A letter to a newspaper mis-reporter
Journalism should be made of more acute stuff
January 30, 2024
Alana Goodman
Senior Investigative Reporter
Washington Free Beacon
Dear Ms. Goodman:
As Vice Chair of the Committee for the Republic, I am responding to your January 29, 2024, email to Stan Lawson, and your sequel article published in today’s Washington Free Beacon, “National Republican Club Speakers Call for ‘Dismantling’ Jewish State and Deny Hamas Atrocities.”
We are gratified by your keen interest in our January 16th event and an informed public. We agree that the remedy for ill-considered speech is more speech, not enforced silence, as Justice Louis D. Brandeis taught in Whitney v. California. Brandeis was elected Chair of the Provisional Committee for General Zionist Affairs in 1914 and opened the New England Zionist Office with his own money.
You decry speakers Max Blumenthal and Miko Peled as “anti-Israel” for their harsh criticism of the Israeli government. President Theodore Roosevelt explained why criticism of government is not an automatic earmark of disloyalty or antagonism: “To announce that there must be no criticism of the President, or that we are to stand by the President, right or wrong, is not only unpatriotic and servile, but is morally treasonable to the American public.”
You wrote to Stan Lawson:
1. Max Blumenthal said reports that Hamas raped women on Oct. 7 are a "psy-op, which is being pushed by the Israeli Foreign Ministry."
"There is no documentation of any rape, no testimony from any rape victim," he said.
While the Committee for the Republic does not endorse statements made by speakers, we are committed to optimal factual accuracy. In that spirit, we invite you to provide sourced documentation of any Hamas rape of an Israeli woman on October 7 or incriminating testimony from a professed rape victim. That information will enable us to engage with you in a common search for truth without ulterior motives.
You additionally wrote to Mr. Lawson:
2. Max Blumenthal compared the Israeli military to the Nazi SS death squads, saying Israel convened "an Einsatzgruppen reenactment society in Gaza." We invite you to provide documentation disputing that the IDF has bombed and invaded Gaza killing tens of thousands of civilians and displaced virtually its entire population targeting hospitals, ambulances, journalists, water mains, houses, apartment buildings, schools, offices, marketplaces, United Nations marked schools, UNRWA personnel, places of worship, crowded refugee camps, roads, generators, electric networks, and more. Health experts like Professor Devi Sridhar of the University of Edinburgh project the likelihood of 500,000 Palestinians in Gaza dying within a year. The information you provide will enable us to engage in a productive exchange in a common search for truth.
You further wrote to Mr. Lawson:
3. Blumenthal denied that Hamas killed Israeli babies on Oct. 7, saying these reports are part of a "propaganda campaign being waged by Israel."
"No babies were killed on October 7...whenever you hear Jake Tapper or Joe Biden or whoever say babies were killed, you know they're lying."
We invite you to provide us documentation that Hamas killed Israeli babies on Oct. 7. That will enable us to engage in a productive exchange on the merits seeking to separate truth from falsehoods.
You also wrote to Mr. Lawson:
4. Miko Peled praised Hamas's prowess on Oct. 7: "We believe the Arabs wouldn't dare. Well, every time they dare they succeed. The Israeli military was proven, clearly, to be nothing more than a paper tiger. The great Israeli intelligence apparatus is nothing more than a paper tiger. Every time they're put to the test, they're humiliated, and they fail."
We believe in context that Mr. Peled was expressing more an opinion than a fact. But we invite you to provide sourced documentation that the Israeli military is more than a paper tiger in confronting Arabs. Then we can engage fruitfully to explore the question.
You additionally wrote to Mr. Lawson:
6. Peled also said the state of Israel must be dismantled: "We have to demand that our elected officials that our tax dollars go to bringing down and dismantling the apartheid state and establishing a democratic Free Palestine from the river to the sea."
Your quotation omitted that Mr. Peled was calling for a one-state solution in which both Jews and Arabs live under a single sovereignty protected by the rule of law, including prohibitions on racial, religious, ethnic, or other invidious discrimination. We invite you to submit documentation that Mr. Peled’s one-state solution envisions the destruction or repression of Jews to enable us to engage on the important issue.
You finally wrote to Mr. Lawson:
7. Max Blumenthal claimed the "Israel lobby" controls members of congress: "[Sen. John Fetterman is] basically a cyborg. He had a stroke. He needs machines to help him talk. And the Israel lobby has just basically hacked his brain...they took Fetterman early on, and made him into this Zionist monster."
We invite and encourage you to read The Israel Lobby and U.S. Foreign Policy by John Mearsheimer and Stephen Walt. We further invite you to provide documentation that the “Israel lobby” does not control Members of Congress in casting votes that concern the State of Israel. Your documentation will enable us to engage productively in a further exchange of views.
As for your article in today’s Washington Free Beacon:
1. You assert the January 16th event “was organized by the Committee for the Republic, whose board includes anti-Israel former Republican officials such as ex-Ambassador to Saudi Arabia Chas Freeman.” We invite you to provide documentation that Mr. Freeman is anti-Israel, and who else on the Committee’s board you believe is anti-Israel. That documentation will enable us to engage on the merits of your pejorative characterization.
2. You dispute Mr. Blumenthal’s assertion that. “On October 7, there is no documentation of any rape, no testimony from any rape victim.” But you provide no testimony of any rape victim, or official medical report concluding that dead female bodies had been raped. Today’s New York Times reports that the United Nations is investigating reports of rape, “U.N. to Study Reports of Sexual Violence in Israel During Oct. 7 Attack.” An authoritative conclusion has yet to be written.
3. You write “Blumenthal rejected evidence that Jewish children were killed,” but you fail to describe the putative “evidence” to enable readers to make an informed judgment or to enable an informed response.
4. You note that Mr. Peled argued that Israel’s founding was illegitimate, but conspicuously omit the candor of David Ben Gurion, Israel’s founder, and first prime minister:
“If I were an Arab leader, I would never sign an agreement with Israel. It is normal; we have taken their country. It is true, God promised it to us, but how could that interest them? Our God is not theirs. There has been anti-Semitism, the Nazis, Hitler, Auschwitz, but was that their fault? They see but one thing: we have come and we have stolen their country. Why would they accept that?” Printed in “The Jewish Paradox,” (p. 121) by Nahum Goldmann.
We disclaim infallibility. We recognize that to err is human, and to acknowledge error is divine. In that spirit, we would be disappointed if you declined to respond to our invitation to exchange documents and views on controversial issues seeking to optimize wisdom and understanding. We are inspired by John Milton’s case against censorship in Aereopagitica: “Let her [Truth] and Falsehood grapple; who ever knew Truth put to the worse in a free and open encounter? Her confuting is the best and surest suppressing.”
Respectfully yours,
Bruce Fein
Vice Chair
The Committee for the Republic