Obama’s Trip to Israel…Showed His Commitment to the Jewish State
Listed in: Israel, Other Foreign Policy, NJDC News, Opinions
Originally published in the Washington Jewish Week (scroll to the middle of the page to view the text)
By Marc R. Stanley, Board Chair of the National Jewish Democratic Council (NJDC)
Special to WJW
The success of Sen. Barack Obama's recent Middle East trip not only showed that he is ready to lead, but it reaffirmed his commitment to Israel's peace and security. Obama's trip was a home run, as it surpassed expectations and showed the international community that Obama will be a leader on the global stage.
Despite Obama's commitment to Israel, Sen. John McCain's allies continue to ignore the pro-Israel community's 50-year tradition of using objective analysis to evaluate a candidate's stance on the U.S.-Israel relationship. The leadership of the pro-Israel community decided long ago that it is essential for Israel to remain a bipartisan issue. By insisting that Obama is anti-Israel, Republicans are not only undermining the pro-Israel community, but they are hurting the bipartisan consensus surrounding the support of the U.S.-Israel relationship.
The pro-Israel community always has used voting records and public statements to assess accurately where a candidate stands on Middle East issues. These parameters show that Obama is an exemplary pro-Israel candidate. Obama has a perfect pro-Israel voting record, believes strongly in foreign aid, and he publicly supports the U.S.-Israel relationship at every opportunity. Obama has never cast a single vote against Israel, and he remains an outspoken critic of Iran.
When he was in Israel, Obama spoke against Iran's nuclear proliferation program: "Iranians need to understand that whether it's the Bush administration or an Obama administration, that this is a paramount concern to the United States."
Yet the Republican National Committee insists on trying to portray Obama as one who is against Israel's peace and security. In a recent press release, the RNC insisted that Obama has an anti-Israel approach to Jerusalem. As with many of their attacks concerning Obama and Israel, the Republicans could not be further from the truth. The RNC's attack is inaccurate and remarkably hypocritical.
Obama's Jerusalem position is consistent with McCain's and a continuation of the bipartisan consensus among U.S. leaders. According to McCain's top foreign policy adviser, Randy Scheunemann, "Senator McCain has said that Jerusalem is the capital of Israel" and "if a democratic government of Israel chooses to accept an alteration of that status, he's certainly not going to second-guess a democratic government of Israel." In fact, this is one of the few issues with which Obama and McCain agree.
In addition to the hypocritical and misleading attacks against Obama, McCain's allies often rely on the tactic of "guilt by association." Since thousands of people associate themselves with each campaign, to choose any single individual and attribute his or her remarks or behavior to a candidate falls short of the objective measures with which the pro-Israel community prides itself. Besides lacking objectivity, this standard is unreliable and it does not give us an accurate assessment of how a candidate would behave once in office. The U.S.-Israel relationship is ill-served by such standards.
However, if Republicans insist on using "guilt by association" as their pro-Israel standard, they must answer for McCain's potential future appointments and key campaign advisers.
McCain has said he would appoint former secretary of state James Baker as his Middle East envoy and would use Zbigniew Brzezinski as one of his foreign policy advisers. Furthermore, Fred Malek, McCain's national finance co-chair, is the operative whom Richard Nixon had tasked with seeking out the Jews in the Bureau of Labor Statistics so they could be fired. These key McCain allies are just the beginning. There are "guilt by association" implications for numerous McCain campaign personalities who have Iranian business and lobbying connections, including some of McCain's most senior advisers.
With his trip to the Middle East, Obama showed, once again, his commitment to strengthen the bipartisan consensus around the U.S.-Israel relationship, combating Iran and seeking peace in the Middle East.
McCain and his allies should be embarrassed that they need to continue to create blatantly misleading and hypocritical attacks in order to paint Obama as anti-Israel. They should stop this unwarranted fear mongering and engage in substantive debate. The Jewish community is too politically sophisticated to fall victim to these underhanded tactics and misleading statements.
Marc R. Stanley chairs the National Jewish Democratic Council.
