American political support for Israel is not now, nor has it ever been, a partisan issue. Republican strategists, however, hope to distract our attention from their long list of obvious failures by claiming to be “better friends to Israel” than the Democrats.
Republicans disparage the history of the Democratic Party’s long history of support for Israel, and the many Jewish office-holders and public servants at the highest levels who have been Democrats.
Did they forget that it was a Democrat, President Harry Truman, who courageously was the first international leader to recognize the state of Israel in 1948? Or that it was the Democratic Party that nominated an Orthodox Jew, Sen. Joseph Lieberman (Conn.), to be our vice-president in 2000?
Do they want to pretend that every president and every Congress of both parties haven’t been virtually unanimous in support for Israel?
Do they contend that Jewish Democratic senators like Lieberman, Frank Lautenburg (N.J.), Barbara Boxer (Calif.), Herb Kohl and Russ Feingold (Wis.), Ron Wyden (Ore.), Chuck Schumer (N.Y.) and Carl Levin (Mich.) not only always support financial and military aid to Israel but also vote right on the other issues that we Jews believe in?
What the Republicans don’t understand is that by a four-to-one margin, Jews vote Democratic because they find common cause on a whole host of critical issues.
The American Jewish community recognizes that in the past decade of Republican control of both houses of Congress and with six years of a Republican president, there have been virtually no programs suggested or laws passed that fit the template of historic Jewish values — a peaceful world, social justice, economic equality, ethics in public life, separation of church and state, civil rights and women’s rights.
No common ground
Can most American Jews possibly find common ground with the agenda of the GOP on the environment, health care, education, fiscal responsibility, energy independence, or stem cell research?
American Jews are rightly concerned with the prospects for the future of the core values we’ve always championed when Republicans appoint Supreme Court justices like Antonin Scalia, Clarence Thomas, John Roberts and Samuel Alito.
What a sharp contrast to a Democratic president appointing Justices Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Steven Breyer.
Search and see if you can find a foreign policy success story the Bush administration can point to. The war in Iraq was supposed to bring democracy to that country and help make Israel more secure. It appears that it will fail on both counts.
This Republican president and vice-president misread events in Iraq so badly that they believed months ago that the “mission [was] accomplished” and the terrorists were “in their final throes.”
Now Iraq is a tragedy with no end in sight; terrorism still rages all over the world; and the only solution that is offered is to “stay the course.”
After ignoring the Middle East, deploring “nation building,” demeaning “shuttle diplomacy” and forfeiting our former influence with the major players in the region, the Republican administration now feels we American Jews should forgive, forget and reward them with our votes.
Congressional Republicans have wasted time debating the danger of burning the American flag rather than focusing on the danger of millions of Americans not having proper and affordable health care.
They thought it more useful to our future to spend hours passing legislation defining marriage rather than focusing on a real “values issue” like the future of social security.
They believed it more beneficial to build “bridges to nowhere” than to balance the federal budget. They deemed it more constructive to give tax relief to the richest Americans and to fight against a decent minimum wage rather than to help the struggling poor and middle class.
They thought it more beneficial to kneel down to the Christian Right rather than to stand up for the religious diversity and freedom of all Americans.
No one can predict the outcome of the current international crises. We all hope that international diplomacy will find a way to guarantee Israel’s security and somehow lead to peace.
But we do know that the solutions will not be determined by a Republican Party that claims to be “better for Israel.”
Retired Milwaukee businessman Jerry Wallace has been chair of the North Shore Democratic Party, and active in other party activities and campaigns, as well as an officer of the Milwaukee Jewish Council for Community Relations and the American Jewish Committee-Milwaukee Chapter.
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