by Eric Fingerhut
Staff Writer
A writer who has called Ariel Sharon "vile" and Zionism a "false messiah for the Jews" is scheduled to speak at a Republican Jewish Coalition panel discussion next week, and some Jewish activists are appalled.
Christopher Hitchens will be part of a panel discussion on the United Nations Oil for Food scandal, to be sponsored by the RJC's D.C.-Area Chapter on Wednesday evening at the Sixth & I Historic Synagogue in the District.
Other panelists are Mark Greenblatt, counsel to the U.S. Senate's permanent subcommittee on investigations, and Wall Street Journal writer Claudia Rosett.
Hitchens ‹ a writer for Vanity Fair, Atlantic Monthly and Slate.com, among other publications ‹ has been a longtime harsh critic of the Jewish state and Sharon in particular. The Sept. 11 attacks led Hitchens to move from a traditional leftist position on foreign policy matters to a strong supporter of the Iraq War and President George W. Bush's war on terrorism, but his views of the Israeli prime minister and Israel in general apparently have not shifted significantly.
In various articles and interviews in recent years, he has, among other statements, referred to settlements in the West Bank as "racist colonization," and said that Sharon had killed more civilians alone than "Hezbollah and Palestinian suicide-murderers."
RJC executive director Matthew Brooks, in a statement to WJW, acknowledged that Hitchens is a "controversial figure" on both the left and right side of the political spectrum, but said that RJC was hosting an expert panel with a "cross-section of opinion" on an issue "critical to the Jewish community ‹ the future of UN reform."
"No one should infer that by extending an invitation to any of the panelists that we are legitimizing or supporting their writings or statements," said Brooks. He refused to answer additional questions, other than to say that no local RJC activists had complained about the invitation to Hitchens.
But others are not pleased by the RJC's choice of panelists.
"I think it's inappropriate for a Jewish organization to give a podium to someone who has ... condemned [Theodor] Herzl as a liar ... who has said Israel has humiliated and degraded Arabs .. who has condemned the security fence [and] who has defended [Holocaust-denier] David Irving on the basis of free speech," said Zionist Organization of America president Morton Klein.
In an e-mail, Detroit-based columnist and blogger Debbie Schlussel said that the RJC's invitation to Hitchens "shows a total lack of the most basic judgment and common sense on the part of an organization that claims to be a Jewish organization."
"Hitchens is exactly the type of speaker a self-hating anti-Israel Jewish group would invite to the table, not an allegedly Republican, allegedly Jewish one," she said, adding that it appears Brooks and the RJC "cannot figure out how to use google" and research their chosen speakers.
Schlussel also said that she had heard from a number of Republican Jewish activists from around the country ‹ although none from the Washington area ‹ who were very angry about the event.
One Jewish leader rose to the RJC's defense. David Twersky, director of international affairs for the American Jewish Congress, said it was significant that Hitchens would be willing to speak at an event sponsored by Republican Jews, considering his history of criticism of Israel.
"Obviously this is a guy in transition," Twersky said. "Does he have to pass every test?"
Twersky also pointed out that in Hitchens' most recent Slate column, on Thursday of last week, he praised Sharon for having begun to "acknowledge the contours of Palestinian statehood."