Israel Matzav

Winkie winks at Palin

One of the people who got to meet with Ben Smith last week is my friend Yisrael Medad, who had some very positive thoughts about former Alaska governor Sarah Palin.

Israelis follow American politics as closely as most Americans, and there was a great deal of curiousity when I was there last week about who is the likeliest Republican presidential nominee.

Most Israelis didn't express a strong preference on that subject -- all the leading Republicans have at least generically hawkish, pro-Israel stands -- with a sole exception: Settlers love Sarah Palin.

I heard this from a few people, but most clearly from Yisrael Medad, a Queens-born dual citizen of the the U.S. and Israel who has lived for 30 years on top of a hill in Shilo, deep in the West Bank and inside any future Palestinian state. His is one of the settlements that the Israeli government would have to dismantle -- likely as not by force -- in any future peace deal. Medad had met Mike Huckabee, who has visited and backed both settlements in the West Bank -- though the one he visited is less remote, and more likely to be swapped into Israel, than Medad's -- and controversial Jewish expansion into an Arab neighborhood of East Jerusalem.

Palin, though, is Medad's favorite.

"I want to get Sarah Palin out here," he told me during an interview at his kitchen table. "She made a very good statement -- even if it was a little factually off."

Aside from a sort of general sympathy between settlers -- who see themselves as frontiersmen of sorts -- and the former Alaska governor, they've also gotten specific -- if somewhat hazy -- encouragement from Palin.

...

As Medad wrote on his blog earlier this year, "Whether she believes our communities will grow due to God or plain old Zionism, [this] is a very good base to build on. There are many other good reasons and she should be hear to see, learn and be impressed by all the factors: geopolitical, ideological, legal rights, military and more."

Well, yes, people on the Right here (and not just 'settlers') love Sarah Palin. But I could see them getting equally comfortable with Mike Huckabee or Mike Pence or Marco Rubio or even Rudy Giuliani to name a few.

Palin's attraction is that she's very outspoken about being pro-Israel (she wears it on her sleeve lapel), that just about everything she does attracts a lot of attention, and that love her or hate her, everyone has an opinion about her. I'd love to see Palin come here - I've already been involved in one effort to bring her here.

Will Palin wink back at Winkie (Yisrael's nickname)? I hope so.

Labels: Ben Smith, Sarah Palin is a true friend of Israel, Yisrael Medad

posted by Carl in Jerusalem @ 12:18 PM