When Republican Presidential Candidates Debate, American Jews Lose

Ariela Fleisig — October 19, 2011 – 1:05 pm | Domestic Policy | Economy | Foreign Policy | GOP Presidential Candidates 2012 | Health Care | Iran Comments (0) Add a comment

During last night’s Republican presidential primary debate, the candidates continuously outdid each other with increasingly radical right-wing statements. Yet again, the debaters—Representative Michele Bachmann (R-MN), businessman Herman Cain, former Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney, Texas Governor Rick Perry, former Senator Rick Santorum (R-PA), Representative Ron Paul (R-TX), and former House Speaker Newt Gingrich (R-GA)—proved how truly distant the ideology of the Republican Party is from the views of most American Jews.

Using the deal releasing Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit as a political football, several candidates fumbled over a question about whether each would negotiate for a soldier as Israel did. Though having said earlier that day that “[I] could see myself authorizing that kind of a transfer [of trading prisoners at Guantanamo Bay for an American soldier captured by Al Qaeda forces],” Cain said last night:

I would have a policy that we do not negotiate with terrorists. We have to lay that principle down first… Now, then you have to look at each individual situation and consider all the facts. The point that I made about this particular situation is that I’m sure Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu had to consider a lot of things before he made that. So on the surface, I don’t think we can say he did the right thing or not. A responsible decision-maker would have considered everything.

Paul declared yet again that he would cut funding to Israel:

I mean, their [Egypt’s] dictator that we pumped up, we spent all these billions of dollars, and now there’s a more hostile regime in Egypt. And that’s what’s happening all around Israel. That foreign aid makes Israel dependent on us. It softens them for their own economy.

Disregarding mounting evidence in the press on the same day as the debate, which again demonstrated the devastating effects of the Obama Administration’s sanctions regime, Bachmann continued to falsely smear President Barack Obama on Israel and Iran, accusing him of “taking his eyes off the number-one issue in the world. That’s an Iran obtaining a nuclear weapon.” Ignoring the facts, she also said:

The biggest problem is the fact that with this administration and foreign policy is that President Obama is the first president since Israel declared her sovereignty put daylight between the United States and Israel. That’s heavily contributed to the current hostilities that we see in the Middle East region.

Bachmann was not the only one disregarding the facts during last night’s debate. The Washington Post, AP, The New York Times, and Think Progress all fact checked claims made during the debate and caught many of the candidates making false statements on issues including health care, taxes, and the economy. A number of the personal attacks were also debunked.

With each debate, it becomes yet more obvious that the values of the Republican Party are ever-more distant from the views of most American Jews, who feel that domestic social and economic safety, a bipartisan partnership with Israel, and the dignity of every American are imperative.

Click here to read Politico‘s roundup of the debate.

Click here to read Haaretz’s article.

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