U.S. Rep. James Moran (D-Va.) again rapped Jewish groups for misrepresenting the views of U.S. Jews, this time on Iran.
“There are moderates in that country that we need to try to work with,” Moran said of Iran, addressing a congressional breakfast last week during the B’nai B’rith International Policy Conference, according to a report in Friday’s Washington Jewish Week. “I’m terribly afraid of what’s going to happen. There’s been a disagreement with some of the people and a few of the organizations that purport to represent the American Jewish community. I don’t think they do.”
He added, “The vast majority of the American Jewish community is not for military confrontation if it can be avoided.”
Moran in the past has suggested that the Jewish community could have stopped President Bush from waging war on Iraq, and has blamed the American Israel Public Affairs Committee for lobbying for the Iraq war. His Jewish colleagues in Congress rebuked him for those remarks, noting that it was the Bush administration, not AIPAC, that lobbied for the Iraq war.
The B’nai B’rith International event culminated on Oct. 30 with a speech on terrorism by Michael Chertoff, the Homeland Security secretary.
