Joe Kennedy and Sean Bielat on how to deal with Iran
Here's a video from Massachusetts 4 (the Congressional District where I was born) which deserves more exposure.
You will recall that Republican Sean Bielat nearly defeated Democratic Barney Frank in 2010. As a result, Frank retired and Bielat now finds himself running against Joe Kennedy, whose qualifications for office are... his least name... and the fact that he thinks the capital of Israel is... Tel Aviv.
Here's how Bielat and Kennedy responded to a question about how to deal with Iran in a recent debate.
Let's go to the videotape.
As you all know, I was in that district briefly last week (I had planned to stay longer but cut my trip short to return home and sit shiva). The district is heavily Jewish. So of course, most of the signs I saw on people's lawns were for Fauxahontas (Democratic Senate candidate Elizabeth Warren, who has been lying for years about having Indian heritage) and for Joe Kennedy.
Of course: Muslim Congressman supports US foreign aid to Iran
I guess that it shouldn't come as too much of a surprise to anyone that Congressman Keith Ellison (D-Mn) supports giving US foreign aid to Iran. What is surprising (and maybe this also shouldn't be surprising) is that Keith Ellison has an ideological home in the US Democratic party.
Jewish organizations' agenda changes for new Congress
American Jewish organizations have been forced to adjust their agendas for the new Republican Congress. Here are some of the things that affect Israel.
Israel funding is likely to remain steady, Capitol Hill sources said, although there are concerns about how the funding will take place given the Republicans' interest in trimming foreign spending.
Some leading Republicans, including Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen (R-Fla.), the new chairwoman of the U.S. House of Representatives Foreign Affairs Committee, say Congress could separate funding for Israel from overall foreign spending, allowing conservatives to maintain current levels for Israel while slashing foreign spending for countries they don’t see as friendly or programs they oppose.
The pro-Israel community sees such a proposal as disastrous, in part because it will make Israel a “special case” after years of efforts to make backing Israel a natural extension of foreign policy. That could engender resentment of Israel.
Correspondingly, the pro-Israel lobby sees foreign aid as a means to bolster support for the U.S.-Israel alliance in the international community. Pro-Israel groups in Washington often have taken the lead in lobbying for Israel-friendly countries in the past.
One proposal has been to make Israel funding a part of defense spending. Insiders say they have been reassured that Rep. Kay Granger (R-Texas), the chairwoman of the foreign operations subcommittee of the Appropriations Committee, has no intention of giving up funding for Israel and the power it yields her.
It also remains unclear what Republicans mean when they say they plan on keeping funding for Israel steady. Israel and the United States are in the middle of a 10-year agreement that incrementally increases assistance year by year between 2007 and 2017, so that it averages $3 billion a year.
Does “keeping funding steady” mean maintaining the 2010 level of $2.775 billion, or keeping to the agreement and upping the amount to $3 billion this year?
Officials say the best asset available to Jewish organizations dealing with domestic and foreign policy is the grass roots -- not the lobbyists in Washington, but the activists across the country who make appointments to see their lawmakers on home visits.
I'm not convinced that funding Israel out of the defense budget is 'disastrous' - South Korea is funded the same way and it would make it clear that we are getting funding to protect US interests and not because we are schnorrers. However, we need to examine any proposal to do that more closely before going along with it. If Congress wants an excuse to cut funding to the 'Palestinians,' I am all in favor.
And obviously, we need to clarify what "keeping funding steady" means.
Amid high expectations from Israel's supporters, the 112th United States Congress will be installed on Wednesday.
Though the Democrats’ shellacking in the November election reduced the numbers of Jewish members from 43 to 39 – though a new Democrat Jewish representative and senator will be among them – Silverman pointed out that the sole Jewish Republican, incoming Majority Leader Eric Cantor of Virginia, will be the highest-ranking Jewish member ever.
Silverman predicted that the most visible change on Israel will be the extent to which Congress now challenges the Obama administration over its handling of the Middle East.
“The biggest difference we expect is how bold and how tough an approach we expect to see in congressional oversight,” he said. The members are “going to be skeptical and ask questions and conduct vigorous oversight of government policies.”
The non-partisan American Israel Public Affairs Committee described the 112th Congress as “expected to be the most pro-Israel Congress ever” in its Near East Report on the incoming legislative class produced after the elections.
“Many of Israel’s strongest supporters were reelected,” according to the AIPAC report. “AIPAC lay leaders and staff have established relationships with every new senator” already and received position papers in which “the new members of Congress express their support for a strong US-Israel relationship.”
But others, particularly Democrats, are concerned about what effect the new Congress will have on Israel, especially since many of the freshmen are Tea Party candidates without a long history of involvement in international issues and bent on cutting the budget.
“My greatest concern is two-fold: one is the unknown [members] and second is the ramifications of the deep fiscal conservatism and what that means for foreign aid and America’s involvement in the world,” said David Harris, president and CEO of the National Jewish Democratic Council.
What's left unsaid is that the extent of support for Israel in this Congress is going to be dependent in many instances on Congress' willingness to clash with a President who does not feel any warmth toward the Jewish state (how's that for nuance?). The facts that the House is now controlled by Republicans and that most of the Senators facing elections in 2012 are Democrats makes it more likely - in my opinion - that Congress will be willing to go to the mat against the President when it comes to Israel.
The number of Jews in Congress is irrelevant (although Cantor's (pictured) position is nice). Most of Israel's support in the US these days comes from Christian Zionists like the ones who read this blog, and not, unfortunately, from Jews.
Steve Rosen asks what ought to be an obvious question and doesn't really provide an answer. The question is why President Obama is allowing 'moderate' 'Palestinian' President Mahmoud AbbasAbu Mazen to get away with refusing to negotiate with Israel for the first time in nearly 20 years. The question is one that ought to be asked, but after reviewing a lot of different possibilities, Rosen doesn't give much of an answer. Instead, he throws the ball into Congress' court.
Members of Congress are starting to take notice of the administration's reticence to confront Palestinian intransigence. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen (R-FL), the incoming House Foreign Affairs Committee chairwoman, said on Dec. 23 of Palestinian leaders: "They know they don't have to do a darn thing; with this administration they will get a blank check, and they will always get helped out.… Try examining where they're using their money and where our U.S. dollars are going." Her Democratic counterpart, California's Howard Berman, the outgoing chairman of the committee, said a few days earlier, referring to Abbas's unilateral drive to seek early recognition of Palestinian statehood, "If they try to circumvent negotiations, they'll lose the support of a lot of people like me, and it will jeopardize their foreign aid as well."
As it happens, a statute is already in place, requiring sanctions against such violations of the solemn commitments the Palestinians made. The Middle East Peace Commitments Act of 2002 notes that "Resolution of all outstanding issues in the conflict between the two sides through negotiations" is one of the core commitments to which the Palestinian Authority has obligated itself, and it requires the president to notify Congress of such violations and impose penalties, which may include a "prohibition on United States assistance to the West Bank and Gaza." When it returns to Washington this month, the new Congress may not share Obama's reluctance to criticize Abbas. With the support of Speaker John Boehner and Majority Leader Eric Cantor, the new House in particular may be willing to do something about it.
Well, yes, but that doesn't mean that we don't need to understand why President Obama is treating Israel the way he is treating it, because only with that understanding can we counteract that treatment. The answer is here, but I doubt that Foreign Policy (which is generally pro-Arab) would publish it. Those of you who have not read the post at that link before should read it in full, but the bottom line is that President Obama regards Israel as "an aggressive, Western imperialist power exploiting indigenous people of color who simply wish to be free." And his 'moral conscience' won't brook that 'exploitation.'
Any Congressional attempt to deprive the 'Palestinians' of funding is doomed to failure, because Europe will just step in to the breach and make up the shortfall. What Congress needs to do is to attack President Obama's jaundiced view of the Jewish state and not just to play defense on funding.
Mrs. Carl keeps sending me emails asking me to buy all kinds of 'flash memories' so I thought this cartoon would be appropriate to share with all of you.
The same or worse could be said about the Knesset.
Former Defense Minister and Israeli ambassador to the United States Moshe Arens writes that the 112th Congress will be good for the Jews.
As is well known, in the United States foreign policy is determined by the president. He decides and he and his secretary of state execute. Only when foreign policy decisions require budgetary allocations is the president dependent on congressional approval. At first sight it looks like there is hardly any room for the Congress to interfere or influence when it comes to foreign policy. However, there is more here than meets the eye. First of all, the new Congress is very friendly to Israel. Not that friendship, and even admiration, for Israel is limited to the Republican party - that sentiment is bipartisan and includes Democrats and Republicans alike. However, many Democrats in Congress who did not agree with the pressure that the president applied to Israel in the past two years have hesitated to voice criticism of the president's policy out of loyalty to the leader of their party.
Republicans in the new Congress will feel no such compunction. They will let the president and the country know when they disagree with him. The new Congress can be expected to be openly supportive of Israel. That means that if the president were to resume his tactic of pressuring Israel he will find himself in opposition to many in the Congress. With many other urgent items on his agenda he may not want to get into a collision with Congress on this issue. If he were to consider taking punitive measures against Israel, if he finds the Israeli government recalcitrant, he will find it difficult to get the cooperation of Congress in the areas where this is required.
It is therefore unlikely that we will see a repeat of the crises between the U.S. and Israel, real and artificial, that we witnessed in the past two years. The Israeli prime minister will not again be insulted on his visits to Washington. There'll be some changes. This Congress will not give the president a free pass on Israel.
So then why is Prime Minister Netanyahu rushing to appease President Obama?
Others disagree with Arens. For example, both Newsweek and Haaretz's Akiva Eldar believe that Israel will soon be subjected to more pressure from Obama.
Both Newsweek's writer and Eldar conclude that, as the former puts it, "when the dust clears, [Netanyahu] can expect renewed pressure to resume the settlement freeze in the West Bank and get serious in talks with the Palestinians."
Benjamin Kerstein, at that last link, believes that Netanyahu can walk between the raindrops.
The reality in Israel is now completely different. Arafat's betrayal of Clinton at Camp David in 2000, the collapse of Oslo in the carnage of the second intifada, and the all but total lack of sympathy with or support for Israel displayed by the international community throughout the upheavals of the past decade have fundamentally changed the country's domestic consensus. However Israelis may feel about specific issues like settlements and borders, the overwhelming majority are unwilling to take the same risks they took in 1994, or for that matter in 1996. Moreover, they feel they should not be asked to do so.
As long as Netanyahu keeps himself in sync with this consensus, and does not swing too far to the Left or the Right, he is likely to be relatively safe from American attempts at triangulation. Indeed, he may be in a position to indulge in a little triangulation of his own, pleasing the center-Right in Israel and the U.S. by reacting sharply to Obama's criticism of building in Jerusalem ("Jerusalem is not a settlement; Jerusalem is the capital of the State of Israel") while pleasing the center-Left by acquiescing in another temporary settlement freeze.
Barring unforeseen events, then, it is highly questionable that Obama will be able to match Clinton's effectiveness in pushing his dream of a breakthrough agreement in the Middle East on a skeptical Israeli public, or for that matter on an American public whose sympathies are running strongly in Israel's direction. Again barring unforeseen events, Obama may find himself wishing for the kind of congressional support that Clinton never needed.
I believe that it all depends on where Obama sees himself. If Obama sees himself as a viable candidate for a second term (and right now he does), then Kerstein is right and Obama will not be able to put real pressure on Israel, at least until after the 2012 elections.
But if Obama comes to the conclusion that he is destined to be a one-term President, then he is likely to be more willing to pressure Israel in a bid to create a legacy for himself. In that case, while Congress may love us, there will be little they can do for us.
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
