Betraying JFK’s legacy on Israel: Jack Schlossberg

Jack Schlossberg apparently has calculated that he can win more votes in the Democratic primary by being anti-Israel than by being pro-Israel.

By Rafael Medoff

John F. Kennedy was the first American president to sell weapons to Israel. Jack Schlossberg has now become the first JFK grandson to campaign for Congress on a platform opposing U.S. military aid to Israel.

Schlossberg is running for the Democratic nomination for Congress from Manhattan’s 12th district, on the Upper West Side. Not surprisingly, he has put his grandfather’s name front and center.

He frequently quotes President John F. Kennedy in his speeches and cites him in his fundraising appeals. He even introduces himself at events as “John Bouvier Kennedy Schlossberg,” throwing in the surname of his late grandmother, First Lady Jacqueline Bouvier Kennedy, for good measure.

A typical Schlossberg campaign speech begins, “Lately, I’ve been doing some reflecting on my grandfather, President John F. Kennedy, and his legacy of hope.”

But unlike his grandfather, Schlossberg does not extend that “hope” to Israel’s hope for survival in a sea of hostile Arab and Muslim dictators and terrorists.

In 1962, John F. Kennedy became the first American president to sell weapons to Israel—a Hawk anti-aircraft missile system. To be clear, he agreed to sell the Israelis only defensive weapons. And the US was already providing military aid to three Arab countries that were at war with Israel (Saudi Arabia, Jordan, and Lebanon). Still, Kennedy’s decision was an important step in cementing America’s friendship and strategic alliance with the Jewish state.

By contrast, JFK’s grandson announced at a candidates’ forum on May 9 that he opposes US military aid to Israel. If Schlossberg has his way, the Israelis will not have American help to shoot down Iranian or Hezbollah missiles.

Jack Schlossberg apparently has calculated that he can win more votes in the Democratic primary by being anti-Israel than by being pro-Israel. If a callous politician wants to engage in that kind of unseemly math, that’s his right. But to pretend that he represents President Kennedy’s legacy is misleading. Schlossberg’s abandonment of Israel is a betrayal of the friendship that JFK extended to America’s only reliable and democratic ally in the Middle East.

Dr. Medoff is director of The David S. Wyman Institute for Holocaust Studies and the author of more than 20 books about Jewish history, Zionism, and the Holocaust.