Gaza; Ariel University; and Hebron. They had tours of ancient Shiloh and Ariel University.
But they said that their most meaningful experiences were the meetings with the people of Israel, especially the Shabbat meals for which they were hosted by families in Alon Shvut, after attending the synagogue with them. One of those families was that of Ruth Jaffe Lieberman, originally from Cleveland, Ohio, whose organization, “YES! Israel” was one of the sponsors/organizers of the trip, together with “Proclaiming Justice to the Nations,” a US based Christian organization.
The congressmen and their wives also had a session with Racheli Sprecher Fraenkel, whose son, Naftali, was one of the three teens who were kidnapped and murdered last summer, an event that brought together an entire nation, first in suspense, then in mourning.
Fraenkel described the outpouring of love and help not only from Israelis, but from people around the world, and especially some in the U.S. Congress. Indeed, Meadows, from North Carolina, described how he put three yellow ribbons on the door of his office while the boys were missing. “The fight you fight each and every day is not one that is falling on deaf ears,” he said to her.
Fraenkel spoke of trying to find “grace within a tragedy” – the grace being the fact that the boys’ bodies were found, and she described the horror of families who had to wait months, even years, before the bodies of their loved ones, murdered by terrorists, were discovered. In the case of the three teenagers, eighteen days elapsed until members of a civilian field school, working in tandem with the army, noticed shifts in the undergrowth in a certain area that was being searched, and they located the bodies there..
Labrador asked, “How do you raise a happy family?”
Fraenkel: “Each family is different. I know one family whose members said to each other, ‘We’re not allowed to cry’ and another where they said, ‘We’re not allowed to laugh.’ I don’t want to walk around the world with a mask. We are blessed.
“We have to deal with the evil in the world so we can live with the good.”
The Shabbat meetings with families were preceded by a lunch at the Gush Etzion winery, where they had the opportunity to hear from residents of the area (including this writer) about how they came to live there. I told them about my first Shabbat at Kfar Etzion, in November of 1967, when, at night, there was nothing but darkness as far as the eye could see, and now when one looks out at night, he sees a galaxy of stars, including both Jewish communities and Arab villages, many of whom did not have electricity or running water before the Six Day War. Later they took a jeep tour of the area, that had been considered the protector of Jerusalem before it fell to the Jordanians in 1948. Ben Gurion had said, “If there exists a Jewish Jerusalem, our foremost thanks go to the defenders of Gush Etzion.”
Saturday Night Town Meeting
Marc Zell, Worldwide VP :Republicans Overseas and Co-Chair of Republicans Abroad Israel, originally from Washington, D.C., a city where he still has a branch of his law office, opened the town meeting with the information that there are 400,000 American expatriates living in Israel and only 100,000 voted in the last presidential election. he urged everyone to vote the next time, “Regardless of which party you support.” Each congressman gave his own view – all of them strongly in support of the State of Israel – and then fielded questions from the audience.
Jordan, who opposed the Iran deal, and is for the defunding of UNWRA, said that, upon his return, “We will tell the people the truth of what is happening here. But the best way to help Israel is for America to stay strong. I believe when America is strong the world is safe and better. We have to lead militarily, diplomatically and economically.”
Meadows: “My pro Israel stand is unshakable. When we get back I will be writing an op-ed together with Lowenthal. I was in Budapest recently and I saw the bronze shoes along the Danube. It is a reminder of the tragic event that happened there. My pledge to you is never again will the most valuable thing about a Jew’s life be their shoes, as long as we are in Congress.”
Lowenthal said, “There is bi-partisan support for Israel. I am so proud to join Meadows on this trip.”
Scott Garrett New Jersey: “It was an eye opening and heart confirming experience. Every time I’m come to Israel it’s been during bus bombings, café bombings, now this…I sit on the Iran sanctions committee and our goal then to make them tougher…administrations come and go but in the House there has always been strong bi-partisan support of Israel.”
Jordan criticized the mainstream national press for its coverage of the current terror attacks. “I’ve seen the reality here…and saying that Israeli is responding too aggressively, I don’t see the sense in that.”
Labrador, when asked how he sees the Obama administration’s policy on the Middle East, said, “I talk about that back home, but won’t do it abroad.” However, he did quote Mark Twain’s maxim, “’When you don’t read the newspapers you’re uninformed; when you read them you’re misinformed.’ I think the New York Times and others are doing a terrible disservice to the people of the United States because they are not informing them.” He cited the case of the MSNBC reporter, Ayman Mohyeldin, who said he did not see a terrorist holding a knife even though the network had footage showing it clearly, and suggested that he was killed by Israeli police, though unarmed. “We can’t hide the truth on the ground,” said Labrador.
Meadows said that he had visited Hebron and was amazed at “the amount of potential conflict being avoided by the IDF troops…What has become normal for many of you is abnormal for us. … The IDF has shown great restraint.” He said that the U.S. cannot afford to show weakness in terms of its foreign policy; that it has real implications for “the local neighborhood. We need a safe and secure Israel that knows that the U.S. has its back.”
Lowenthal, when asked if he has second thoughts about voting in favor of the deal with Iran, said, “I had second thoughts when I did it! I would have liked to see zero nuclear capability in my lifetime. My concern would be: What would it mean if we had no agreement at all.”
Garrett: “We were unable to stop the deal. It is a bad deal for Israel, the Middle East and the world. We have to go forward now. Iran has made a pledge to abide, but you see the missile firing and see they are not abiding by it.”
Marc: Is America better off and is the world better off than in 2008?
Meadows: The administration’s response to the Middle East is poor. We have to carry a big stick sometimes and we hemmed and hawed…”
Meadows, in response to a question about the online incitement to violence, said, “The intel community will be dealing with Facebook pages, etc….There is work being done. It’s not falling on deaf ears.”
Jordan: “Corker-Cardin” turned the Constitution around but the administration didn’t even comply with that because we didn’t see the agreements with the IAEA.”
Lowenthal: “I will tell the truth. The Israelis have been attacked, lied to, and abused and that’s the message.”
Meadows: “We need to use Facebook and Twitter, we need to do a better job. When I went through the terror tunnel [near Gaza] it was very powerful.”
Garrett emphasized his conviction to move the U.S. embassy to Jerusalem. “Israel has the right to decide where her capital is.”
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Toby Klein Greenwald, based in Efrat, Israel, is a writer, educator, award-winning theater director and the editor ofWholeFamily.com