Bloomfield Exposes GOP Attempt to Make Israel a Partisan Wedge Issue

David Streeter — October 22, 2010 – 10:07 am | Election 2010 | GOP Hypocrisies | Israel | Republicans | Stop the Smears Comments (0) Add a comment

Jerusalem Post columnist Douglas Bloomfield has published a new column that exposes Tea Party-backed Republican House candidate Joel Pollak’s (R-IL) attempts to make Israel a partisan wedge issue by slandering staunchly pro-Israel Representative Jan Schakowsky (D-IL).

Bloomfield wrote:

Pollak has chosen to focus most of his energy on attacking Schakowsky as weak on her support for Israel although the American Israel Public Affairs Committee has praised her ‘excellent record’ and the Chicago Sun-Times said his attempts to portray her ‘overwhelmingly strong pro- Israel voting record’ as anything less are ‘nonsense.’

His strategy may be understandable in light of a conservative agenda that seems out of step with much of the district that has been sending liberals to Congress since before either candidate was born.

Pollak’s tactics are founded less on facts than on a Republican strategy of turning support for Israel into an emotionally charged partisan wedge issue.

Israeli Ambassador Michael Oren has called this Jew-vs.-Jew strategy harmful to his country’s interest in building broad bipartisan support. A non- Jewish politico following the race said that Pollak risks opening rifts in the Jewish community that ‘create opportunities for non-Jews to be more anti- Israel.’

One big reason Republicans are trying to ‘out- Israel’ Democrats is because they have so few other issues appealing to Jewish voters and they carry the baggage of the radicals of the religious right and the Tea Party.

Even in this year of recession, frustration and anti-incumbent anger, the latest American Jewish Committee poll of Jewish voters shows that despite some decline, they still prefer the Democrats by a margin of three-to-one.

 

Click here to read the rest of Bloomfield’s column.

Click here to read more about Schakowsky’s “overwhelmingly strong pro-Israel” record.

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