Posted on 06/27/2003 11:30:51 AM PDT by yonif
When it comes to Israel's interests, American Jews have never been very good at discerning who their friends are.
Jewish political power mostly came out of being at the core of the Democratic Party and leveraging that position to affect their own agenda. But today, Jewish Democrats are no longer at the center of their party, Israel's strongest friends in Congress are Republicans, and the Democrat agenda has moved away from Israel.
In large part, much of this happens because issues such as abortion, tobacco, environment, tax policy, immigration law and affirmative action are higher priorities for Jews in Congress and many of their constituents, than Israel. For too many, Israel is just another issue and Jewish political capital, which is decreasing constantly, is spread much too thin.
The strongest source of pro-Israel votes in Congress today comes from Republicans from the South and Midwest, a group that American Jews often look down on and treat poorly. These members of Congress represent folks who read the Bible for direction and are less conflicted with other issues and multiple belief systems.
After the last presidential election, the dominant graphic of the red and blue map divided the United States into the two separate voting blocks. Political strategist Arthur Finkelstein is credited with observing what consultant Peter Robinson describes as the "Finkelstein Box." This translates into one's ability to tell what color-coded part of the country one is in by turning on the radio (this observation was made before the election of 2000). When you hear country music and gospel, you're in Bush country. Over the mountain, nearer to the coast, possibly in the same state, the better signal from NPR and other stations like it tell you are in a different place. In 2000 it was Gore country. This map also might just as easily have been about where Jews of America do and don't live.
It was the center, west and south of the country, where Jews are fewer in number, that carried George Bush into the White House, and it is those same areas now that supply the backbone of Israel's congressional support. This is an irony lost on most Jewish leaders today.
No matter how much they wish it weren't so, the Democrats' core constituency is now the black vote, which to a great extent submerges the effectiveness of pro-Israel Democratic legislators. This was clear during the Clinton Administration. Israel became an issue seen only through a prism of other Democratic concerns.
What makes the Republican's support for Israel so much more powerful and stunning is that it is not clear that the Bush White House can count on this voting bloc on everything it does pertaining to Israel and would certainly earn its enmity if it moved against her. This equation allows for more of Israel's policy to be shaped in Jerusalem than in Washington, and over the long term, this serves America's interest as much as Israel's.
Tom DeLay's fearless leadership is critical to this voting bloc. Representing Bible-believing Christians numbering in the tens of millions, he maintains that Israel's safety is one of their more important priorities and is also coincident with America's own self-interest. This is the group that stands between Israel and an administration and a Department of State which, like all those before them, define their reality by the size and strength on the often shifting constituencies they deal with both at home and abroad.
That political calculus showed itself again recently when this administration rebuked Israel for taking steps to protect its people from the wave of violence that broke throughout the country after the meetings in Aqaba. It was Tom DeLay who ended up at the White House and made his group's unwavering support for the Jewish state count.
The Washington Post's Dana Milbank's says that Tom DeLay "had a private meeting with Bush aides and threatened to promote a congressional resolution in support of Israel if Bush persisted in criticizing Israel." DeLay was quoted as saying, "America must stand by Israel as it fights its own war on terror." A few hours later, the White House turned from a critic of Israel's actions to defend herself to a supporter of her right to do so.
No delegation of Democratic Jewish congressmen from New York and California could have done this so effectively, nor did they do it during the Clinton years. With the exception of Tom Lantos, Jewish Democrats are oblivious to their growing impotency and ineffectiveness on behalf of Israel under this Republican administration and their growing marginalization when serving under Democratic ones. Lantos, from what we've heard, is amenable to working with DeLay and the Republicans, and this is to Israel's benefit. Hopefully, others will follow suit.
Israel is truly blessed with strong friends and solid leadership in Congress. It would be wonderful if Jewish members of Congress and Jewish voters came to realize who these friends are. Hopefully then, they could support Israel and America's interests with the same enthusiasm and fervor as Tom DeLay and the Republican coalition he leads.
EDITORIAL #2
Picking the wrong friends #2 June 27, 2003
A note on the difference in the way the Jewish people remember Roosevelt and Nixon.
Franklin Delano Roosevelt has long been in the pantheon of Jewish heroes, but as David Wyman said in his seminal work on the Holocaust, "Abandonment of the Jews": "This President, who was well aware of the catastrophic situation, was indifferent, even to the point of unwillingness to talk about the issue…" Roosevelt knowingly stood by while the destruction of the Jews of Europe was ongoing, and at the same time, Jewish voters here gave him almost all of their votes--pledging a fealty to his Democratic Party that for the most part remains in place today.
On the other hand, Richard Nixon was the object of the organized Jewish community's scorn in the 60's and 70's. When his Jewish Secretary of State urged him to delay the shipment of arms to a bleeding Israel during the Yom Kippur War, this beleaguered, soon to be deposed President, with nothing more than the force of his own will, got the vital munitions to Israel's armed forces that saved so many Jewish lives and possibly the Jewish state.American Jews have never given him credit for this selfless act based not in political gain, but by his notion of what was right. Instead, they key on verbal slights and continue to despise him.
Don't forget to add gun control to this sorry list of priorities. As a Jew, this issue really makes my blood boil - how many people were forced onto cattle cars or into gas chambers who had loaded guns with them?
The strongest source of pro-Israel votes in Congress today comes from Republicans from the South and Midwest, a group that American Jews often look down on and treat poorly.
What, looking down on a bunch of beer-swilling, pick-up driving, gun-brandishing, stupid rednecks who voted for the evil Republicans to starve our children and burn down black churches? Nah, nobody looks down on them. And nobody has utterly ridiculous stereotypes like that fed to them by an America-hating school system and media, either.
1) We were in a Cold War with the Soviets. To have allowed Soviet clients defeat any close ally of ours, or even bloody them badly, would have been a great defeat for this country. I'm not so sure that Kissinger really advised him to let the Israelis bleed.
2) Israel probably had a dozen or so nukes. I'm sure that they made Nixon aware of this (if he wasn't already), and of the fact that it was a short plane ride to the Saudi oil fields and the Aswan Dam. The economic, politic and ecological disaster caused by an Israeli defeat would have been too much for any American president to allow.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.