{Rabbi Shmuley Boteach apologized for running a full-page advertisement in the New York Times accusing National Security Adviser Susan Rice of turning a blind eye to genocide, juxtaposing a photo of her face next to skulls, daily Haaretz reported on Thursday.}
“I personally want to offer an apology to anyone who was offended by our organization’s ad about National Security Advisor Susan Rice,” Boteach said Monday.
“Our disagreement with Ms. Rice is strictly over policy. It was construed by some as a personal attack that is certainly and absolutely not its intent.”
The ad, which ran in the US ahead of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s Congress speech last Tuesday, accused Rice of turning a blind eye to genocide.
“Susan Rice has a blind spot: Genocide,” said the ad appearing in Saturday’s New York Times.
The ad noted Rice’s recent accusation that Netanyahu’s speech damages the fabric of US-Israel relations and a controversy from the 1990s, when Rice was on President Bill Clinton’s staff and reportedly advised against describing the mass killings in Rwanda as “genocide.”
“Ms. Rice may be blind to the issue of genocide, but should treat our ally with at least as much diplomatic courtesy as she does the committed enemy of both our nations,” it said.
Jewish groups across the political spectrum rushed to condemn the ad. The American Jewish Committee called it “revolting,” the Anti-Defamation League called it “spurious and perverse,” the Jewish Federations of North America called it “outrageous.”
Marshall Wittmann, the spokesman for the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, said, “Ad hominem attacks should have no place in our discourse.”
Agencies
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