Why AIPAC's Israel monopoly deserves to come to an end
Bruce Abramson is a politically conservative former lawyer colleague of mine. Jeff Ballabon is currently best-known as the man behind the Iron Dome Alliance, which is seeking to undo AIPAC's 'accomplishment' in making sure that the 2012 Republican platform was no more pro-Israel than the same year's Democratic platform. Jeff is a long-time pro-Israel activist with whom I am occasionally in touch (and who follows me on Twitter).
Bruce and Jeff have written a lengthy piece in which they demonstrate that AIPAC, the big 'pro-Israel' lobby, has lost its monopoly on pro-Israel lobbying. In the course of their article, you will understand why that's probably the best thing that has happened to US-Israel relations in a long time.
By eschewing policy innovation while occupying the entire field,
AIPAC has imposed upon pro-Israel activism the same sclerosis that
monopolists commonly impose upon the markets they dominate. In Israel’s
case, that sclerosis is both misplaced and dangerous. Israel is a small
state surrounded by enemies seeking her destruction and the genocide of
her citizens. As a foreign government dependent on the United States,
Israeli diplomacy compels conciliatory statements about American policy
and leadership. American activists are under no compulsion to believe
such statements. To the contrary, American supporters add maximum value
when championing the tough truths that diplomacy puts beyond Israel’s
reach.
Yet rather than pushing to expand Israel’s political playing field,
AIPAC has instead filtered Israel’s necessary diplomatic risk-aversion
through the partisan and policy preferences of its own membership. To
pick but one example, numerous American Jewish leaders, including
prominent members of the Conference of Presidents, have recognized that
American energy independence would weaken OPEC’s hold over American
policy and thus serve Israel’s interests. Rather than taking a
leadership role on the issue, however, AIPAC demurred, explaining: “We
knew as American Jews we couldn’t touch environmental issues and have
any credibility with our community. American Jews don’t want to destroy
Alaska to import a few barrels less from Angola.”
A political monopolist
who avoids alliances for reasons unrelated to its mission necessarily
weakens that mission—in AIPAC’s case, lobbying in Israel’s best
interests.
In classic monopolist form, AIPAC protects its market by playing to
avoid losing rather than to win. A pro-Israel lobby that played to win
would articulate basic, immutable principles for which it would
fight—and it would count among its “friends” only those elected
officials who supported these positions even when politically
inconvenient. Such a lobby would pressure Israel’s neighbors to work
with Israel while removing pressure on Israel to take risks that
compromise its security, and it would stop pushing to reward Arab
incitement and terror with a PLO-led state. Above all, a pro-Israel
lobby playing to win would innovate on policy, promoting truths and
ideas that run counter to conventional wisdom—even if such innovations
remain minority positions for the years that lobbyists often need to
assemble winning coalitions.
Anti-Israel forces understand the strategic imperative of policy
innovation, and they are rarely bashful about pushing ideas whose
absurdity is apparent to all people of good faith. Yasser Arafat first
fabricated Temple Denial from whole cloth in 2000, but within the past
year the New York Times has detailed the “controversy”
surrounding Jewish “claims” to the Temple Mount, and UNESCO has declared
the Kotel a Muslim holy site. BDS, which grew out of the United
Nations’ rabidly anti-Semitic Durbin Conference in 2001, began in
earnest with a coalition of radical fringe NGOs in 2005. By 2015,
allegations of Israeli apartheid and genocide had come to dominate
discourse among American academics and European parliamentarians.
Or consider the course of the so-called “Two-State Solution,” once a
policy innovation of the far left but now conventional wisdom. In 1980,
Jimmy Carter—hardly an Israel advocate—opposed as destabilizing the
emergence of an Arab state wedged into disputed territories that Israel
had liberated in 1967. Yitzchak Rabin, martyred in 1995 for his dovish
politics, never wavered from his opposition to a Palestinian state. In
1998, five years into the Oslo process, Hillary Clinton publicly implied
support for an independent Palestine; her husband’s White House issued
an official repudiation. Yet AIPAC now doggedly promotes “a negotiated
two-state solution—a Jewish state of Israel living alongside a
demilitarized Palestinian state.”
The erosion of Israel’s reputation and diplomatic standing among
Western governments—and in particular, among Western parties to the left
of center—should provide fertile ground for policy innovation. Who
objects to the canard that Israel is an occupier? Who lobbies the White
House to recognize an undivided Jerusalem—within its full current
municipal boundaries—as Israel’s capital? Who takes to task every
politician who differentiates the anti-Israel terror of Hamas, Fatah,
and Hezbollah from the world’s other instances of Islamist terror? Who
challenges the calls for “balance” in confronting the terrorist
mini-state of Gaza that are oddly absent from any discussion of other
terrorist safe havens? Who emphasizes the connection between
anti-Zionism and anti-Semitism? Who pushes American politicians to
revisit the Oslo agreement—particularly following Mahmoud Abbas’s
unilateral withdrawal from its terms during his 2015 speech to the U.N.
General Assembly?
To each of these questions, the answer is “not AIPAC.” In typical
monopolist fashion, AIPAC does more than underinvest in policy
innovation: It objects to policy innovations that might imperil its
monopoly. That objection traps pro-Israel activism behind a
lowest-common-denominator bipartisan strategy in an increasingly
partisan world.
...
Unsurprisingly, those taking these divergent worldviews also see
Israel very differently. To a progressive, even one with no inherent
animus toward Jews, Israel mirrors the worst of America—an oppressor
state occupying the territory of an indigenous people, practicing
apartheid policies, demonstrating contempt for the international
community, and seeking to play by a unique set of rules. To a
conservative, the situation is just as clear. Israel possesses all of
the right cultural norms and values, stands allied against America’s
enemies, and places itself on the front lines of a civilizational
battle. Israel holds itself to exceptional standards of humanity and
decency despite the constant threats to its existence and widespread
opprobrium. Support for Israel is thus a logical and consistent part of
the conservative worldview, while an outlier among progressives.
The elections of 2006 through 2010 solidified the resorting of the
parties by worldview, and furthered their divergent views of Israel.
Hillary Clinton’s hawkish Senate record cost her the 2008 Democratic
nomination. Foreign-policy realists boasting impeccable Republican
pedigrees—from James Baker and Brent Scowcroft to Colin Powell and Chuck
Hagel—suddenly found warmer receptions on the left than on the right.
Tony Blair, leader of the maturing European left in the 1990s,
discovered that Republicans were his most receptive American audience.
In 2016, Sen. Bernie Sanders galvanized young Democrats behind positions
overtly hostile to Israel. Sanders was also the only presidential
candidate who skipped AIPAC’s 2016 Policy Conference; his submitted
comments parroted much of the standard progressive anti-Israel
rhetoric—and earned widespread praise from the left, including J Street.
AIPAC’s strategic bipartisanship inevitably dismays both those who
view Israel through the progressive lens and those who view it through
the conservative lens. In the face of the post-9/11 transformation of
the American foreign policy debate, AIPAC remains rigidly dedicated to
blind bipartisanship, doing little to educate or inform its members that
most of them are trapped in an increasingly progressive Democratic
Party boasting an increasingly powerful anti-Israel caucus. Polls show a
partisan split on the issue of Israel v. Palestinians of 83R-48D, with
pro-Israel Democrats now representing a minority of their party. That 35
percent gap makes Israel one of the most extreme partisan issues in the
current political climate, not remotely a matter of bipartisan
consensus.
***
J Street studied its market well before launching. Its founders
understood that AIPAC could not help but alienate the large numbers of
Jewish Americans who consider themselves Progressives but harbor some
affinity for Israel. The rival organization built upon AIPAC’s
unyielding dogma that there is no difference between the parties to
insist that the anti-Israel policies gaining salience among Democrats
represent the true pro-Israel positions. By redefining Zionism as
something close to its opposite, J Street gives American Jews a license
to remain proudly progressive and frees Democrats to be increasingly
adverse while still maintaining they are pro-Israel. To J Street’s
supporters, Israel’s true interests at any given point in time are
precisely those that the left says they are—thereby eliminating any
potential dilemmas arising from a divergence of Israel’s interests from
those of the Democratic Party’s progressive wing. Furthermore, by
providing consistent visible Jewish support for President Obama’s
foreign-policy agenda, J Street has already conferred value upon both
its members and the Democratic politicians who need their support.
The Obama policy agenda that enabled J Street’s rise caught AIPAC
sleeping. For the first six-plus Obama years, nearly every policy or
pronouncement touching upon Israel produced a predictable sequence: J
Street emerged as an early, enthusiastic supporter, lauding the
president’s boldness and urging him to move in an even more progressive
direction. AIPAC noted both positives and negatives in the president’s
moves, studied their implications from all angles, and eventually
announced cautious, grudging support. As late as December 2013, amid
widespread alarm triggered at the Obama Administration’s dealings with
Iran, AIPAC called a special meeting of the Conference of Presidents to
demand that Jewish groups stop criticizing the president. AIPAC
Executive Director Howard Kohr declared at that meeting that AIPAC and
Obama share the “same goals” and have only “a difference of strategy”—an
assertion that AIPAC ought now regret.
Finally, in year seven, Israel’s government took an unprecedented
step to preempt AIPAC. In 2014, AIPAC had been willing to support the
president’s call to end sanctions on Iran as a step toward easing
negotiations. When it came to assessing the package that the Obama team
negotiated in 2015, however, Israel’s prime minister delivered a bold
and controversial speech to Congress that forced AIPAC’s hand. AIPAC had
little choice but to agree publicly with the Israeli consensus that the
deal represented an existential threat. For the first time in many
years, AIPAC appeared to launch a full-throated campaign to defeat a
Democratic administration priority—though it simultaneously offered
counter-productive (if not overtly cynical) reassurances that it would
exact no price from “friends” who supported the deal.
In 2016, AIPAC continues to monopolize the field of activists eager
to provide policy support for Israel, while J Street provides a useful
outlet for those unwilling to abandon progressive policy priorities
while maintaining or manipulating a pro-Israel self-image. Another
clearly visible market niche, however, remains unfilled: activists
adopting the conservative worldview unsatisfied with the compromises
inherent in bipartisan policy formulations.
The arrival of a partisan pro-Israel group to AIPAC’s right will
dethrone the Israel monopolist but not destroy it. AIPAC has invested
decades in developing a powerful brand, exceptional connections, a
demonstrated ability to work across the aisle, and unrivaled lists of
donors and grassroots supporters. Furthermore, AIPAC’s flagship
product—the foreign aid bill—is likely to become increasingly important
as fallout from the Iran deal triggers a regional arms race. Whether
broadly appropriate or not, to the degree that AIPAC can retain its
bipartisan relationships, it can help ensure continued military aid to
Israel regardless of the configuration of power in Washington.
In addition, though few cast it in such terms, AIPAC plays two other
critical roles: It serves as a Jewish pride organization and as a safe
space for Truman Democrats. Its annual Policy Conference provides Jewish
pro-Israel activists with a brief respite from pervasive anti-Semitism
and anti-Zionism. And AIPAC’s membership may represent the largest
remaining group of hawkish Democrats—voters who reject progressive
foreign policy even as they support other parts of the progressive
agenda. By providing a forum for such voters, AIPAC fills a niche
critical to American national security—as well as to the State of
Israel. Voters who place primacy on the ascendance of progressive
cultural mores and/or economic distribution, while still favoring a
strong national defense, deserve a forum in which they can speak
comfortably. AIPAC appears to be the only prominent organization filling
that need. Without such a forum, Democratic approaches to this
traditionally bipartisan belief will range from cavalier to
disdainful—much to the detriment of national security.
The pro-Israel community should push AIPAC to reposition itself with a
clear eye on contemporary reality. AIPAC can best serve the pro-Israel
cause by redeploying its formidable assets to help pro-Israel,
national-security-conscious Democrats defeat the anti-Israel
progressives ascendant in their party—certainly the most effective way
to ensure continued bipartisan support for Israel. New organizations
promoting policy innovation and adaptive political strategies must also
enter the pro-Israel market, however, to address challenges, push
policies, and forge alliances on behalf of Israel that run counter to
AIPAC’s strategic approach and the preferences of its members. AIPAC’s
directors and customers—i.e., the Jewish community’s leading
philanthropists and the grassroots activists who genuinely want to
protect Israel and the U.S.-Israel relationship—should accept nothing
less.
Republicans Overseas in Israel files High Court petition against FATCA agreement
Republicans Overseas in Israel, which can legitimately purport to represent 85% of American voters living in Israel (based on the results of the last elections) has filed a petition with Israel's High Court of Justice seeking to stop Israel's banks from transferring required information to the Internal Revenue Service under FATCA. FATCA requires foreign financial institutions to disclose to Lois Lerner's IRS the value of all foreign accounts held by US citizens. US citizens who actually live abroad are up in arms about this because it means that we have to go through two regulatory systems in all of our dealings with local banks (example: I had to fill out a W-9 to show that I have a US social security number in order to get a car loan from an Israeli bank for my car in Israel last year).
If you're a US citizen who lives in the US you no longer have any foreign bank accounts - at least in Israel where long before the Bank of Israel signed an agreement with the IRS, the local banks forced all non-Israeli residents to close their accounts. That means that this is almost entirely about people who live in Israel by any definition.
ROI’s petition claimed that the new information sharing process is not
only beyond government officials’ discretionary authority absent Knesset
legislation, but also in violation of the Basic Laws which create
certain property and privacy rights defending against an automatic
transfer of personal data absent a reasonable chance to object
(currently there is no chance to object.)
In courts in many
countries, including now Israel, the argument is, that the FATCA law and
how foreign countries are implementing, means it functions as a dragnet
of massive amounts of private information which could be misused and
where there is no evidence of wrongdoing.
Zell explained that “we
are not saying the Israeli tax authorities are prohibited from
transferring information to the IRS or other foreign tax authority…where
there is a reasonable basis to suspect tax evasion.”
He said
that Israel can already do this under existing conventions and that the
problem is to “collect and transfer such data to foreign governments
without a showing of cause and without allowing the affected taxpayers
an opportunity to be heard before the information is transferred.”
The
equal treatment issue is that only dual US citizens are being treated
this way by the Israeli government, and not persons who are
dual-citizens of any other countries, let alone most Israelis who are
solely Israeli citizens.
The application is most “absurd” said Zell with cases of persons who merely have an American greed card.
But
so far other litigation against FATCA and its consequences have had
mixed results, with lawsuits in the US and Canada being initially
dismissed and currently pending appeal.
...
“If the Court addresses the merits of the case, I believe our chances
are quite good… The action of the Bank of Israel is highly problematic,
given that there was absolutely no statutory basis for its action…. The
Government Decision…directly infringe[s] upon fundamental rights and no
attempt was made to mitigate the damage,” stated Zell.
He also
said treating American-Israelis differently is “clearly
discriminatory…There is no easy answer to that... the Government simply
disregarded the privacy interests of the affected class, signed what is
effectively an adhesion [coercive] contract and paid no attention
whatsoever to the fact that the US Government…does not provide adequate
protection for private information,” confirmed he said by the European
Court of Justice and Israel’s Justice Ministry.
As Zell said,
“taxpayers have a fundamental right of privacy protected by Basic Law
and statutory law. The Government sought to nullify these rights with
the wave of a hand and the Knesset thus far has said no. We hope the
High Court of Justice will agree.”
Well maybe the candidates talked about those things because they are the antithesis of the views of Obama and the current Democratic candidates. That's not pandering to any of those three core Republican groups - it's showing how the Republican candidates are different from the Democrats.
How about Huckabee, Rubio, Kasich etc talk about Israel's sturdy and effective border fence? https://t.co/1WSyFQN0N1
I would be cool with that (although as longtime readers know, I don't think it's anywhere near as effective as it's touted to be). But in that case, wouldn't you ask 'why talk about Israel's border fence when we should be talking about America's?
No, it offends me that so much time was wasted on things all GOPs agree on. https://t.co/3vezaywGMM
Having read an awful lot of comments... I don't think so. It seems that unfortunately, the GOP of my generation and my children's generation still includes a lot of the John Birch Society types that kept my parents (and most Americans to this day) away from the Republican party. Perhaps that's why many of the Republican candidates feel the need to 'pander' (as Coulter insists on calling support for Israel) to Jewish voters.
Sure hope you can't tell Ann Coulter's views by the company she keeps...
Republican Jewish Coalition Executive Director Matt Brooks issued the following statement today concerning Obama's most recent defense of his
proposed nuclear pact with Iran:
"It's a sad day when an
American President sees 'almost the whole world' standing in opposition
to the Jewish state and he sides against Israel. And his claim that
almost the whole world supports his Iran deal is not accurate, given the
serious concerns about the deal expressed by leaders of other Middle
Eastern countries.
"After his troubling, demonizing references to American Jews last
week, it's nice that President Obama now says he's willing to tolerate a
certain amount of criticism from our community. But the main thrust of
his speech today sent an overwhelmingly negative and divisive message.
His heavy-handed evocation of the Iraq war and his attribution of
narrow, partisan motives to Americans who reject his risky diplomatic
scheme are further evidence that he is unwilling or unable to endure the
vigorous, substantive debate on this important issue that he claimed to
welcome.
"At a historical moment that calls for a high caliber of
statesmanship to unify the nation, it's sad that this President resorts
to raw partisanship to divide us."
Michael Oren: 'Non-Orthodox' intermarried Jews in Obama administration don't understand Israeli character
Michael Oren continues to pound away at Barack Obama and his administration.
In an appearance at New York City's uber-Leftist 92nd Street Y on Sunday, Oren explained that his book was directed at American Jews (and here I thought it was directed at Israelis who still don't get that Obama is not our friend) and that he pushed to have it published now because of the critical juncture of the Iran negotiations.
Former Israeli ambassador to the United States Michael Oren
says he pressured Random House to publish his controversial new book
“Ally” now, rather than during book season in September or October,
because “Israel is at a fateful juncture” before the deadline of the
Iran talks and the vote on the French initiative on Palestine in the
Security Council. He said that one of his main objectives was to
“motivate, animate and inspire my readers” in advance of these
challenges “to do more than just stand there”.
“It’s about saying no” to an Iran deal that
“everybody in the Knesset agrees is emphatically bad,” Oren said. He
compared “this critical moment” to the Holocaust era, when American Jews
had an opportunity to “intercede and perhaps save millions of Jews”.
Oren received a surprisingly warm reception from the 92nd Street Y, where he made remarks that might be read by some as an indictment of American Jewry.
Oren discussed what he described as the unprecedented predominance of
American Jews in the Obama administration – “there were discussions in
the White House in which there were six Jews – 3 Americans and 3
Israelis, discussing a Palestinian state - and the only non-Jewish
person in the room was the President or the Vice President.” He said
that the non-Orthodox and the intermarried American Jews in the
administration – “have a hard time understanding the Israeli character.”
Well, yes, but that's not just the administration. That's true of American Jews in general. For years now, there's been a split between American Jewry and Israeli Jewry, but that split has been virtually non-existent among Orthodox Jews. Orthodox Jews also consistently vote Republican (or have since Ronald Reagan beat Jimmy Carter in 1980), and the more Orthodox, the more consistent they are about that. And Orthodox Jews and most Israelis would disagree with Oren's statement that Obama is not anti-Israel. He most definitely is anti-Israel. As I said once before:
Oren doesn't go far enough. His claim that Obama was 'never anti-Israel' doesn't square with the facts that we knew long before Obama was elected President.
The fact that the one example Oren gives of 'significantly strengthened
security cooperation' under Obama relates to a natural disaster and not
to a military action is telling.
And Oren ties the Obama White House in with the anti-Israel bent of American academia.
Recounting his academic experience in America, Oren said that “1968
revolutionaries” had taken over the Middle East and international
relations departments of American universities and that unless one
published their “neo-Marxist ideas”, one would not get tenured or
published. When he came to Washington in 2009, he encountered the same
ideas in his talks with Obama administration officials in the White
House and the State Department: “I could tell what professors they had.”
Oren went on to claim that the term “Israel Lobby”,
which was condemned when it was used by Professor Stephen Walt and John
Mearsheimer, is now an accepted term in Washington discourse.
Congressman: 'I felt safer in Israel than in New York, Chicago... or Baltimore'
For those of you who fear visiting or moving to Israel because it's 'unsafe,' Representative Barry Loudermilk (R-Ga) has a message for you.
“The whole time we were there, of course, we had security with us,
but there was no restrictions on travel, we never felt threatened one
bit — unless you’re threatened by the merchants in the Old City trying
to get you to come in their shops,” Loudermilk told Washington Watch, the radio show of the conservative Family Research Council.
“In fact, I can say that we felt safer in Israel than we would in certain parts of New York City or Chicago,” Loudermilk said.
“Yeah — or Baltimore, I would think, as well,” interjected host Tony Perkins.
Here's Fox News' Martha MacCallum interviewing Senator Ted Cruz (R-Tx), who is officially a candidate for President, on Fox News on Tuesday. Cruz does a great job and makes a great impression.
The campaign site of Marco Rubio, who officially announced himself as a candidate for President on Monday, has a Stand with Israel page on his campaign site (Hat Tip: Sunlight).
He knows who his friends are.
It's kind of funny reading the Leftist media's critiques of Rubio. This is the New York Times (Hat Tip: Memeorandum).
He enters the fray
with surprisingly low support. Despite four years of national
prominence, he has averaged 6 percent of the vote in primary polls over
the last few months. That’s the same or worse than five candidates who
are thought to have a much smaller chance of winning the nomination: Ted
Cruz, Rand Paul, Ben Carson, Mike Huckabee and Chris Christie. Mr.
Rubio is acceptable to many but, so far, the first choice of few.
Mr.
Rubio’s struggle to break through is a powerful reminder that winning a
presidential primary is not just about skill as a politician. It’s
about positioning, and Mr. Rubio, at the moment, is in a much worse
position than many assessments of his political talent would suggest. In
basketball terms, he’s boxed out.
His central problem is that Jeb Bush
has found considerable support from the party’s mainstream conservative
and moderate donors in the so-called invisible primary — the
behind-the-scenes competition for elite support that often decides the
nomination.
I don't think the country wants another Bush v. another Clinton. And ultimately, as the field thins, if Rubio ends up being the only conservative in the race, I think he will gain support. Then again, I would say the same thing about Ted Cruz. (You all should know by now that I am a big fan of both of them).
If Rubio were both serious and talented enough to move his party away
from its most inhibiting orthodoxy, in defiance of those donors, his
candidacy would represent a watershed. His appeal to constituencies
outside of the GOP base would be both sincere and persuasive.
But
Rubio is not that politician. He is no likelier to succeed at persuading
Republican supply-siders to reimagine their fiscal priorities than he
was at persuading nativists to support a citizenship guarantee for
unauthorized immigrants. In fact, nobody understands the obstacles
facing Marco Rubio better than Marco Rubio. But rather than abandon his
reformist pretensions, or advance them knowing he will ultimately lose,
Rubio has chosen to claim the mantle of reform and surrender to the
right simultaneously—to make promises to nontraditional voters he knows
he can’t keep. My colleague Danny Vinik proposes that
Rubio wants to "improve the lives of poor Americans" but he must
"tailor [his] solutions to gain substantial support in the GOP, and
those compromises would cause more harm to the poor." I think this makes
Rubio the most disingenuous candidate in the field.
Florida Sen. Marco Rubio’s campaign, which officially kicks off
Monday, has so far attracted paltry support from Republican voters,
according to polls in Iowa and New Hampshire, as well as nationally. He’s down near Chris Christie! Yet, when we talk about him in the FiveThirtyEight office,
we usually put Rubio in the top tier, in front of everyone except Jeb
Bush and Scott Walker, the two candidates at the top of the polls.
Why? Rubio is both electable and conservative, and in optimal proportions. He’s in a position
to satisfy the GOP establishment, tea party-aligned voters and social
conservatives. In fact, Rubio’s argument for the GOP nomination looks a
lot like Walker’s, and Rubio is more of a direct threat to the Wisconsin
governor than he is to fellow Floridian Bush.
To win a presidential nomination, you need to make it past the party
actors (i.e., elected officials and highly dedicated partisans). You can
have all the strong early poll numbers in the world (hello, Rudy Giuliani),
and your candidacy can still fail if party bigwigs come out against
you. Rubio has a real chance of surviving — or even winning — the
invisible (or endorsement) primary.
Rubio doesn’t have the flaws the other two official GOP candidates
have. He’s a hawk on foreign policy (with an 89 percent conservative
foreign policy score in National Journal’s vote ratings), so he’ll be able to avoid the pitfalls of Rand Paul’s candidacy. And Rubio isn’t anywhere near as extreme
as Ted Cruz and has not alienated his fellow senators, so we shouldn’t
expect mainstream party members coming out of the woodwork to stop
Rubio. But he’s a solid conservative; statistical ideological ratings
put him right in line with the average Republican in the 113th Congress.
Rubio also vowed to reverse course on Obama's recent diplomatic endeavors with Iran,
with which the United States is working to finalize a nuclear pact, and
Cuba, with which Obama has opened diplomatic relations.
"I think from a national-security perspective, this deal with Iran is an
extremely dangerous one," Rubio said when asked what he would do on his
first day as president. "I think the next president of the United
States is going to have to deal with that on day number one."
Of the diplomatic opening with Cuba, Rubio said, "I would reverse every single one of the decisions that [Obama] made."
Obama threatened to stop vetoing anti-Israel moves at the UN
Good morning once again from Austin, Texas, where I actually made it to synagogue this morning.
Members of the Israeli cabinet have reported to the media that President Hussein Obama has threatened that he will stop vetoing anti-Israel resolutions at the United Nations Security Council unless Prime Minister Netanyahu falls in line with Obama's anti-Israel policies.
In a dramatic development, Israeli cabinet members are warning that
US President Barack Obama threatened Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu
that the US may opt not to oppose future hostile UN Security Council
votes, unless Israel accedes to American policy demands, Israel’s NRG
News reported on Sunday.
“The prime minister told colleagues in recent days … that his
office’s understanding of the issue and the government’s take on it is
that the Americans will not cast a veto against a resolution that
reaches the Security Council,” Ariel Kahana, diplomatic correspondent
for the Makor Rishon and NRG dailies, told The Algemeiner on Monday, quoting ministerial-level sources.
The information was shared at a session of the Bayit Yehudi (Jewish
Home) Party, led by Economy Minister Naftali Bennett, and at which party
members Uri Ariel and Ze’ev Hever were present, according to Kahana.
...
Kahana... pointed to a recent article in The Atlantic
by Jeffery Goldberg – who is commonly seen as reflecting the US
administration’s views towards Israel – referencing the US pressure, but
from the American point of view:
Citing what he called “red-hot” anger by the Obama administration
“over Israel’s settlement policies,” and his view that “the Netanyahu
government openly expresses contempt for Obama’s understanding of the
Middle East,” Goldberg warned that “Profound changes in the relationship
may be coming.”
“This is a precedent and a very dangerous step,” Kahana cautioned
about the American threat, and said it was the most chilling thing he’d
heard uttered in decades of Israel-US relations.
“Beyond the abandonment of Israel, it also flies in the face of
previous agreements with the Americans, including vis a vis the Egyptian
peace deal in which the US would hold the line against such maneuvers,”
Kahana noted.
“The point is that one can’t trust anything the US says anymore, if the information is accurate,” according to Kahana.
“If the US is able to betray Israel like this – what do other allies and foes think?” Kahana wondered aloud.
We haven't been able to trust the United States since Obama took office in 2009, and we can only hope and pray that Tuesday's election results will force a halt to Obama's betrayals.... Unfortunately, it's likely that Obama will be willing to take the Democratic party and the United States down with him in his arrogant, stubborn pursuit of his agenda.
But it's more than that. Daniel Greenfield argues that it's personal between Obama and Netanyahu.
Netanyahu wasn’t just the leader of a country that the left hated. He had become an honorary Republican.
When Obama met with him, Netanyahu firmly but politely challenged him on
policy. He has kept on doing so ever since, including during his most
recent visit. At a time when most leaders had gotten the message about
shunning Romney, Netanyahu was happy to give him a favorable reception.
Netanyahu clearly wanted Romney to win and Obama clearly wished he
could pull a Clinton and replace Netanyahu. But Netanyahu’s economic
policies were working in exactly the same way that Obama’s weren’t.
The two men hate each other not only on a personal level, but also on a political level.
Netanyahu had successfully pushed through a modernization and
privatization agenda that on this side of the ocean is associated with
Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper or Wisconsin governor Scott
Walker. It’s likely what Romney would have done which is one more reason
the two men got along so well. Obama’s visible loathing for Romney is
of a piece with his hatred for Netanyahu.
He doesn’t just hate them. He hates what they stand for. That’s why
Harper and Netanyahu get along so well. It’s part of why Obama and
Netanyahu get along so badly.
Read the whole thing. It's no wonder most of Israel was rooting for the Republicans on Tuesday.
More Americans want a more engaged foreign policy, but...
In the run-up to the US Presidential election, Hillary Clinton has been arguing for a more engaged foreign policy while Rand Paul has been arguing for isolationism. The American people would like a more engaged foreign policy. That would seem to favor Clinton, but in fact it may ensure that neither candidate is his or her party's nominee.
The percentage of the public saying the country does too little has
almost doubled since November, from 17 to 31 percent. Thirty-nine
percent say the U.S. does too much.
Democratic former Secretary of
State Hillary Clinton has been arguing for a more engaged in U.S.
presence in the world ahead of a possible presidential run, in contrast
to possible opponent Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.), and, to some extent,
President Obama.
Despite the overall increase in those saying
they want the U.S. to do more, however only 24 percent of Clinton's own
party say the U.S. does too little, compared to 36 percent who say too
much. For Republicans, the numbers are reversed, with 46 percent saying
too much and 37 percent too little.
Okay, that last sentence doesn't sound right, does it? So I went to the source:
Republicans, Democrats and independents all are more likely to say the
U.S. does too little to solve world problems, but the shift among
Republicans has been striking. Last fall, 52% of Republicans said the
U.S. does too much to help solve global problems, while just 18% said it
does too little. Today, 46% of Republicans think the U.S. does too
little to solve global problems, while 37% say it does too much.
Oh yeah, and then there's this:
Obama gets his best rating for handling race relations; nearly half
approve of how he is handling race relations (48%) compared with 42% who
disapprove. His ratings for handling other issues – including policy
toward Israel (37% approve), the situation involving Russia and Ukraine
(35%) and the situation in Iraq (35%) – are more negative than positive.
But The Hill doesn't mention that.
Oh, and by the way, Pew says that a majority of Americans thinks Obama isn't tough enough on foreign policy. What a surprise....
Obama’s approach to foreign policy continues to be viewed as not tough
enough: 54% say Obama is not tough enough in his approach on foreign
policy and national security issues, while 36% say his approach is about
right and just 3% say he is too tough.
Are Americans waking up to the disaster Obama has wrought? We can only hope.
Israel as a wedge issue: 57% of Americans, but only 41% of Democrats, support Gaza operation
There's no election in the US right now, and Israel is still a 'wedge issue' that divides Democrats and Republicans. The Washington Post reports on a poll that shows that while 57% of Americans support Israel's actions in Gaza, only 41% of Democrats (compared with 74% of Republicans and 50% of Independents) do so (Hat Tip: Lance K).
Seventy-four percent of Republicans said the action is justified, compared with 59 percent of independents and 41 percent of Democrats. Overall, nearly one-in-five (19 percent) Americans said they had no opinion.
Nearly six-in-10 Americans polled (59 percent) said their sympathies were more with the Israelis in the situation in the Middle East, while 13 percent said they were more sympathetic to the Palestinians. Eleven percent said they were not more sympathetic to either side, while 13 percent said they had no opinion. The poll was conducted Friday through Sunday.
The reality is that support for Israel is already a wedge issue in the US, and it is only getting worse. I doubt that there is anything Israel can do - short of committing suicide God forbid - to change that reality. The Left isn't going to become Israel supporting in the foreseeable future. The bigger issue is how we keep Jews who are drifting Left from writing Israel off. The answer to that question is in establishing a connection between these people and Israel, and that can only come about by establishing a connection between these (mostly young) people and Judaism.
You may recall that in the 2010 elections, Republican Joel Pollak was defeated by Democrat 'J Street Jan' Schakowsky in Illinois' heavily Jewish 9th Congressional district. Now, things have gotten so bad that the Jews of Chicago's northern suburbs are finally voting Republican (Hat Tip: Soccer Dad via Twitter and Instapundit).
Mitt Romney is receiving support from Jewish voters not seen for a Republican candidate in 24 years. Although a sizable majority of Jewish Americans will still cast their ballots for Barack Obama, the erosion of Obama’s solid foundation in the Jewish community is a political phenomenon worthy of commentary. It is also one that can make a striking difference in an electoral race polling within sampling error.
Nowhere is this phenomenon as visible as in Chicago’s heavily Jewish and Democratic northern suburbs. There, the Jewish embrace of the Republicans has reached such significant numbers that the Daily Herald, Chicago’s largest and most prestigious suburban newspaper, ran the topic as its lead story in its Sunday edition (July 8): “More suburban Jews turning to the Republican Party.”
Beneath the headline ran a picture of Arie Friedman, a prominent pediatrician and Republican candidate for the Illinois state Senate in the 29th district. Friedman — like Jewish candidate Jonathan Greenberg, an ordained rabbi who is running for the state house in the newly formed 57th district — is a fiscal conservative who is strong on national defense and liberal on social issues.
But while both candidates are Jewish in districts with large numbers of Jewish voters, they are not running on Jewish issues. They are running against a runaway fiscal policy that has ruined a great state. Illinois’ bloated pension system, mountain of debt, and soaring taxes are as much local issues as they are national. What propels Jews toward Romney also propels them toward the local Republican candidates. The hope of the local candidates is that Democratic identifiers who vote for Romney will continue to vote for Republicans at the local level and for the same reasons.
When pundits speak of Jews deserting Obama, his tenuous policies on Israel come to mind. Yet Paul Miller, a political consultant to both the Greenberg and Friedman campaigns who has long been involved in Illinois politics (disclosure: he is a relative), sees things differently. To Miller, Jews are first and foremost experiencing politics as would any American citizen, and Illinois rivals California for the state in the most dire economic condition.
And in a bit that could have been written by my regular commenter, Sunlight...
Jews are slowly beginning to understand that compassion and social justice cannot mean a coerced transfer of the benefits of their labor to someone else. The concepts of tzedakah (charity) and tikkun olam (repairing the world) are moral obligations of the individual, not obligations imposed on the individual by the state. As Jews see the administrative costs of government, the debt, and the economic chaos, they are beginning to understand unrestrained leftism has nothing to do with their values. One can better repair the world by creating economic conditions where people have the opportunity to prosper.
Well, those of us who study the sources saw that a long time ago.... J
ews are beginning to untie their Democratic moorings, because this is now not the party of JFK, but of Jimmy Carter. That is Barack Obama’s unique contribution to the transformation of the Jewish vote.
...
Most Jews will vote for Obama, but American elections generally have been about the margins. And the difference between 88% and 60% of the Jewish vote certainly can make a difference, especially if that translates to other contests down the ballot.
Indeed.
Now, lest you all get your hopes up, I asked Joel Pollak a while back if he would consider challenging Schakowsky again. Joel, who is now at Breitbart.com, told me that, for now at least, he's not thinking about it. Maybe we can get him to reconsider?
On Tuesday night, the Republican candidates for President debated foreign policy issues on CNN. Here's an excerpt in which they discuss sanctions against Iran.
Let's go to the videotape.
I just did a quick flip through CNN's live blog of the debate. The only mentions of Israel were in the context of attacking Iran. Even Ron Paul said that the US should 'get out of Israel's way' (we'd rather not do it that way, because we believe that we could damage Iran and its nuclear weapons program, but that only the United States could destroy it).
Hmmm.
Do the American people care about the 'peace process'? I don't think so.
Video: Ileana Ros-Lehtinen on the 'Obama doctrine'
Here's an interview with House Foreign Affairs Committee Chairwoman Ileana Ros-Lehtinen (R-Fl) talking about the 'Obama doctrine' (I'll bet you didn't know there was one).
Video: Interview with Congressman Randy Forbes (R-Va) about his visit to Judea and Samaria
In an earlier post, I reported that five Republican Congressmen had visited Judea and Samaria this week. Here's an interview with one of them, Representative Randy Forbes of Virginia.
A delegation of Republican congressmen who strongly support Israel and stand behind many of its policies is hardly an unusual sight.
Like many who have come before, they shook hands with Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu and visited the Western Wall.
But in an unusual move, they veered from the well-worn diplomatic path, to see some of the spots at the heart of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
Noam Arnon, spokesman for the Jewish Community of Hebron, said this was the first time he knew of that a delegation like this had ever come to see the Jewish sites in his city and to speak with residents there.
“They will now be strong and knowledgeable ambassadors for Israel, even more than our own,” said Naftali Bennett, the director-general of the Council of Jewish Communities of Judea, Samaria and the Gaza Strip, who spent time with the delegation.
Their fact-finding mission last week was kept under wraps until they left the country at the start of this week.
It was important to go beyond the media images of the country, Forbes said as he sat in a suit, with a view of the Temple Mount behind him.
Very few Americans even knew what the West Bank was, he said.
“When you talk about it, they think you mean the Western side of some river that is moving through the Middle East,” he said.
It was always important, he said, to see the geography of a place. But that was particularly true in Israel, given its small size. If there were a military attack, “you have seconds to respond, we have hours,” he said.
“It is a big difference, and it changes the way you think of security,” he said.
He said he didn’t want to dictate to Israel the terms of a two-state solution or what its borders should be. But any final-status agreement must guarantee Israel’s security.
“If Israel would ask,” he said, “I would say, not at the 1967 line.
“That would be a mistake,” Forbes said and added that he did not believe Israel could defend itself, if the pre-1967 lines became the border.
Israel should not compromise its security needs in an effort to jumpstart the peace talks with the Palestinians, he said.
“It may create long-term instability,” he warned.
Nor does he believe that the US should insist on a freeze of settlement activity.
While in Ariel, he said, he heard how the city had been harmed by the lack of construction.
Forbes was ]struck by the fact that Palestinians in the West Bank could build, while Jews struggled for permits.
He also had strong statements to make about Jerusalem. The US should move its embassy from Tel Aviv to the capital, Forbes said.
“We should not tell the people of Israel where to put their capital.
Once they have decided that Jerusalem should be their capital, I think it is important that our embassy should be in their capital and I would support that move,” he said.
His support for the Jewish state, which he visited for the first time in 2001, stretched back to his childhood, he explained.
As a college student, Forbes was so intrigued by Israel that he wrote his senior thesis on the Israeli-Arab conflict.
Already then, he said, he understood Israel’s significance to the Western world, as both a democratic nation in the Middle East and a strong American ally.
“My conclusion has only been solidified over the years,” he said.
Eric Erickson charges Jennifer Rubin with dual loyalty, then backtracks
On Wednesday, Red State's Erick Erickson made a not-so-veiled charge of dual loyalty against Washington Post blogger Jennifer Rubin (Hat Tip: American Power).
Jenn Rubin, when not pushing out Romney talking points is in favor of freeing traitors, claims to be a conservative covering the conservative movement, though she has nothing in common with conservatives other than hating terrorists. A conservative friend says she’s best understood as ‘Likud’ rather than Republican or conservative. There’s nothing wrong with being Likud, but one ought to be honest about it. (Please be sure to read this update regarding this reference)
The update to which he refers took 16 hours to get there, and includes this:
I nor the friend of mine who offered that up are anti-Semitic, but it has apparently hit a nerve that I did not intend to hit and I feel I do need to apologize for that. A friend of mine explains to me that a Jewish-American might find it insulting because it suggests they put Israel ahead of the United States.
I had not thought of that when writing it and was not my intention. Where I finally had enough of Jenn Rubin was her position on Jonathan Pollard that I cannot in any way, shape, or form comprehend as being the right position. It was that position of hers and her positions on national security, terrorism, and Israel (all three of which she and I see eye to eye on) that didn’t make me think twice about using the Likud comparison. Apparently I should have. Likud as a party is tough as nails on terrorism and security issues, but is liberal to left (by American standards) on fiscal and social policy, and that’s what I intended by the comparison, not a suggestion of misplaced loyalty. And certainly not anti-semitism.
I would not call the Likud 'liberal to left' on fiscal policy - the forces arrayed against the free market in this country are far different than in the US, and there is a very different balance of power here. But that's not the point of this post.
What I want to get to is Erickson's labeling of anyone who advocates for Jonathan Pollard's release as having dual loyalties (yes, that still comes through in his apology) and of automatically not being a conservative. Over the last year, Lawrence Korb (formerly Caspar Weinberger's number 2 at the Defense Department), former CIA Director R. James Woolsey, former Senate Select Committee on Intelligence Chairman Dennis DeConcini (D-AZ), former Attorney General Michael Mukasey, former US Secretary of State George Schultz, and Harvard Professor Charles Ogletree have all come out in favor of releasing Pollard. Of those, to the best of my knowledge, only Mukasey is Jewish and only DeConcini and Ogletree are not Republicans.
Additionally, some 500 American Jewish and Christian leaders called for Pollard's release in a letter to President Obama in January. That letter cites all of the following (some of whom are already listed above) as favoring Pollard's release:
Nobel Laureate Elie Wiesel, Senators Charles Schumer and Arlen Specter, Harvard Law Professors Charles Ogletree and Alan Dershowitz, former Attorney General Michael Mukasey, former Assistant Secretary of Defense Lawrence Korb, Rev. Theodore Hesburgh of Notre Dame, Benjamin Hooks of the NAACP, former federal Judge George Leighton, former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani, former U.S. Solicitor General Theodore Olsen, Pastor John Hagee, and Gary Bauer.
And 39 members of Congress.
Would Erickson accuse all of them of dual loyalty? Are none of them Republican or conservative enough for Erickson? Surely Hagee and Bauer (at least) ought to be. And if that's the case, why is Erickson going after Jennifer with a charge like this and not after any of them?
Pollard committed a crime and he's paid for that crime disproportionately. It's long past time to let him go. Unfortunately, much of the American Jewish community cannot find its voice on this issue precisely because it is intimidated by the type of dual loyalty charges made by Erickson against Jennifer Rubin. But the American Jewish community ought to find its voice.
Jonathan Pollard continues to sit in jail today precisely because he spied for Israel and not for Russia or China or Cuba. Jonathan Pollard continues to sit in jail today because of Caspar Weinberger's antipathy for Israel and Jews. Here's what Lawrence Korb had to say about that when he came out for releasing Pollard.
"Based on the knowledge that I have first hand, I can confidently say that the punishment was so severe because of lack of sympathy for Israel by the U.S. Secretary of Defense at the time, my boss, Caspar Weinberger," the letter stated.
According to Korb, Weinberg made great efforts to convince the judge to punish Pollard severely. "Although Pollard pleaded guilty, cooperated with the government and asked for clemency - he received disproportionate punishment," wrote Korb. "In the end Weinberg himself did not put the Pollard story in his biography. Weinberger said that the reason for this is because the affair had been exaggerated beyond minor importance - that is, he finally understood and admitted that the story had been blown beyond proportions. "
Korb emphasized that the average penalty for the offense Pollard committed is two to four years, and even today when the law changed - the average sentence is 10 years. "So if he was sentenced today he could not sit 25 years in prison. Justice will be done if the sentence is shortened to what has already been run to date," Korb's letter concluded.
Mr. Erickson should stop bullying people who disagree with him.
Shmuel Rosner describes Republican candidate Mitt Romney's foreign policy team as "one of the best groups that can be put together by anyone."
In the days leading to this speech Romney also revealed the long list of foreign policy advisers (full list here). When it comes to clear-cut supporters-of-Israel, this is probably one of the best groups that can be put together by anyone. No Brzezinskis, no Rob Malleys, no Samantha Powerses (and for those who like to count: the percentage of Jewish advisors is also dizzying).
The list is indeed quite impressive, and if you're into thinking 'my enemy's enemy is my friend' (as many are here in the Middle East), this has to be especially pleasing.
However, some Washington Middle East experts have already flagged Lebanese-American scholar Walid Phares as a controversial co-chair of the Romney Mideast team.
"Walid Phares is advising Romney on Middle East policy? For realz? That's terrifying + not just because of [Lebanese Forces] LF history," George Washington University Middle East expert Marc Lynch wrote on Twitter, referring to Phares' past reported role with the right-wing Lebanese Christian militia during that country's civil war. "To be clear: I have nothing against Gov. Romney," the Center for New American Security's Andrew Exum similarly wrote at Twitter. "But appointing Walid Phares your M.E. advisor is NUTS." Phares, now affiliated with the National Defense University, was an outspoken advocate of the U.S. invasion of Iraq and of a hawkish Middle Eastern policy during the Bush years.
Rosner reviews Romney's speech at the Citadel and concludes:
Whether one accepts this analysis of world affairs or not, it is clear at this point that Republican candidates reserve special role for Israel as a weapon in the 2012 election war: A political weapon with which to woo pro-Israel evangelical and (later) Jewish voters – but also a strategic metaphor with which to woo all voters.
And that competition for pro-Israel votes can only help Israel.
I am an Orthodox Jew - some would even call me 'ultra-Orthodox.' Born in Boston, I was a corporate and securities attorney in New York City for seven years before making aliya to Israel in 1991 (I don't look it but I really am that old :-). I have been happily married to the same woman for thirty-five years, and we have eight children (bli ayin hara) ranging in age from 13 to 33 years and nine grandchildren. Four of our children are married! Before I started blogging I was a heavy contributor on a number of email lists and ran an email list called the Matzav from 2000-2004. You can contact me at: IsraelMatzav at gmail dot com
