Category Archives: American Politics and Life

“President Obama’s must-read primer on clearing ‘Pathways to Peace’” – Haaretz Review

07 Friday Dec 2012

Posted by in American Jewish Life, American Politics and Life, Book Recommendations, Israel and Palestine, Israel/Zionism, Jewish History

≈ Leave a comment

Former U.S. Ambassador to Israel and Egypt Dan Kurtzer is convinced that Middle East peacemaking is ‘in Obama’s guts.’ His new book aims to show the president how to move forward in “Pathways to Peace – America and the Arab-Israeli Conflict”. (Reviewed by Chemi Shalev in Haaretz – http://www.haaretz.com/blogs/west-of-eden/president-obama-s-must-read-primer-on-clearing-pathways-to-peace.premium-1.482675)

If you read only one book on the Middle East this year, let this one be it. It has been sent to the Obama Administration and members of Congress.

The only reasonable conclusion to draw after reading this book is that the time is now to enter into final status negotiations between Israel and Palestine and that only strong American pressure will bring this about.

Essays are written by American, Israeli and Palestinian experts. All of them are compelling and enlightening. For me, as part of the pro-Israel pro-peace progressive Zionist community, the essays written by Palestinians are among the most enlightening because the Palestinian narrative is quite different from the Israel narrative.

The book argues effectively that the past cannot be prologue to the future. What is important now is what happens going forward. Playing the blame game for past failures at peace negotiations will doom future talks and a successful two-state solution, which is in the best interests of Israel, the Palestinians, the United States, Europe, and all moderate Arab countries. The alternative to a two-state solution is endless war, bloodshed and despair. What will be lost as well will be the Zionist dream of creating a Jewish democratic state in our national home after 2000 years of exile.

Ambassador Daniel Kurzter has done a significant service in the cause of  peace. Kol hakavod to him!

“E-1 – THIS IS NOT A DRILL”, so writes Daniel Seidemann

05 Wednesday Dec 2012

Posted by in American Politics and Life, Israel and Palestine, Israel/Zionism, Jewish History

≈ 1 Comment

We are at a tipping point in the Palestinian-Israeli conflict. The UN Palestinian resolution and Israel’s response are indicative of a sea-change in the Middle East. Time is quickly passing and for those who believe that it is vital for Israel to reach a two-state solution with the Palestinians for the sake of her own Jewish democratic character, peace and security, the window of opportunity is quickly closing, as a report shows fairly conclusively just published by “Territorial Jerusalem” headed up by long-time Jerusalem settlements’ expert Daniel Seidemann:

“As the entire world knows, Prime Minister Netanyahu has decided that Israel’s answer to the UN vote will be the construction of thousands of new settlement units in the West Bank and East Jerusalem, as well as the expediting of the E-1 settlement, which has long been recognized as the “fatal heart attack” of the two-state solution. Indeed, E-1 is not a “routine” settlement. If built, it is a game-changer, maybe a game-ender. E1 is the “binary”settlement. If you support E-1, you cannot possibly be in favor of the two-state solution; if you are in favor of the two-state solution, you must oppose E-1.” (For the full report see http://t-j.org.il/LatestDevelopments/tabid/1370/articleID/625/currentpage/1/Default.aspx

If true (and I believe it is), what can and should we American citizens do to support a renewed peace process? We should be exerting concerted pressure on President Obama to reengage with Israel and the Palestinians to achieve a two-state solution, to visit Israel and connect personally with the Israeli population, and to visit Ramallah to connect personally with the Palestinian population. This should all be done as soon as possible after his inauguration and the Israeli elections scheduled for January 22.

The President needs to appoint a new high level “A Team” led by him and his new Secretary of State to bring a plan with defined parameters addressing all the outstanding issues including borders, security, Jerusalem, water, and refugees, and then work diligently with both sides to achieve a two-state solution within a few months.

Doing so is clearly in both America’s and Israel’s best interests. This unresolved conflict has become a catalyst for radicalism across the Arab and Islamic worlds. It strengthens the hands especially of Iran, Hamas, Hezbollah, and Al Qaida to foment anger in the Arab and Islamic street against America and Israel. It diminishes American influence throughout the region and weakens moderate Arab regimes.

A resolution of the conflict will not only help to reverse these trends but also stabilize Israel’s relationships with most of its neighbors and bring Israel back into positive relationships with the family of nations.

Yes, there is a high risk of failure, as this conflict seems intractable; but so too is there a high risk for inaction.

The general outlines of a two-state solution are likely already supported by the majority of Israelis and Palestinians. Israel, of course, cannot deal with Hamas unless it recognizes the right of Israel to exist and stops its terrorist attacks. A separate agreement, in the meantime, can be reached with Fatah (assuming President Abbas recognizes the futility of including Hamas as currently constituted and bravely goes forward to negotiate in good faith) with a future expansion of an agreement to include Gaza on another day.

Despite Abbas’ nasty remarks at the UN, he does support a two-state end-of-conflict solution. Only a month ago he was asked by journalists if he ever wished to live in the city of his birth, Safed, again. He said he would like to visit, but Safed is in Israel and he has no intention of living there. He wants to live with his own people in Palestine which is the West Bank and Gaza.

Winston Churchill noted in a speech in the House of Commons on November 12, 1936:

“The era of procrastination, of half-measures, of soothing and baffling expedients, of delays, is coming to its close. In its place we are entering a period of consequences.”(cited by Daniel Kurtzer in “Pathways to Peace – America and the Israeli-Arab Conflict,” 2012, p. xiii).

What was true in 1936 for the world is true now for the Middle East. The time for inaction is over. Bold and courageous leadership is needed now by the United States, Israel and Palestine before it is too late.

“To dwell is to make peace where we dwell!” Parashat Vayeshev – Thoughts following the UN Palestinian Resolution

02 Sunday Dec 2012

Posted by in American Politics and Life, Divrei Torah, Israel and Palestine, Israel/Zionism, Jewish History, Social Justice

≈ 2 Comments

I am grateful to my colleague Rabbi Victor Reinstein for the central idea of this d’var Torah. When he was a senior rabbinic student at HUC in New York, he offered a drash on the first two words of the Genesis 37:1 – Vayeishev Yaakov “And Jacob dwelled,” and suggested a midrash: Ein omrim vayeishev Yaakov (“Do not say ‘And Jacob dwelled;”)  Ele vayasheiv Yaakov  (“Rather, and Jacob made peace.”)

If we re-vocalize the verb yod-shin-vet from the paal construction to the piel construction, yashav can be understood in the sense of lashevet (“to dwell”), as it is usually translated in our portion. Or it can be used as l’yasheiv (“to settle a dispute”), as in yishev sikh’sukh.

The same Hebrew root means, based on verbal form, “to dwell” and “to make peace!” The close relationship between them suggests the deeper purpose of dwelling – that when we dwell in a place we are meant to make peace in that place.

Each of us simultaneously dwells in at least two places – in our own “place” (i.e. lives) and in the world. The greater challenge of va-yashev/va-yeishev is for us to seek to make peace in both.

In the Talmud “Rabbi Yochanan said, ‘Every place where it says va-yeishev, this is in the language of pain; ‘And Jacob dwelled in the land of his father’s sojourning – it’s written after that, ‘and Joseph brought evil report of his brothers unto his father.”” (Talmud, Sanhedrin 106a)

Jacob (and Joseph in his early years) dwelled, but they each failed to make peace where they dwelled. Jacob allowed his family to be torn apart by jealousy and hatred resulting in much pain and despair. However, when we unite through peacemaking, we create a new language of hope.

“Ein omrim va-yeishev Yaakov, ele va-yasheiv Yaakov”

“Do not say ‘and he dwelled.’ Rather say, ‘and he made peace.”

This teaching challenges us to think and act responsibly in the wake of the successful UN General Assembly Resolution vote raising Palestinian status to that of a non-member state. There are those in our community and in Israel, led by the Israeli government, that want to punish the PA by building more settlements in E1 thereby closing off any possibility for a contiguous Palestinian state in an eventual two-state solution, to withhold taxes collected by Israel and intended for the PA from a cash starved Palestinian Authority, and in Washington, to close down the Palestinian Authority Mission should negotiations become stalled for any reason.

Not only are these actions reactive, they are strategically foolish. After all, the PA used diplomacy, not terror and war, to advance its cause at the UN. Regardless of what we might think of the UN, they had the legal right to do so.

We American Jews who love Israel and recognize that she must remain both Jewish and democratic and fulfill her own Declaration of Independence, should be doing everything we can to encourage the President of the United States and our Congressional leaders to not “punish’ the PA for taking the diplomatic route. To do so is to give up hope for a peaceful resolution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Further, it is tantamount to giving the nod to the terrorist organization Hamas and to endless war.

We American Jews should be doing everything possible to encourage President Obama, the Quartet, and the international community to bring a viable plan based on passed negotiations and agreements to the Israelis and Palestinians so they can negotiate an end-of-conflict two-state solution before it is too late.

Dump Donald Trump Campaign

11 Sunday Nov 2012

Posted by in American Politics and Life, Ethics

≈ Leave a comment

I have not used my blog for a purpose such as this before, but I am doing so now because of my utter disgust with the destructive utterances of Donald Trump in the last election cycle.

MoveOn.org is organizing a petition drive to communicate the public’s opposition to Macys Department Store entering into an agreement to carry Trumps product line.

I have shopped at Macys for more than 40 years, and knowing that Macys has an “arrangement” to promote Trump’s goods is disheartening, to say the least.

Please sign this petition if you agree with me.

http://signon.org/sign/urge-macys-to-dump-donald?source=mo&id=57565-18441281-zTR7yYx

Post-Election Reflections on the JStreetPAC Agenda

08 Thursday Nov 2012

Posted by in American Jewish Life, American Politics and Life, Israel and Palestine, Israel/Zionism, Jewish History

≈ Leave a comment

Already, many of us are hoping that after President Obama’s inauguration and Israeli Elections this January, President Obama will make a visit to the Middle East, meet with Israelis and Palestinians, and bring a strong proposal for a new round of negotiations leading to a two-states for two-peoples resolution to the Palestinian-Israeli conflict.

Given the strong support that J Street’s 2012 election night poll (http://jstreet.org/) of Jewish Americans found among American Jews for President Obama’s policies overall and for his approach to the Middle East, Iran and Israeli-Palestinian peace, the President should feel confident that American Jews support him as an honest broker.

J Street commissioned three polls to assess the American Jewish vote in 2012, examining voting preference and priorities, as well as opinions on Israel. One poll focused on the national picture. Another focused on the Ohio Senate race, where Senator Sherrod Brown faced numerous attacks on his pro-Israel credentials and affiliation with J Street. The third poll focused on the state of Florida, where right-wing groups poured an unprecedented amount of money into dishonest ads and attack campaigns to try to turn support for Israel into a partisan wedge issue.

The American Jewish community remains a solidly Democratic voting bloc despite tens of millions of dollars spent to move their votes. In 2012, American Jews remained overwhelmingly supportive of President Obama, of Democratic candidates, and of US leadership to achieve a two-state resolution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

The J Street Poll found the following:

“Jews hold progressive views on resolving the Arab-Israeli conflict.

• Strong support for U.S. playing an active role to help resolve the Arab-Israeli conflict, even if it means publicly stating disagreements with the Israelis and the Arabs (69 percent support)

•76% support the U.S. putting forth a peace plan that proposes borders and security

• 72% percent support comprehensive agreement along the lines of the Clinton parameters

It has been suggested that President Obama appoint former President Bill Clinton as a special envoy to the Middle East to help resolve the Palestinian-Israeli conflict. No one has the authority and knowledge that the former American President has, and I, for one, hope that Obama will invite President Clinton’s active involvement and leadership. For a persuasive argument on this point see Bernard Avishai’s recent blog – http://bernardavishai.blogspot.com/ .

As some of my readers know, I am a strong supporter of J Street, the national home for pro-Israel, pro-peace Americans who believe that a two-state solution is the only solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. I serve as a national co-chair of the J Street Rabbinic Cabinet because I believe in J Street’s vision and strategic approach to the Middle East conflict. J Street understands (reflecting the views of a majority of Israelis themselves) that unless Israel and the Palestinians find a two-state solution to the Palestinian-Israeli conflict, the Jewish state will lose its Jewish majority and democracy.

This 2012 election showed exceptional success for the J Street vision in the polls. Here are the main results:

All 49 JStreetPAC-endorsed incumbents in the House were elected.

All 7 JStreetPAC-endorsed Senate candidates were elected.

JStreetPAC’s challengers and candidates for open seats – elected in 13 out of 15 races (Ami Bera hanging on to a razor thin lead in his race for a Congressional seat in Sacramento would make it 14 of 15.)

Contributors gave over $1.8 million to these 71 pro-Israel, pro-peace candidates for Congress, and, consequently the 113th Congress will have 50 percent more JStreetPAC-endorsed members than are in Congress today. JStreetPAC efforts helped elect Tammy Baldwin (WI), Martin Heinrich (NM), Sherrod Brown (OH), and Time Kaine (VA) to the Senate, and for the first time in its four years of existence, JStreetPAC moved aggressively AGAINST candidates who are “One-Staters” (i.e. against a two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and supporters of full annexation of the West Bank by Israel). Come January the House of Representatives will no longer have One-State Caucus members Joe Walsh, Allen West, Bobby Schilling, Frank Guinta, or Ann Marie Buerkle.

Conclusions:

  1. Given the success of the above endorsed candidates, it is clear that J Street chose well and that those candidates enjoy broad support for their positions generally.
  2. It is also clear that the J Street vision is increasingly being embraced at the highest levels of Congress and that both House and Senate candidates and office-holders happily accepted endorsements from J Street.
  3. No longer is the right-of-center policies vis-à-vis Israel and within Israel itself the only legitimate pro-Israel position embraced within the American Jewish community. In this regard, it is time that the 8-10% of the American Jewish community for whom Israel is their number one voting issue – the outspoken, emotional, passionate, right-wing, and deliberately intimidating – be understood as the small minority that it is.
  4. It is clear that it is time that we in the moderate-left of the American Jewish community become equally passionate advocates of our positions.
  5. The polls have clearly said in this election cycle that the majority of the American Jewish community supports the J Street position vis-a-vis the Middle East.

 

J Street Poll of American Jewish Electorate – Must Reading

08 Thursday Nov 2012

Posted by in American Jewish Life, American Politics and Life, Israel and Palestine

≈ Leave a comment

The attached poll (J Street poll) is necessary reading for anyone interested in the American Jewish community’s voting behavior in the 2012 election, its concerns about Israel and peace with the Palestinians. The poll puts to bed the canard that the American Jewish community is behaving substantially differently than it has since World War II.

The Gerstein poll discovered that 70% of the American Jewish community supported President Obama and Democrats and 30% supported Governor Romney and Republicans. That is essentially unchanged.

Jim Gerstein is a founding partner of GBA Strategies. For 10 years, he served as the Executive Director of Democracy Corps, a non-profit organization founded by Democratic strategists James Carville, Stan Greenberg, and Bob Shrum, that conducts public opinion research and provides strategic advice to the progressive community. Prior to his work with Democracy Corps, Gerstein was the Executive Director of the Center for Middle East Peace and Economic Cooperation, where he led public education campaigns, congressional visits to the Middle East, and convened Middle East diplomats in the U.S. for meetings with business and political leaders. The Institute provides financial, organizational, and strategic support for various Arab-Israeli peace projects, including meetings between retired generals from Israel and Arab countries, initiatives with regional business leaders, and dialogues between Jewish and Arab officials.

During the 1999 Israeli Prime Ministerial campaign, Gerstein took a leave of absence and joined Ehud Barak’s U.S. based consulting team. He served as the team’s man on the ground, overseeing polling, paid media, and message development for the campaign. Gerstein has worked on several U.S. political campaigns and has held several key positions within the Democratic Party. In 1992, he worked on the field campaign for Carol Moseley Braun’s successful run for the U.S. Senate in Illinois. He later moved to Washington, DC, where he became the Deputy Director for Jewish Affairs at the Democratic National Committee. In 1996, Gerstein worked in the press office for the Democratic National Convention in Chicago, and then directed the Clinton/Gore campaign for the north side of Chicago and northern Illinois.

 

 

 

“The Good Girls Revolt” – by Lynn Povich – Recommended Reading

04 Sunday Nov 2012

Posted by in American Politics and Life, Book Recommendations, Ethics, Social Justice

≈ Leave a comment

“The Good Girls Revolt – How The Women of Newsweek Sued Their Bosses and Changed the Work Place,” by Lynn Povich, is a painstakingly researched story of one of the seminal events affecting the rights of women in the American work place in the early years of the women’s movement.

In March, 1970, 46 Newsweek women sued Newsweek Magazine for sexual discrimination in hiring and promotion. Charging that “there seems to be a gentlemen’s agreement at Newsweek that men are writers and women are researchers, and the exceptions are few and far between,” carefully and with resolve these women set out to do something that had never been done before – bring a class action civil rights suit against one of the publishing world’s juggernauts.

Katherine Graham, then the publisher of The Washington Post and President of the Washington Post Company (the parent company of Newsweek), when told of the lawsuit asked, “Which side am I supposed to be on?”

The 46 Newsweek women enlisted the legal counsel of the young firebrand attorney Eleanor Norton Holmes who successfully guided the suit to victory and opened not just the publishing business, but the workplace generally, to greater fairness and opportunities for women.

Lynn Povich was one of the ringleaders.

A disclaimer, Lynn is a friend. However, even if she were not, I would recommend this volume especially to young women who were born long after the struggles fought by their mothers and grandmothers. It is too easy to take for granted the opportunities available to women today even with the inequities without pausing to consider the scope of the suppression, humiliation and injustice suffered in the past (AMC’s “Mad Men” well describes the world in which Lynn and her colleagues struggled). For anyone 60 years and older, we remember those years pre-Feminine Mystique, pre-Newsweek women, pre-Roe v Wade. Much, thanks to Lynn, her colleagues and many others, has changed in the last 40 years, and this book enables us to take stock and be grateful to those women who stuck their necks out.

Lynn began as a secretary at Newsweek and within 5 years (after the lawsuit itself, revealing the good will of its top management) became the magazine’s first woman senior editor. In 1991 she left Newsweek to become editor-in-chief of Working Woman Magazine and managing editor/senior executive producer for MSNBC.com.

Lynn explains how these 46 women came to sue Newsweek and how they “conspired” in the Ladies Room out of fear of being fired.

Neither Lynn nor her colleagues were the stereotypical hard-edged, bra-burning, hard, man-hating women so often dismissed by Rush Limbaugh and company. To the contrary, Lynn and her colleagues were humble and self-effacing, often smarter and more talented than their male counterparts, who wanted Newsweek to be the progressive magazine it prided itself even then on being so they, based on hard work and talent, could progress.

Lynn told this story not only because the case the Newsweek women brought was historic (i.e. the first class action suit filed and won on behalf of women in the American workplace), but because still today there are inequities that need to be addressed, including equal pay for equal work and discrimination against women who choose to become mothers and work.

Lynn writes about the women’s lives (with their permission) who were at the center of this story and what happened to them since. She is candid about herself as well.

Lynn’s is a success story, but not all the 46 were successful despite their intelligence and talent. Plagued by prejudice and personal pressures, some became casualties after the struggle.

Lynn shows how changes in the law did not change everything, and she reflects on what needs still to be addressed if justice and fairness are to prevail.

 

 

Book Review – Deadlines and Disruption: My Turbulent Path from Print to Digital

14 Sunday Oct 2012

Posted by in American Politics and Life, Book Recommendations

≈ Leave a comment

I will not review Stephen B. Shepard’s fascinating memoir Deadlines and Disruption: My Turbulent Path from Print to Digital mainly because I do not know enough about journalism or the revolution that has transformed how we receive information since the advent of the digital age to be able to do so. Nevertheless, I recommend Steve’s book not only because he is a friend (I receive no kick-backs for this recommendation – just the pleasure in knowing that some of you might buy this book and gain in wisdom, as did I in having read it), but also because Steve is positioned as few people are in America to reflect  authoritatively on what has happened in the past 40 years in print and digital media.

The Editor in-Chief of Business Week Magazine from 1984 to 2004 and the founding Dean of the Graduate School of Journalism at City College of New York (CUNY) since 2005, Steve has done and seen it all. He reviews not only some of the top stories during his tenure at Business Week, but reflects intelligently on what is now happening in news and media.

The following are reviews of his book by people who do, in fact, understand Steve’s world, and they speak for themselves:

A Top Editor’s Take on the State of Journalism Today and His Prescient Forecast of Its Future

‘This is a personal and insightful book about one of the most important questions of our time: how will journalism make the transition to the digital age? Steve Shepard made that leap bravely when he went from being a great magazine editor to the first dean of the City University of New York journalism school. His tale is filled with great lessons for us all.’
‘Walter Isaacson, bestselling author of “Steve Jobs”

“This is two compelling books in one: Shepard’s story of his life in print journalism, and a clearheaded look at the way journalism is evolving due to electronic media, social networking, and the ability of anyone with a computer and an opinion to make him- or herself heard.”
‘Booklist

More About The Book – A composite of comments by others

‘My personal passage is, in many ways, a microcosm of the larger struggle within the journalism profession to come to terms with the digital reckoning. Will the new technologies enhance journalism . . . or water it down for audiences with diminished attention spans? What new business models will emerge to sustain quality journalism?’

Stephen B. Shepard … helped transform [Business Week Magazine] into one of the most respected voices of its time. But after his departure, he saw it collapse – another victim of the digital age.

In Deadlines and Disruption, Shepard recounts his five decades in journalism – a time of radical transformations in the way news is developed, delivered, and consumed. Raised in the Bronx, Shepard graduated from City College and Columbia, joined Business Week as a reporter, and rose to the top editorial post. He has closed the circle by returning to the university that spawned him, founding the Graduate School of Journalism at the City University of New York.

In the digital age, anyone can be a journalist. Opinion pieces are replacing original reporting as the coin of the realm. And an entire generation is relying on Facebook friends and Twitter feeds to tell them what to read.

Is this the beginning of an irreversible slide into third-rate journalism? Or the start of a better world of interactive, multimedia journalism? Will the news industry live up to its responsibility to forge a well-informed public?

Shepard tackles all the tough questions facing journalists, the news industry, and, indeed, anyone who understands the importance of a well-informed public in a healthy democracy.

The story of Shepard’s career is the story of the news industry – and in Deadlines and Disruption, he provides peerless insight into one of the most critical issues of our time.

The following are pages 299-304 of Steve’s book:

http://www.cjr.org/cover_story/daily_bugle.php?page=all

What Mitt Romney and Lance Armstrong Have In Common!

11 Thursday Oct 2012

Posted by in American Politics and Life, Ethics, Quote of the Day

≈ 1 Comment

Mitt Romney’s constant rewriting of his history and the story about Lance Armstrong’s massive cheating scandal (see link below  – New York Times, “Details of Doping Scheme Paint Armstrong as Leader”) both demonstrate the truth of Mark Twain’s quip: “Of all the animals, man is the only one that lies.”

Of Armstrong, the Times says “…the evidence put forth by the antidoping agency drew a picture of Armstrong as an infamous cheat, a defiant liar and a bully who pushed others to cheat with him so he could succeed…”

Given Romney’s history (recall his bullying of his college classmate and his behavior as the head of Bain Capital in firing thousands of people from their jobs after deceiving them that he had come to save their companies), the statement about Armstrong could just as easily be made about Romney.

Despite some good that both men have done (Armstrong’s cancer research advocacy and Romney’s Massachusetts health care legislation) they both lack character.

A few apt thoughts to ponder:

“If you want to see what a person is made of, see how he behaves in a position of authority.” (Yugoslavian folk saying)

“The measure of a person’s character is what he would do if he knew he would never be found out.” (Thomas Macauley)

“Fame is a vapor, popularity an accident, riches take wing, and only character endures.” (Horace Greeley)

For us who yearn for heroes to emulate good leadership and good character, a warning:

“Show me the person you honor, and I will know what kind of person you are.” (Thomas Carlyle)

The NY Times Armstrong link:  http://www.nytimes.com/2012/10/11/sports/cycling/agency-details-doping-case-against-lance-armstrong.html?nl=todaysheadlines&emc=edit_th_20121011

 

America’s and Israel’s “Red-Lines” on Iran’s March to Building a Bomb

04 Thursday Oct 2012

Posted by in American Politics and Life, Ethics, Israel/Zionism

≈ Leave a comment

In the past year President Barack Obama and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu have conferred continuously about when Iran’s nuclear bomb program should be “disrupted” by military action should economic and political sanctions not succeed in halting Iran’s march to build a bomb.

They agree that Iran cannot be allowed to acquire nuclear weapons. They disagree when action should be taken.

PM Netanyahu has urged that the “red line” for attack be when Iran has the capacity to make a nuclear bomb. The United States’ “red line” will be crossed when Iran actually decides to make a bomb.

J Street (a pro-Israel pro-peace political and educational organization in Washington, D.C.) has made a video in which Director of Government Affairs Dylan Williams explains what it takes to make a bomb and the details of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s “red line.”

I urge you to take 3 minutes to watch it.
http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2012/10/03/explainng-enrichment.html