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Jonathan S. Tobin is executive editor of the Jewish Exponent in Philadelphia:
www.jewishexponent.com
He can be reached at:
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By Jonathan S. Tobin
March 14, 2004
In the run up to the 1996 presidential election, former Sen. Bob Dole, then the Senate's Republican majority leader, discovered Israel on his way to the GOP's presidential nomination.
Though he had not been known as an ardent advocate for the Jewish state, Dole went all out to make new friends before his eventual defeat at the hands of Bill Clinton. The monument to this effort is the legislation he sponsored that mandated that the United States move its embassy to Israel from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem. Still on the books - though routinely flouted by both Clinton and his successor, George W. Bush - Dole's Jerusalem bill bears witness to the lengths to which presidential wannabes will go to get Jewish money and votes. Cynics can point to this transparent attempt to pander to pro-Israel sentiment as proof of how pointless the process can be. And yet who can deny that the ritual of appealing to the pro-Israel sentiments of voters (both Jewish and non-Jewish) has a profound affect on America's Middle East policy? The mere act of making such a promise, even one as meaningless as Dole's, makes it less likely that Israel's foes will miscalculate and think they can drive a wedge between Israel and America.
All of which brings us to an examination of the latest round of pandering: this time the efforts of Sen. John Kerry, the Massachusetts Democrat who has sewn up his party's presidential nomination.
Changing his mind
Kerry is more familiar with Jewish voters than Dole. He also has a coterie of influential Jewish supporters and financial backers, in addition to a lengthy record of support for Israel. Yet even Kerry found himself tap dancing for a group of Jewish leaders last week in the days before the New York primary, trying to explain away a couple of damaging statements that opponents have been circulating to undermine his candidacy.
One revolved around a Kerry speech to an Arab-American group last fall, in which he said he opposed the security fence that Israel is building to protect its citizens against Palestinian terrorists, calling it a "barrier to peace."
Kerry stepped in it again in December when during the course of a foreign-policy address, he blasted the Bush administration's unwillingness to intervene more forcefully in the Middle East peace process, and said that, if elected, he would send a special envoy to the region. He went on to mention former President Jimmy Carter and former Secretary of State James Baker as people he might consider for the role, nominees that most Jews would consider a bipartisan short list of those most hostile to the interests of the Jewish nation.
But when confronted on these points in New York, Kerry backpedaled furiously. Demonstrating his well-known ability to come down on both sides of all issues (what some call his "flexibility"), the candidate claimed to be a big supporter of the fence. He also promised that his Mideast envoy would certainly be someone far more acceptable to Israel than either Carter or Baker. Previous statements were, Kerry's spinmasters said, just a misunderstanding.
Maybe so, but Kerry can expect that both flip-flops will be thrown in his face by Bush supporters all the way to November. Others will cite a passage in Kerry's 1997 book on foreign policy, The New War, in which he wrote that Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat was a "role model" for other terrorists because of his "transformation from outlaw to statesman." Of course, Kerry says he doesn't believe that any more either.
All the same, it isn't likely this issue will have much of an impact on the Jewish vote this year. Most Jews remain partisan Democrats, and Israel notwithstanding, share their fellow party members' deep antipathy to the president. But even a small gain in the percentage of Jewish votes for Bush over the 18 percent he received in 2000 would make a crucial difference in battleground states such as Florida.
So you can expect Republicans to emphasize Bush's support for Israel and the war on terrorism for Jewish voters. In reply, Democrats will assert that Kerry has a longer history of support for Jewish causes than Bush. They will also keep wavering voters in line by linking Bush to conservative Christians, who scare liberal Jews to death on domestic issues, even if most Evangelicals are stronger supporters of Israel than some Jews.
Some real differences
But the problem with the gotcha game that both sides play is that it leaves little time to discuss the real differences between a possible Kerry presidency and that of the Bush administration.
In the last four years, Bush's strong support of Israel and implacable criticism of Arafat have resonated with backers of Israel. So, too, has his insistence that democracy in the Arab world be a precondition for peace - a position that appalled Europeans and the American foreign-policy establishment.
In contrast, Kerry is a true believer in multilateral diplomacy. And while Bush has shown himself to be more comfortable with Ariel Sharon and his right-of-center Israeli government than any previous American president, Kerry enjoys the company of Israelis like Geneva accord mastermind Yossi Beilin. On the Middle East, a Kerry presidency is almost certain to feel like a continuation of the Clinton administration.
On the other hand, Kerry would come in to office as a strong critic of the Saudis, the funders of Islamic terror consistently appeased by Bush. And, despite all the applause Bush has gotten for his snubs of Arafat and for the ouster of Saddam Hussein, some right-wing Jews, such as Zionist Organization of America head Morton Klein, damn him all the same for his support for a Palestinian state.
But instead of spending the next eight months bashing their opponents, Jewish Democrats and Republicans would do us all a favor if they spent some of this time pushing their own standard-bearers to clarify their positions.
Democrats should keep Kerry's feet to the fire on Israel, and push him to draw appropriate conclusions from the failure of Oslo and Clinton's policies in the region.
Republicans need to make it clear to the president that he, too, doesn't have a blank check. For one thing, Bush needs to stop backing away from his demand that Palestinians oust Arafat.
What we need during this campaign is more accountability from both candidates on Middle East policy. What we're likely to get is just more spin and the same old partisanship.
Views expressed by the author do not
necessarily reflect those of israelinsider.
 
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