Posted on 05/03/2002 9:07:50 AM PDT by truthandlife
So, President George W. Bush bonded with Crown Prince Abdullah when the Saudi ruler visited his Texas ranch last week?
That's nice. But if the president heeds the prince's advice on the Middle East, resentment on the Christian right could become an open revolt.
The Saudis -- who are largely AWOL in the war on terrorism -- want America to (as The New York Times put it) "temper its support for Israel or face grave consequences throughout the Arab world."
But this administration is notorious for modifying its support for the Jewish state -- treating a loyal ally and Yasser Arafat's cutthroat gang evenhandedly, demanding that Jerusalem end its defensive operations in the territories.
When it comes to fighting the scourge of civilization, Israel is the sole exception to the Bush doctrine. A strange dichotomy has evolved here. When the United States goes after terrorists in Afghanistan, it's preserving the peace. When Prime Minister Ariel Sharon targets suicide bombers on the West Bank, he's endangering the peace.
By risking Israel's survival, the president also risks alienating his core constituency.
Former Education Secretary William Bennett recently told CNN that Bush was angering "his entire political base" with his muddled Middle East policy. Nowhere is that more true than among the religious right.
Evangelical Christians represent 26 percent of voters. In 2000, 84 percent of them voted for Bush. Had he lost just a fraction of this vote, George W. would have been one of history's also-rans.
No issue touches this community more deeply than Israel. Christian Coalition President Roberta Combs comments, "In some instances, Christian support for Israel seems to exceed that of Jewish supporters in America."
At last month's pro-Israel rally in Washington, D.C., popular Christian talk show host Janet Parshall thundered: "We will never give up the Golan. We will never divide Jerusalem. And we will call Yasser Arafat what Yasser Arafat is: a terrorist."
In a recent poll, 86 percent of evangelicals said the administration should not "back away from America's traditional pro-Israel stance in light of the hatred it engenders in the Islamic community."
Why are these Christians so passionately committed to the Jewish state? Well, for one thing, they take the Bible (the Torah as well as the Christian) quite seriously.
Religious right leader Gary Bauer explains, "The Bible is pretty clear that the land is what is called covenant land, that G-d made a covenant with the Jews that that would be their land forever." A Palestinian state on the West Bank, East Bank or anywhere in between, is mentioned nowhere in Scriptures.
When G-d says of Abraham and his descendants, "I will bless those that bless you, and curse those that curse you," evangelicals don't ask the duration of that promise, or whether it's conditioned on the requirements of U.S. foreign policy.
They are also mindful of persecution of their fellow Christians in the Islamic world -- the genocide in the Sudan, riots in Nigeria, attacks on church services in Pakistan, forced conversions in Indonesia and other manifestations of the international jihad. This makes it easier for them to relate to Jewish suffering in the Holy Land.
When 100,000 Jews assembled at the D.C. rally on April 16, Bush advisers probably shrugged it off with the observation attributed to James Baker, chief of staff for Bush Sr. -- "Bleep 'em (or words to that effect). They don't vote for us anyway."
If 100,000 evangelicals went to Washington to protest George W.'s vacillation and Secretary of State Colin Powell's blundering, what would their response be then?
The White House political team assumes that because evangelicals like the president's policies on abortion and cloning, they'll fall in line in 2004. In 1992, Bush Sr. believed conservatives had no place else to go. (But they did -- they stayed home.) Costly miscalculations seem to be a Bush family trait.
Prince Abdullah will not be voting in the next presidential election. But millions of Christian friends of Israel will.
Truer words were never spoken.
I think it would be a mistake to assume that crowd to be entirely Jewish.
Feder needs to do his homework. Does he not know that Wolfowitz spoke at the rally, where he relayed the President's message of support?
That would be news to me, unless his definition is a lot broader than mine.
Please note that Feder provides no basis for his primary assumption -- that Israel will top of list of reasons for whether or not to vote, and whether or not to vote for Bush.
Sounds like a bit of wishful thinking to me.
This is an example. What advice? Feder doesn't know what was discussed. The whole premise of this article is that W is anti-Israel and pro-Arab. If so, then please 'splain to me how he is at 80% approval with the Jews. Sure Powell's appeasement stance with the terrorist Arafat is not well received and W has made statements that were not as, ahem, forceful as I would like. That is diplomacy, statecraft and international politics. Sharon got all the time he needed and got done what he needed. W has to walk on eggshells with the Arabs as Saddam is the target and goal. I just find Feder's premise to be speculative whole cloth. Just my opinion though. Ya'll have a great weekend....
This phrase was preceded by the words 'Bush's advisers PROBABLY said...' What on earth kind of sentence is that? Talk about putting words in people's mouths!
Carolyn
1. Democrats ALWAYS get the same turnout
2. The Republican vote VARIES GREATLY based on the turnout of conservative base voters
Democrats have gotten virtually identical turnouts in each of the last five presidential elections. The following chart dramatically illustrates this startling fact:
| 1980 | 1984 | 1988 | 1992 | 1996 | |
| Voting age population in millions | 157.6 | 172.8 | 180.7 | 185.6 | 194.8 |
| Democrat votes in millions | 35.5 | 37.5 | 41.8 | 44.8 | 45.6 |
| Percent of Democrat votes | 23% | 22% | 23% | 24% | 23% |
It is the Republican message -- and its effect on the conservative base -- that determines Republican success in presidential elections.
The fundamental reason for the victories of Ronald Reagan (1980 and 1984) and George H.W. Bush (1988) is that they ran on a solid conservative agenda that was easily understood, and believed, by conservative base voters.
Both President Bush (1992) and Bob Dole (1996) lost because their campaigns lacked conservative credibility, resulting in fewer Republican votes as the conservative base abandoned them by either staying home or registering a protest vote for Ross Perot.
Rove said that one reason the 2000 election was so tight was that as many as 4 million Christian conservatives did not go to the polls, reported "The Chicago Tribune." Although the Bush campaign had expected 19 million evangelical voters to vote for their man, election returns revealed only 15 million turned out to cast ballots.
Bush must stand behind Israel and not tell Israel to get out of "occupied" territory. My prediction is that Bush's stance on Israel will determine if he wins or loses in '04.
And Feder is wrong prima facia: most Evangelicals don't care about Israel. Oh sure, some big Conservatives make a huge issue out of it, like Feder, Bennet and Pat Robertson. But the people care about abortion, taxes, family values, guns, etc. Support of Israel would be about number 30 on the list of issues I would suspect. Bush is trying to make the situation better so that it goes away - which it maybe never will, despite his and my wishes.
Unless the President is just B.S.'ing them for strategic reasons. The problem I have with that, is that it makes me feel uneasy, like we really do need their cooperation because we can't get the job done without them. If that is the case, we are a lot weaker than we should be. Peace dividend, indeed.
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.