Jonathan Tobin
The uproar over the efforts of the new Emergency Committee for Israel to highlight the record of Rep. Joe Sestak, the Democratic candidate for the Senate in Pennsylvania, is getting nasty. Sestak and his supporters are hoping to manufacture a backlash against the congressman’s critics that will not only change the subject from his record but will also cause Pennsylvania Jews to rally around the Democrats as the victims of what they are calling a sleazy smear campaign that is wrongly politicizing the issue of support for Israel. The notion that the Republicans are trying to politicize Israel played a part in the previous two election cycles during which large-scale efforts by the Republican Jewish Coalition to raise the issue of left-wing disaffection from Israel were treated with similar scorn. In 2006 and 2008, Republican ads highlighted the anti-Israel records of various prominent Democrats, such as Jimmy Carter, as well as left-wing activist groups, such as Moveon.org. As with the reaction to the ECI campaign, those comments seemed to center less on complaints about the content of the ads than on the premise that judging a Democratic candidate on his stand on Israel was itself illegitimate. They argued then, as they do now, that any effort that uses Israel as a wedge issue turns it into a political football and that this process undermines the broad coalition that has made the U.S.-Israel alliance a fact of American political life.
But this is a false argument that has more to do with the needs of partisanship than it does with maintaining a pro-Israel consensus. What the Democrats want is not more civility but rather taking Israel off the table when it comes to political debate. Given their existing advantage among Jewish voters, who are already overwhelmingly Democratic, this would certainly be to their advantage — especially since the greatest current threat to the pro-Israel consensus is the rising tide of hostility to Jewish self-defense and Zionism on the political left. But in doing so, what Democrats are doing is effectively removing from our politicians any accountability on Middle East issues.
If we can’t judge politicians like Sestak on his positions concerning Israel and related issues, then it is the Democratic argument that Israel is off-limits for discussion, and not the anti-Sestak or Republican Jewish Coalition ads, that signals the end of the pro-Israel consensus. If a member of Congress can, with impunity, speak at a CAIR fundraiser without confronting that group over its origins and positions or sign letters aimed at heightening pressure on Israel and undermining its right of self defense, then advocacy groups might as well close up shop, since no one will have any reason to believe that the pro-Israel community means what it says when it seeks — as any group in a democracy will do — to support its friends and oppose its foes.
So long as the parties and candidates are actively competing for pro-Israel votes — and one suspects that there are more Christian pro-Israel votes in play here than Jewish ones, since for many of the latter, partisan loyalty trumps their affection for Zionism — then we have reason to believe that the bipartisan pro-Israel consensus is safe. That means that both Democrats and Republicans must confront members of their party who are unsupportive to Israel, or lukewarm at best; not give them blanket immunity on the issue.
It is certainly legitimate for Sestak to spin his record or to argue that we must judge him by other things he has done, in an attempt to prove his pro-Israel bona fides. But it is not legitimate for Sestak or any Democrat — or any Republican, for that matter — to say that their record on Israel is off-limits for discussion.
What Was Sestak Thinking When He Wrote to UN Human Rights Council?
Jennifer Rubin - 07.20.2010 - 12:48 PM
If Joe Sestak was hoping to shore up his pro-Israel bona fides, he badly miscalculated with his “please be impartial” letter to the UN Human Rights Council. Dan Senor of the Council on Foreign Relations had this response, pointing to Israel’s own investigation:
The investigation is already taking place. If Sestak was genuinely concerned, he could have written the UNHRC and called it out for existing and operating in a blizzard of double-standards, and make it clear that he would not support any UNHRC investigation of Israel under any circumstances until the Council repudiates the Goldstone Report and stops singling out Israel time after time. That would have been praiseworthy. Instead he endorsed the investigation.
The American Jewish Committee, a rather liberal outfit, had this to say in early June:
“The UN Human Rights Council remains a kangaroo court, in which repressive and authoritarian states like Cuba, Saudi Arabia and Pakistan can indulge their obsession with Israel, while ignoring serial violators such as Iran and North Korea,” said AJC Executive Director David Harris. “Fresh from convicting Israel through the notoriously biased Goldstone Report into the war in Gaza, which presumed Israel’s ‘guilt’ before launching a fact-finding mission, the Council is now embarking on a new attempt to vilify Israel.”
(Well, before Harris got to the National Jewish Democratic Council, he was a bit more candid.)
Early last month, AIPAC also went after the UNHRC, urging that the Obama administration “maintain its longstanding position not to allow the Security Council and other U.N. organs such as the U.N. Human Rights Council to exploit unfortunate incidents by passing biased, anti-Israel resolutions that obscure the truth and accomplish nothing.”
What activist, lawmaker, or pro-Israel advocacy group (J Street, not you) genuinely concerned about the bile-drenched UNHRC and its serial attacks on the Jewish state would have sent a letter like Sestak’s? I’m going out on a limb: none.
Rep. Peter King gets it. He e-mails: “We should have no contact whatsoever with the UN Human Rights Council. It is impossible for that Council to even begin a fair investigation.”
J STREET DEFENDS SESTAK
http://www.politico.com/blogs/bensmith/0710/J_Street_defends_Sestak.html
Main Content
July 20, 2010
With Joe Sestak under attack by the hawkish Emergency Committee for Israel, the liberal J Street rises to his defense in a new ad.
"The far right is attacking Joe Sestak over Israel," says the narrator. "They won't tell you that in Congress Sestak consistently votes for aid to Israel."
"Joe Sestak courageously supports American leadership to end the Israeli Palestinian conflict and supports a two-state solution, just like the majority of Americans who care about Israel's and America's security," says the narrator, who also mentions Sestak's assistance to Israel as a naval officer.
The group says it will "air in major media markets across Pennsylvania
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