Family Fight
As I attended the exceedingly raucous Jerusalem Post Conference, I read J.J. Goldberg’s column on the event with interest (“How a Policy Conference Became a Political Brawl,” May 11).
While capturing the rancor, the piece distorted two key facts.
Alan Dershowitz’s plea to “not ever, ever boo a president of the United States” was not in reaction to Caroline Glick’s appeal to American Jews to abandon President Obama. It was, rather, in response to former prime minister Ehud Olmert’s effort to resurrect his legacy by attacking Benjamin Netanyahu and defending President Obama. That speech is when the crowd booed and when the partisan sleaziness that dominated the event began.
Furthermore, the crowd was characterized in the piece as “conservative.” But both supporters and detractors of President Obama did their share of shouting. What Goldberg failed to capture was the general disgust about the tone of the conference, felt by nearly everyone I talked to. People came to hear Israel’s case being made. Instead, we were treated to an ugly, dysfunctional family fight.
Bruce Birnberg
East Brunswick, N.J.
