What does the re-election of President Obama mean for the United States, and for Israel and the Middle East?
These two questions brought more than 100 Milwaukee Jews to two programs on Nov. 7, the day after the election. One took place at the Harry & Rose Samson Family Jewish Community Center in the morning, the other at the Peltz Center for Jewish Life in Mequon in the evening.
The some 40 or 50 in the morning heard two area political scientists — Lilly Goren of Carroll University and Julia Azari of Marquette University — assess the probable domestic results, revolving around the question: Does President Obama have a mandate for his second term?
And the some 70 or more people in the evening heard British-born Israeli and Israel advocate Neil Lazarus analyze the question: What will be the conditions in the Middle East that the second Obama administration will have to confront?
Goren devoted most of her time to analyzing the demography of the vote results. It was quite clear, even in the absence of exit poll data at that time, that the Jewish vote did not swing far away from Obama, said Goren.
In response to a question from The Chronicle about why the continued efforts by Jewish Republicans to draw Jews away from the Democrats have not seen many results, she said:
“It goes to what the advocacy is within the Democratic Party with regard to tikkun olam [repair of the world]. And I think that’s fundamental to why you don’t necessarily see really big moves from the left side to the right side among Jewish Americans.
“That doesn’t mean they don’t move or that there isn’t a large section within the Republican Party that’s Jewish and advocating for any number of policy areas that many Jews identify with. But I do think the Democratic Party continues to represent a lot of the backbone of a lot of the traditional Jewish engagement with public advocacy.”
Azari presented for group discussion the cases against and for Obama having received a mandate in this election. She built the case against around:
• The closeness of the popular vote and his having received less of the popular vote than he did in 2008.
• The perceived “negativity” of the Obama and Mitt Romney campaigns — “They just attacked each other.”
• The lack of discussion of program or policy specifics by the campaigns.
That case seemed to convince many of the audience members, who in comments agreed that Obama doesn’t have a mandate and should not attempt unilateral actions, but should work with the Republicans.
On the other hand, Azari presented a case that Obama does have a mandate for a second term because:
• He did win a majority of the popular vote twice in a row.
• Despite the lack of specifics in the campaigns, the issue and philosophy differences between Obama and Romney “were pretty clear.”
• Democrats did well in Congressional races; and certain liberal referenda — permitting homosexual marriage in Maine, Maryland, and Washington state; allowing possession and recreational use of marijuana in Colorado and Washington state — passed. Both of these may indicate that “public sentiment may be shifting toward a more Democratic perspective.”
Azari also contended that this election may indicate another trend — that the two major parties are “becoming more distinct” and “starting to resemble a more parliamentary, European-style [and Israeli-style] system,” in which the parties are more committed to “adhere to the platform” than they had been in the recent past.
This event was the fifth in a six-part “Politics and You” series presented by the JCC’s Off Center program. The last event in the series took place Nov. 19 and featured Milwaukee Jewish Federation chief executive officer and president Hannah Rosenthal speaking about “American Politics: A View from 30,000 Feet.”
Foreign policy did not figure strongly in the campaign, but appears likely to provide significant challenges to Obama’s second four years, said Lazarus.
In fact, “the Middle East is probably the most dangerous it’s been since 1967,” the year of the Six Day War between Israel and Syria, Jordan, and Egypt, he said.
“The Middle East is about to be reset,” Lazarus contended. The artificial and ethnic-group-dividing boundaries between the various countries that the French and British drew after World War I are “collapsing in front of our eyes.”
The recent series of rebellions against Arab nations’ dictators — the “Arab Spring” — constitutes a supposed “move toward democracy. And democracy is a good thing. It allows you to say what you think,” said Lazarus.
The problem with democracy, however, is that “It allows you to say what you think” — and what the people in many of these countries have been saying is anti-West, anti-Israel, and pro-Muslim fundamentalism, Lazarus said.
Adding to the complexity is the triple deck nature of the political dynamics, Lazarus said. At level one is the relationship between Israel and its neighbors.
Level two is the ongoing battle for political and religious influence between Iran, where the majority of the population and the religious totalitarian government follow the Shi’a form of Islam, and Saudi Arabia, where the majority of the population and the religious totalitarian government follow the Sunni form of Islam.
Level three is the super-power rivalry between the United States, Russia, and China — and the U.S. “is weakening” while China and Russia are “on the rise,” Lazarus said.
But here is where the threat of Iran obtaining nuclear weapons means more than a potential threat to Israel; it means Iran could join the super-power club and “challenge American hegemony in the region,” Lazarus said.
And yet the United States and the Obama administration may be suffering from an “Iraq War syndrome” that says “Don’t fly halfway around the world to the Middle East to eliminate a dictator, because you’ll get stuck for ten years and bankrupt yourself,” Lazarus said.
And so the second Obama administration looks like it may want to adopt what Lazarus called “an ostrich foreign policy” of hiding from foreign involvements while concentrating domestic concerns.
The trouble with that, however, is that “problems abroad quickly come home to haunt,” as illustrated by the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks on the U.S., Lazarus said.
In response to an audience member’s question, Lazarus did not want to say which of the two major party U.S. presidential candidates he personally preferred.
He did say, however, that he believed Romney would have been quicker to “take on Iran military” than Obama is likely to be; and that Obama would be more likely to “put pressure on Israel” not to act unilaterally against Iran than Romney would have.
Milwaukee was one stop for Lazarus on a speaking tour that was scheduled to take him through the U.S., Canada, and the United Kingdom.
He is director of the Israel advocacy website awesomeseminars.com and author of the book “The 5 Rules of Effective Israel Advocacy.”
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