The intersection of religion and politics became a talk-show hit after Nov. 2, when the Christian right played a huge and perhaps pivotal role in the reelection of President George W. Bush.
Jews are not of one mind about the new focus on faith in politics; but many in the non-Orthodox majority remain uncomfortable with that trend and downright scared of new threats to church-state separation from the religious conservatives.
And many are troubled by the blatant manipulation of the “values agenda” by the consultants, media gurus and party strategists who increasingly dominate American politics.
That cynical use of religion was shockingly evident in the debate over legal recognition of marriages between homosexuals that was a huge factor in the 2004 election outcome.
At least in part, the frenzy was ignited by politicians cynically exploiting the issue, not by perception of any genuine threat. In the process, the attack-dog politicians gave backhanded legitimacy to raw bigotry, which is always dangerous to Jews, even when they are not the direct target.
A recent study shed some light on the issue. The study for “Facts and Trends,” a publication of the Southern Baptist Convention, surveyed Protestant ministers nationwide. The goal was to determine what the clergy saw as the “greatest threats to families in their communities.”
Some 43 percent of the pastors identified the biggest threat as divorce — an issue that has gotten almost no attention from the political defenders of the family, possibly because so many of them have experienced divorce first hand.
In second place was “negative influences from the media.” “Materialism” scored third. The list goes on, with threats ranging from pornography to the expenses of child care.
“Sexual predators or sexual abuse,” issues frequently raised by anti-gay marriage crusaders, were identified as major threats by only one percent of the pastors.
And marriage for homosexuals? It wasn’t even on the chart. Apparently pastors across the country do not see this as even a minor danger in their communities.
Drumming up fear
The researchers had an answer. The survey, they said, was conducted before the Massachusetts Supreme Court legalized same-sex marriage in that state in February.
But Evangelical political groups have been raging against gay marriage as a direct threat to the family for several years. The survey shows that despite that effort, the issue did not resonate with Christian clergy, who had a much more realistic view of the threats in their communities.
But then, along came the consultants and strategists who knew a winning issue when they saw one. After the Massachusetts court decision, Republican politicians, aided by conservative Christian interest groups, seized on the issue as a gift from the judicial gods.
They used it effectively to divert attention from a host of obvious threats to the nation, many of which lawmakers of both parties bore significant responsibility for — including the mushrooming budget deficit, the shaky economy, the war in Iraq and the homeland security mess.
Morality, they raged, was under siege by “activist judges.” The goal, many proclaimed, was nothing short of the destruction of the American family, not equal rights for gays and lesbians.
While gay marriage is an appropriate topic for serious debate, there was no basis for those exaggerated claims, as the Protestant pastors understood. But they resonated with a huge number of Americans eager for an enemy they could identify, not incomprehensible economic forces or the elusive mastermind of the Sept. 11, 2001, terror attacks, Al Qaida leader Osama bin Laden.
Ballot initiatives banning marriage between homosexuals were rushed onto ballots in 11 states. All passed, some by overwhelming margins; and that outpouring is credited with helping boost the GOP presidential ticket and congressional candidates across the country.
Politicians were acting on one of the oldest axioms in American democracy: When your political situation gets dicey, you can’t go wrong drumming up fear and fury aimed at some unpopular group. Immigrants, Catholics and Jews have all served as targets in the past; now it was the homosexuals’ turn.
The dangers to the Jewish community — which supports same-sex marriage and civil unions more than almost any other community, but also includes significant dissenting voices — should be obvious.
Every time politicians resort to open scapegoating, they legitimize use of hatred in the political arena. It’s worse when their efforts pay big political dividends, as in 2004. That lesson won’t be lost on self-serving politicians in the next election.
Right now, it’s gays and lesbians who are the target. But Jews can never be sure the stain of hatred won’t target our community, as well.
The Anti-Defamation League, among others, has always operated on the premise that bigotry, while ever-present in our world, can never be tolerated in public expression. Yet that is what happened in the long election campaigns.
Ask the pastors. Marriage between homosexuals is far from the biggest threat facing American families. The politicians who portrayed it as such are playing a dangerous game that can only undercut the basic protections that all minorities — including Jews — depend on in pluralistic America.
Former Madisonian James Besser has been Washington correspondent for the New York Jewish Week, the Baltimore Jewish Times and other leading Anglo-Jewish newspapers for 15 years.
Conventional wisdom rides again — toward another fall
By Jonathan S. Tobin
In much of what we laughingly call the “civilized world,” the death of terrorist and murderer Yasser Arafat was mourned with the usual solemnity given to a distinguished head of state.
Indeed, much of the international media gave Arafat’s send-off the “Princess Di” treatment. Lengthy biographies appeared in which platitudes about his symbolic value as the leader of the Palestinian cause were augmented by euphemisms about the tactics employed by his henchmen.
Even many who didn’t buy the nonsense about this Egyptian-born former Soviet satellite being a heroic revolutionary leader were still liable to treat him as a major celebrity. In American pop culture, no higher compliment can be paid.
In the Palestinian territories, the solemn rites for Arafat were celebrated with riots and uncontrolled bursts of gunfire, which accounted for numerous casualties — the usual pomp and circumstance of that violence-besotted culture.
The American foreign-policy establishment offered no tearful eulogies, such as heard on the BBC. Nor was there any gunfire — at least none was reported.
But the policy wonks at the State Department, members of the Council on Foreign Relations and the “Middle East experts” at major American newspapers (The New York Times’ Thomas L. Friedman, The Philadelphia Inquirer’s Trudy Rubin, the Boston Globe’s Thomas Oliphant, the Los Angeles Times’ Robert Scheer, etc.) are commemorating Arafat’s passing in the way they have reacted to virtually every piece of news that comes out of the region.
They are calling for more U.S. pressure on Israel to revive the peace process.
Faith-based policy
In these quarters, the belief that the only way to Middle East peace lies in American strong-arming of the region’s only democracy is akin to a religious faith.
No matter how many times it has been employed — and failed — the same “wise” men and women who are anointed as the “experts” on the conflict refuse to acknowledge that they may have been mistaken, or that their theories may be based more on wishful thinking than reality.
True, the death of Arafat does remove one of the principle obstacles to peace. As Barry Rubin, author of one the best books about Arafat (“Yasser Arafat: A Political Biography”), has said, the old terrorist’s greatest fear was that he would go down in Arab history as the man who sold Palestine to the Jews. No danger of that happening now, is there?
There remains a glimmer of hope that Mahmoud Abbas, Arafat’s apparent successor, will try to transform the Palestinian Authority into something more presentable to the American public.
How exactly it will cease to be a kleptocracy that subsidizes terror by paying its own killers (the Al Aksa Martyrs Brigade) and by condoning the actions of its Islamic rivals has yet to be determined. You can bet that Israel will go a long way to avoid being blamed for any of Abbas’ failures.
In his previous incarnation as P.A. prime minister, Abbas achieved nothing. Arafat never had any intention of allowing himself to be superceded, even by one of his old buddies (albeit one that in the past few years has been at pains to be portrayed in the Western press as a critic of Arafat’s tactics).
Israel was roundly condemned for failing to make concessions to make Abbas look good, even though he had zero chance of outmaneuvering Arafat. Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon won’t make that mistake again, and will probably release terror suspects and close security roadblocks in order to be seen as supportive of Abbas, even if it results in Israeli casualties.
But the experts are dead wrong, as they always have been, when they say that Bush must reverse course in his second term and emphasize bludgeoning Israel into concessions, rather than emphasizing the need for Palestinian reform.
There is no more risible piece of conventional wisdom than the one asserting the primary roadblock to peace is Bush’s refusal to force Israel to give more territory and to refrain from defending itself against Palestinian terror.
A decade of Oslo negotiations should have amply illustrated — even for those dimwitted experts — that American pressure on Israel only whets the Palestinians’ appetite for more.
The Israelis, desperate for a respite from terror and willing to go a long way to get it, can’t buy peace if the Palestinians aren’t selling. And the absence of a Palestinian will for peace is what has always been lacking.
Does Arafat’s death mean all that has changed? Maybe; but you don’t have to be an expert to figure out that if Arafat felt he didn’t have the clout to give up the “right of return” for Palestinian refugees, why would a comparative weakling like Abbas or any of his rivals do better, assuming they even wanted to?
If, as more level-headed skeptics suspect, the conflict is not about borders but about Israel’s existence — as the Palestinians with the guns and bombs continue to tell us — then all the U.S. pressure in the world won’t do anything but undermine Israel’s ability to defend itself.
But Arafat’s death has given Israel’s critics license to resurrect the same patent nostrums they peddled before. Will they succeed?
Bush and his new Secretary of State, Condoleezza Rice, have rightly held that progress toward a Palestinian state must begin with an end to terrorism and genuine reform of the P.A. That emphasis and Bush’s refusal to engage with Arafat until it happened have frustrated the experts to no end.
They hope Bush’s need to help his primary European ally, British Prime Minister Tony Blair, will cause him to reverse the revolution in American foreign policy that they effectuated in his first term.
Bush and Rice are being asked a simple question: What do they believe, the facts about the Palestinians, or the worn-out theories of Friedman, Rubin and company?
Here’s hoping that Rice is too smart — and Bush too stubborn — to get that one wrong.
Jonathan S. Tobin is editor and publisher of the Philadelphia Jewish Exponent.
All Mideast players should make behavioral changes
By Douglas M. Bloomfield
Even with Palestinian Authority President Yasser Arafat in his grave, peace is not breaking out. Israelis and Palestinians have a long way to go just to get back to the negotiating table.
But there are signs that both parties, after four bloody years of intifada, are at least ready to think about it.
Everyone involved has a long list of things the other side should be doing; but instead of focusing on “you first,” they should strengthen their own positions.
Call it enlightened self-interest, confidence-building or practical politics — the purpose is the same. The simplest and most effective moves are behavioral changes.
Here are brief to-do lists for all the parties:
For Israel:
• Targeted assassinations only rally public support around Palestinian extremists and weaken the moderates. They should stop.
• Don’t try to erect obstacles with unreasonable demands in the name of security. Give the new Palestinian leaders a chance to prove they’re not Arafat recycled.
• Withdraw from populated areas to allow Palestinian candidates and campaign workers as much free movement as possible. Only Palestinian officials with credible public support can negotiate peace
• Resist the temptation to endorse any candidates, speculate on succession and meddle in the elections — a kiss of death for the good guys.
• Coordinate the Gaza disengagement with the new P.A. leaders to avoid violent anarchy and to allow the Palestinian leaders to be seen by their people as the ones who will be in charge and can deal with Israel.
• Repackage commitments to the United States as measures to help Palestinian moderates, including rerouting the security fence as ordered by the Israeli high court.
• Stop hinting that the Gaza disengagement is intended to freeze future peace efforts.
For the Palestinians:
• Switch priorities from killing Israelis to making a better life for Palestinians. The death of one man, even Arafat, will not transform Palestinian society overnight; the new leaders have to prove themselves with deeds.
• Take control of your own house; and start by enforcing law and order on the streets, adopting genuine security reforms and dismantling the terror network.
• Accelerate financial reforms that the new leaders are already committed to; it will win the confidence of a Palestinian public angered by the corruption and malfeasance of the Arafat years.
• Create democratic institutions, starting with free and fair elections that will show the world you are prepared to be credible governors and serious peace partners.
For the Americans:
• Use revival of peace efforts to mend fences and enlist European and Arab partners in helping Palestinians meet their obligations and become true peace partners for Israel, not false partners as Arafat was.
• Immediately after the Palestinian elections, name a top level special envoy who speaks for and to the President. The parties must know this is not another part-time gesture but a serious commitment of time and resources.
• Let Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon know the U.S. election is over and he is now expected to deliver on his commitments, not offer new excuses.
For the Arab world
and its leaders:
• Quit kvetching. If you really want to help the Palestinians, give them the political and financial backing to build a responsible state and make peace with Israel; and halt all aid to the extremists who would undermine them.
• End the bitter incitement in your media and mosques; it makes you look like bigots and feeds the violent rejectionists in the Palestinian territories.
• Stop trying to undermine Israel’s legitimacy in international organizations and the court of world opinion. That will only make the creation of a Palestinian state a hopeless dream.
• Announce your readiness to make real peace with the Jewish state of Israel. Don’t be afraid to use both words in the same sentence.
• Saudi Arabia should put up or shut up about wanting peace and fighting terror. It can start by backing its March 2002 peace proposal with tangible gestures toward Israel.
• By thawing its frozen peace with Israel, Egypt can strengthen the peace camp in Israel and help open the way to agreements with the Palestinians and Syrians.
• Syria can’t be a terror base for anti-Israel and anti-American groups while claiming it wants peace with Israel and good relations with Washington. Make a choice.
For the Europeans:
• Stop standing on the sidelines lecturing Washington and Jerusalem about what they should be doing, and start using your chits with the Arabs to press them to join you in playing a constructive role.
• Assuage Israeli distrust by talking about the conflict in terms that recognize legitimate Israeli political and security concerns; be prepared to condemn Palestinian terror by name, not generically, and stop giving knee-jerk support to every anti-Israel resolution that comes before the United Nations.
• Regain Israeli trust by ending threats of boycotts and sanctions, and provide greater opportunities for military exchanges and Israeli participation in research, scientific and social integration.
• Make sure the money contributed to the P.A. is fully accounted for and doesn’t wind up in the pockets of crooked politicians and warlords.
For the United Nations:
• Condemn terrorism specifically and stop looking the other way when it targets Israel and Jews.
• If you don’t have a constructive role to play, shut up and go away.
Douglas M. Bloomfield is a Washington, D.C.-based syndicated columnist and a former chief lobbyist for the American Israel Public Affairs Committee.
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