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After watching Cruz and Trumps speech at the rally against Iran today and watching numerous pro Israel speeches by Republicans, I feel bad for pro Israel liberals who don’t get to listen to their leaders speak so passionately about something they love. Israel wasn’t even mentioned in the 2012 DNC convention. I haven’t heard Hillary or Sanders talk about Israel except for how great the Iran deal is.
That’s because liberals like Clinton and Sanders are inherently anti-Israel unless their pockets are being lined by Israelis at any specific time. Besides, you shouldn’t feel bad for liberals. They are the architects of their own demise. You can’t fix stupid.
1. Most of the pro-Israel Democrats are on the centrist side of the party, and will be increasingly alienated as the Democrats become more and more socialistic. Compared to the Democrats of a generation or two ago (Kennedy, Johnson, Scoop Jackson, Humphrey, Truman), today’s Democrats are radically to the left on almost every thing. If people like Bernie Sanders, Al Sharpton and Bill DeBlasio are the future of the Democrats, most Jewish Democrats will either end up as Republicans or end up supporting a new middle of the road party that would become much more likely.
2. If the move towards Iran results in defeat of ISIS and stabilization of the Middle East, Obama won’t seem dumb. Remember, had a beefed up British and French military won World War II in 1939, Chamberlain would be remembered as a genius who concessions at Munich were a strategic brilliancy.
Liberal response: cricket……cricket
Israel is a touchy subject for liberals, since it’s hard to support a country perceived as oppressing its occupants, or should I say oppressing who it OCCUPIES, heheheh.
Also, being liberals, it wouldn’t be fair to go on and on about Israel without giving the same attention to every other American ally. Like, there are liberals who think in this silly way, for example, they can’t eat their favorite pizza without eating every other type of pizza too, just to be fair, and not oppress the other pizzas. If you ask me it’s just the immature among the left who think, or don’t think, like that. I’m sure there are some smart people in the left, just like I’m sure there are some smart conservatives.
Would any of the nattering nabobs of conservatism (sorry I could not alliterate the phrase, but I love “nattering nabobs”) who have spoken for liberals above (the first five posts) be interested in hearing from an actual liberal on this subject? No? Well, too bad, because here I go.
As a liberal and supporter of the State of Israel (“SI,” which I suppose is the opposite of “IS”, the Islamic State), and a Jew who looks forward to Moshiach and our return to Eretz Yisrael, I don’t see support of SI as a problem for liberals. SI is a democracy, it allows Palestinians to vote – which distinguishes SI from nearly all Arab governments – and it provides a better life for Palestinians than Arab governments not having oil money. Plenty of liberal Jews support Israel, and plenty of liberal gentiles do, too. SI politics is a colossal mess, but, as Churchill said about democracy, its better than politics as practiced among Israel’s neighbors.
There are serious political divisions in the SI population, but that is an issue for SI voters/taxpayers to settle, not kibbitzers like me in the comfort and security of the US. In fact, people who consider the Iran deal a serious threat to SI security should seriously consider moving out of SI and waiting for Moshiach, rather than sitting within the range of Iran’s missles, Asad’s poison gas, and Hamas car bombs. I have complete faith that Hashem can return us to EY when we are ready, and we get ready by doing His Mitzvahs, not by oppressing the descendants of Avraham’s first son.
And just to be clear, I consider the Iran/P5+1 deal good and enforceable. Consider the Israel/Egypt deal brokered by the much-vilified President Carter 30+ years ago, which has protected Israel from Egypt, even in the last few years, following the turmoil of the “Arab Spring.” The Iranian people are sophisticated and modern in their outlook. The ayatollah – not so much. But the ayatollahs do not have as much influence over the Iranian people as they pretend to, and I expect the deal to work, or, worst case, to give SI, the US and others time to intervene and enforce the agreement if Iran tries to break it.
” Compared to the Democrats of a generation or two ago (Kennedy, Johnson, Scoop Jackson, Humphrey, Truman), “
All the folks you mentioned are about where Bernie Sanders is today regarding domestic economic policy. The party moved to the right in a big way starting with Jimmy Carter and continuing with Bill Clinton. Obama conned people into thinking he was a leftist because he had opposed the Iraq war; Richard Nixon was actually to Obama’s left on most issues.
” had a beefed up British and French military won World War II in 1939, Chamberlain would be remembered as a genius who concessions at Munich were a strategic brilliancy.”
Chamberlain had three problems: (1) He had no idea how weak Germany was militarily at the time, or that there were people in the German military who were planning a coup against Hitler had the negotiations failed, (2) He had no idea how bad the French leadership would turn out to be — much of the French Right preferred fascism to the French Left, and the French military leadership was atrociously bad, (3) He wasn’t able to get the UK to remilitarize. (FDR had the same trouble. It should be noted that Chamberlain’s two immediate predecessors — Baldwin and MacDonald, who between them had held the office of Prime Minister between 1923 and 1937 — were FAR more into appeasement than Chamberlain. MacDonald was actually a pacifist!)
“I consider the Iran/P5+1 deal good and enforceable.”
No deal is a good deal when it gives tens of billions of dollars to a sworn enemy of Israel and of the United States. But contrary to the deal’s opponents, it IS enforceable, and it WILL prevent Iran from developing nuclear weapons. And also contrary to the deal’s opponents, there isn’t a better deal to be had.
“Clinton and Sanders are inherently anti-Israel “
I am not a defender of Sanders’ foreign policy — he is too non-interventionist. But I challenge you to find any Republican who has publicly, on video, told pro-Palestinian hecklers to “Shut up.”
Clinton is probably the only candidate of either party who will aggressively promote the interests of the US, backed with military force if necessary, while avoiding stupid wars like the one in Iraq.
kfb said, “Israel wasn’t even mentioned in the 2012 DNC convention.”
I think Jerusalem being recognized as the capital of Israel( Congress has passed this long ago but no POTUS has implemented it because of “diplomatic issues.”) was mentioned to which it was overwhelmingly booed. They pretended that the voice count had passed it, so they could put it on their platform. But really Israel was booed at the last Democratic convention, and they did not vet their candidate for president in the previous election, where they would have been forced to admit that he was a long time congregant at a radically anti-American and anti-Jewish pastor’s church, Rev. Wright.
As far as the Iran deal, I believe thie op-ed by Eric Kraus, “The Iran Nuclear Agreement: Good or Bad?” on Arutz 7 today puts it in the proper perspective, one of “strategic objective,” which for any nation (or individual, or sport team,etc.) is the deciding factor(self interest.) and one nation’s strategic objective may be different than another’s.
Trouble is for the people who really feel strongly positive about 2 countries that may have conflicting strategic objectives, basically most of the people on this site, who love Israel, this may be hard to manage.
The times when Israel’s priorities were the priorities of the US may, sadly, be coming to a close and all these US Jews, who do love Israel, may have to face a decision whom they support. This appears to be especially the case, now that Israel is becoming a partisian issue, sorry AIPAC, :’-(
To be fair, the war in Iraq would not have been half as stupid if there had been some American interests served (instead of merely Bush interests). For example, even if we had to invade (a separate debate) we could have also seen to it that the war led to stabilizing the oil market instead of sending it into a period of instability as bad as ’73 (except this time price did the rationing). Stupid (and weak) leader makes for stupid war more than anything else.
Keep that in mind when you next see a Bush on your ticket.
It’s interesting to note that if you look back at the news archives you’ll notice very many of the same principal critics that strongly faulted Bush I for not having invaded Iraq and taken out Saddam in the ’91 Persian Gulf War are the same postwar critics against Bush II for having done exactly that.
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