The Jews Boo Jack Lew; Treasury Secretary Heckled at JPost Confab in NYC

By Ariella Haviv, The Jewish Voice NY

As hundreds of pro-Israel supporters gathered for the 4th annual Jerusalem Post conference at the Marriott Marquis Hotel in Manhattan on Sunday, June 7th, it appeared that the frustration felt by committed American Jews towards the Obama administration’s Iran policy reached a boiling point.

Subsequent to the opening address of Ambassador Ronald S. Lauder, Treasury Secretary Jack Lew took the podium in what promised to be an address touting the administration’s line on the upcoming Iran nuclear deal. The former Obama chief of staff was roundly booed on repeated occasions when he attempted to defend the Iran nuclear negotiations and the Obama’s administration’s claims of being committed to Israel’s security.

As Lew proclaimed that “no administration has done more for Israel than the current one,” and that “we do not at all assume that Iran intends to act with innocent intentions,” a large number of audience members began hooting, booing, and yelling “nonsense,” as well as intoning sharper invectives, according to an INN report.

Lew continued, saying that the U.S. “strategically assists Israel daily, and we stand against those who question Israel’s legitimacy and right to exist.” This, too, earned audience opprobrium.

At one point, Lew was forced to stop speaking and address the audience response, saying that “I understand that we do not agree on everything, but there is no doubt of the commitment of President Obama to the State of Israel.”

Jerusalem Post Editor Steve Linde tried to quiet the audience down and Lew added: “I only ask that you listen to me as we’ve listened to you.”

One audience member reportedly called out “Chamberlain,” in reference to the British prime minister who unsuccessfully tried to appease the Nazis, according to a report in the The Forward.

A member of the audience also jeered and cried “nonsense” when Lew claimed, “No administration has done more for Israel’s security than this one,” as was reported by Ha’Aretz. The Israeli newspaper also commented that the New York conference was “one of the surliest receptions ever accorded to such a high-ranking administration official by a Jewish audience in the United States.”

The audience’s palpable rancor erupted when Lew claimed that US imposed sanctions were indeed a successful tool in attracting Iran to international negotiations as well as compelling the rogue regime to acquiesce in its quest to go full steam ahead with its nuclear program

As he continued to insist that Iran has stopped moving closer to a nuclear weapon, the crowd’s boos grew louder.

“The same thing happened a few years ago at this conference,” said an attendee from Philadelphia who chose to remain anonymous. “On that occasion the audience booed Alan Dershowitz when he got in to a disagreement with Caroline Glick and he never returned.”

In a statement to the media issued subsequent to the conference, Stephen Greenberg, Chairman, and Malcolm Hoenlein, Executive Vice Chairman/CEO of the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations “expressed their chagrin at the reaction of members of the audience at the Jerusalem Post Conference to the comments made by Secretary of Treasury Jack Lew.”

They continued: “While there is room for disagreement and debate, there is no excuse for disrespectful behavior especially for someone who’s friendship and commitment has been demonstrated over the years. We appreciate that several speakers addressed this behavior, as did the representatives of the Jerusalem Post in forceful terms. We join in them denouncing such behavior which detracts from the discussion of the serious issues and challenges we face today. We appreciate that subsequently the Department of the Treasury under Secretary Lew has been at the forefront of the effort to enforce the sanctions on Iran both in the United States and around the world.”

Lew said the proposed deal with Iran is now in its final stages of negotiations ahead of a June 30th deadline and would reduce Iran’s enriched uranium resources by 98 percent. He also said it would allow for “robust and intrusive” inspections of Iran’s nuclear facilities, according to a report in The Forward.

Lew attempted to assure his audience that President Obama would impose a “snap back” of economic sanctions if Iran should abrogate the agreement and would do so regardless of any opposition he would face from such countries as Russia and China.

“Make no mistake,” Lew said. “We are not operating under an assumption that Iran will act in good faith.”

A line that drew applause came when Lew said the sanctions have kept Iran “isolated” from the international financial system.

Lew was also intermittently applauded when he said, “We must never allow Iran to get a nuclear weapon.” He got his loudest cheers when he said: “As everyone here knows, Prime Minister Netanyahu does not believe Iran can be trusted,” according to a Ha’aretz report.

The report also took note of the fact that the mistrust towards the Obama administration has steadily increased over the years; particularly among what pundits label “right-wing Jews” or Jews who maintain a strong identity and are committed to Israel’s survival.

The audience reaction reflected the anger and distrust towards the Obama administration that is steadily growing among right wing American Jews as the deadline for a deal with Iran approaches.

Calling Lew “a true friend of Israel” was Israeli Minister of infrastructure, energy and water resources Yuval Steinitz, who spoke directly to the Treasury Secretary. He said that without Lew’s intervention, Israel would never have been accepted to the OECD, according to the Ha’aretz report.

Prior to his departure from the hotel Lew once again tried to curry favor with the audience in terms of a diplomatic approach to finding a long term solution to the growing Iranian nuclear threat. “As history makes clear, we owe it to ourselves and we owe it to future generations to give diplomacy a chance. Whether it was Nelson Mandela emerging from prison after 27 years to negotiate the peaceful end to apartheid, Ronald Reagan sitting at a table with a nation he called the “evil empire” to negotiate the end to the Cold War, or Menachem Begin meeting at Camp David to negotiate a peace accord with Egypt, Israel’s sworn enemy – diplomacy is not conducted with our friends but with our adversaries. And when given a chance, smart, tough, hard-fought diplomacy can succeed.”

Also defending Lew was Jewish Agency Chairman Natan Sharansky who said he was saddened by the negative audience reaction to his remarks. Sharansky recalled that decades ago Lew was in the forefront of the struggle to free Soviet Jewry when he was an assistant to House of Representatives speaker Thomas “Tip” O’Neill, according to a Jerusalem Post report.

“He worked days and nights, taking families of Prisoners of Zion through all the corridors of power to make sure the Jews would be released,” Sharansky said. “Many Soviet Refuseniks owe their lives to him and others for the successful efforts to release them.”

Other speakers at the Jerusalem Post conference included Rep. Nita Lowey (D-NY), Yesh Atid Party leaderMK Yair Lapid, Former IDF Chief of Staff Gabi Ashkenazi, former Mossad Director Meir Dagan, former Israeli National Security Advisor Giora Eiland, Jerusalem Post Senior contributing Editor Caroline Glick, former head of the National Security Council, Maj.-Gen. (res.) Uzi Dayan, Ofir Fisher, co-founder of the OR Movement, Rabbi Yechiel Eckstein, president of the International Fellowship of Christians and Jews, Dr. Moti Klein, head of Intensive Care at Beersheba’s Soroka Medical Center, Ron Prosor, Israel’s Permanent Representative to the United Nations, Efi Stenzler, the World Chairman of KKL-JNF, Ambassador Ronald S Lauder, Ira N.Forman, US State Department Special Envoy to Monitor and Combat anti-Semitism, Robert Singer, CEO and Executive Vice President of the World Jewish Congress, Irwin Cotler, Member of Parliament and Former Minister of Justice and Attorney General of Canada, Sara Bloomfield- Director of the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington DC, and Thane Rosenbaum- author and Senior Fellow at the New York University School of Law.

Chiding the Israeli government for not doing enough to stem the rising tide of the BDS movement, Rabbi Yechiel Eckstein of The International Fellowship of Christians and Jews said, “The Israeli government has shown a lackadaisical attitude towards crafting a comprehensive program to confront the BDS movement. We’ve been late in the game when it comes to dealing with hasbara. In addition to the military threat that Israel constantly faces, there is a global war of ideas and that is by far the most daunting battle.”

He added that problems don’t evaporate by “throwing money at them” but rather by taking concrete measures. “The problem isn’t that there is not enough Jewish money. There certainly is but when you have Holocaust survivors going to bed hungry and living in squalor then that is a true ‘shonda’, he added.

Speaking of the bizarre and patently hypocritical decisions made by the United Nations world body as it pertains to their trademark bias against Israel, Ron Prosor, Israel’s Ambassador to the United Nation drew analogies of these tendentious measures to the classic television program, “Ripley’s Believe It or Not.”

“Believe it or not, just last week the United Nations allowed the PRC to become an NGO inside the UN even though it is affiliated with Hamas. Believe it or not, in 2013, Iran chaired the nuclear non-proliferation committee,” Prosor said to strains of ironic chuckles from the audience,

Also addressing the conference were Gabriel Hamani, Manager of Bank Hapoalim’s US branches and Rudy Giuliani, the 107th Mayor of New York City (1993-2001)

Sen. Robert Menendez, D-N.J., the former chair of the U.S. Senate Foreign Relations Committee and a fervent opponent of the Iran deal, was originally slated to speak but on Saturday canceled his appearance.