Led by Sen. Ted Kennedy, Democrats recently waged a vicious battle against the distinguished scholar Daniel Pipes, whom President Bush had nominated for a position on the board of the United States Institute of Peace (USIP), a think tank designed to advance ideas for resolving world conflicts through peaceful means.
Pipes is widely respected as an expert on the subject of Islamic fundamentalism. Newspaper editorial boards across the country – including the ardently liberal Los Angeles Times – endorsed Pipes for the position. One group, however, took the lead in attempting to scuttle Pipes’s nomination – the Council on American Islamic Relations (CAIR), an outgrowth of the Islamic Association of Palestine, described by former FBI associate director Oliver ‘Buck’ Revell as ‘a front organization for Hamas.’
Ordinarily this sort of nomination would have been a ‘slam dunk.’ A Jewish candidate is nominated for a prestigious position by the president, and our friends in Washington make sure the confirmation goes smoothly. Oh, how times – and Democrats – have changed.
It’s one thing to vote against a nominee based on an informed knowledge of his or her background. But the ammunition used by Democrats in their war on Pipes – including quotes from his writings wrenched out of context – was provided by the suddenly respectable folks at CAIR.
Think about that. Democrat leaders, the very ones who have vociferously criticized the Bush administration for its handling of intelligence on Iraq, accepted as fact whatever was fed to them by a radical Muslim group whose leaders have called for the Islamization of America. This should frighten not just every Jew in the country but every American citizen. If a lone group with a history of support for terrorist organizations can so easily influence U.S. lawmakers, where does that leave us as a country?
And then there was the now infamous Democratic debate in Maryland. Howard Dean, at the time the front-runner for his party’s nomination (he’s since been supplanted by newly-declared candidate Wesley Clark) said that this country ‘should not take sides’ in the Arab-Israeli conflict and that Israel would have to abandon an ‘enormous’ number of settlements. He was chided for those remarks by fellow presidential wannabe Joseph Lieberman, but the question Jews should be asking is why other prominent Democrats shrank from condemning Dean’s troubling moral equivalence.
Usually non-Jewish politicians will support Israel for one or more of the following three reasons:
1) They are devout Christians who support Israel unconditionally. Congressman Tom DeLay of Texas and Sen. James Inhofe of Oklahoma do not have Jewish constituents and have nothing to gain by pandering to a Jewish community that neither votes for nor contributes money to conservative Republicans.
2) They admire Israel’s commitment to democracy and freedom of religion in an area of the world where those values are foreign. Further, they believe that Israel must maintain a qualitative military edge over its Arab enemies in order to protect our own interests in the region.
3) They know that support for Israel means money for them and for their party from wealthy Jewish contributors. I believe most (not all) Democrats fall into this category.
Why do I feel that most Democrats support Israel for reason number 3? For starters, the Democratic party has become the political megaphone for secularist extremism in America. How many times have you heard Democrats refer to religious conservatives in mocking and derogatory terms? Israel is the Holy Land – the land of G-d’s Chosen People. Do you really think that those who believe that G-d should be taken out of the Pledge of Allegiance or that the Ten Commandments should be removed from the classroom feel anything remotely spiritual toward Israel?
On issues of defense and national security, Democrats have been the party of appeasement going back to the early 1970’s. How many leading Democrats castigated President Reagan for calling the Soviet Union what it was – an Evil Empire? How many Democrats made no bones about feeling that Reagan was a greater threat to world peace than the Russians?
The Democrats, with a few notable exceptions, were against the first Gulf War (when the U.S. enjoyed widespread international support – even from Germany and France). And for better than a year now we?ve heard every Democratic presidential candidate droning on and on about the virtues of the United Nations and about how the Bush administration should coordinate American foreign policy with the UN.
The UN! The very body that consistently bashes the U.S. and Israel while giving respect and credibility to countries that provide safe haven for terrorists – this is the outfit the leaders of the Democratic party would entrust as guarantors of freedom and protectors of the innocent?
A couple of years ago Rabbi Shmuley Boteach escorted the Rev. Al Sharpton on a visit to Israel, a move that backfired as Sharpton went back on his word and paid a visit to Yasir Arafat. On his return to the U.S., Boteach was scolded by radio talk show host Bob Grant for embarking on such a mission in the first place. Boteach defended his trip by saying Israel needed as many friends as it could get.
We as a community have to stop looking under every rock to see who will be our friend. For too long we have accepted as a friend any politician who utters words of support when there is no political risk at hand. The Arab-American community is growing in size and influence – witness its clout in the fight over the Pipes nomination – and as a result we Jews will have to be far less trusting of politicians whose support of Israel is suspect.
One rule I always follow: If a politician routinely votes against the moral and military interests of America, why would his or her support of Israel be any more credible?
By their recent words and actions, Democrats have put us on notice. Whether we have it in us to respond accordingly remains to be seen.
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