WHO threw Israel under the bus?!

The segment of the American population that cares deeply about the security and well-being of Israel gets far more courting by the national candidates than our numbers alone would imply. I can't say I mind that, because if that were not the case it is likely that Israel would exist only in history books by now.

What I do mind is the petty bullflop and distortions that pass through the thin, sneering lips of the GOP* when their turn comes to make the pitch:  Repubicans are the true friends of Israel, while President Obama has thrown Israel under the bus -- and it's not even an Egged bus!   They vehemently rage that Obama did not visit Israel after his inauguration when he went to the Middle East on his putative "apology tour" (he had visited during the 2008 campaign, sans Jewish donor tag-alongs with billion-dollar egos to puff up, and also sans tarring Palestinian culture), and he eschewed a meet with Bibi in New York when they were both there to address the UN. Such a scandal!

Compared to a mere missile defense system (Iron Dome) and massive joint military exercises and record-high financial assistance, these perceived social slights are the real story of Obama and Israel.  Obama's so-called social snubs have GOP Jews' knickers forming deep-seated wedgies.

I don't think Romney is going to get traction with this, because in this segment he is not dealing as often with the low-information voters that are so prized by the Fox/RNC/GOP/Tea-Pee propaganda pushers. My best guess is that Romney may do a few points better than McCain for the same reasons that the race will be closer altogether -- first of all, Sarah Palin is not running; second, many people want to blame someone for their continuing economic challenges.  

When I imply that a well-informed pro-Israel voter will be immune to the hyperbolic verbal sniping at Obama, I am talking about the voter's familiarity with the kinds of historical facts that the former ten-year director of Mossad Ephraim Halevy lays out in his NYT op-ed that is pasted in full below. 

Turns out that this mythical meme of GOP-good-for-Israel is one more lie in a bookshelf of such lies that we've heard for decades.  For example, contrary to the myth, GOP presidents have consistently added far more to the national debt than Dems. Business has done better under Dems than Repubicans. Dems have been true to taking care of veterans while Repubicans fight against spending for veterans.

However, all this only goes to demonstrate at the end of the day that Repubicans are indeed better -- i.e., at bullsh*tting the American public.  So, with a tip o' the cap to Stanley Kubrick and Peter Sellers, I declare that this country will continue to be in deep trouble unless and until we Democrats can finally overcome... The Bullsh*t Gap.  (See George Lakoff for special tips on effective framing.)

Who threw Israel under the bus?

by Ephraim Halevy

ON Monday, in their final debate, Mitt Romney denounced President Obama for creating “tension” and “turmoil” with Israel and chided him for having “skipped Israel” during his travels in the Middle East. Throughout the campaign, Mr. Romney has repeatedly accused Mr. Obama of having “thrown allies like Israel under the bus.”

But history tells a different story. Indeed, whenever the United States has put serious, sustained pressure on Israel’s leaders — from the 1950s on — it has come from Republican presidents, not Democratic ones. This was particularly true under Mr. Obama’s predecessor, George W. Bush.

Just one week before the Iraq war began in March 2003, Mr. Bush was still struggling to form a broad international coalition to oust Saddam Hussein. Unlike in the 1991 Persian Gulf war, Russia, a permanent member of the United Nations Security Council, decided to opt out, meaning that the United Nations could not provide formal legitimacy for a war against Mr. Hussein. Britain was almost alone in aligning itself with America, and Prime Minister Tony Blair’s support was deemed crucial in Washington.

Just as the British Parliament was about to approve the joint venture, a group of Mr. Blair’s Labour Party colleagues threatened to revolt, demanding Israeli concessions to the Palestinians in exchange for their support for the Iraq invasion. This demand could have scuttled the war effort, and there was only one way that British support could be maintained: Mr. Bush would have to declare that the “road map” for Middle East peace, a proposal drafted early in his administration, was the formal policy of the United States.

Israel’s prime minister at the time, Ariel Sharon, had been vehemently opposed to the road map, which contained several “red lines” that he refused to accept, including a stipulation that the future status of Jerusalem would be determined by “a negotiated resolution” taking into account “the political and religious concerns of both sides.” This wording implied a possible end to Israel’s sovereignty over all of Jerusalem, which has been under Israeli control since 1967.

On March 13, 2003, senior Israeli officials were summarily informed that the United States would publicly adopt the draft road map as its policy. Washington made it clear to us that on the eve of a war, Israel was expected to refrain from criticizing the American policy and also to ensure that its sympathizers got the message.

The United States insisted that the road map be approved without any changes, saying Israel’s concerns would be addressed later. At a long and tense cabinet debate I attended in May 2003, Mr. Sharon reluctantly asked his ministers to accept Washington’s demand. Benjamin Netanyahu, then the finance minister, disagreed, and he abstained during the vote on the cabinet resolution, which eventually passed.

From that point on, the road map, including the language on Jerusalem, became the policy bible for America, Russia, the European Union and the United Nations. Not only was Israel strong-armed by a Republican president, but it was also compelled to simply acquiesce and swallow the bitterest of pills.

Three years later, the Bush administration again pressured Israel into supporting a policy that ran counter to its interests. In early 2006, the terrorist group Hamas ran candidates in the Palestinian legislative elections. Israel had been adamant that no leader could campaign with a gun in his belt; the Palestinian party Fatah opposed Hamas’s participation, too. But the White House would have none of this; it pushed Fatah to allow Hamas candidates to run, and pressured Israel into allowing voting for Hamas — even in parts of East Jerusalem.

After Hamas won a clear majority, Washington sought to train Fatah forces to crush it militarily in the Gaza Strip. But Hamas pre-empted this scheme by taking control of Gaza in 2007, and the Palestinians have been ideologically and territorially divided ever since.

Despite the Republican Party’s shrill campaign rhetoric on Israel, no Democratic president has ever strong-armed Israel on any key national security issue. In the 1956 Suez Crisis, it was a Republican, Dwight D. Eisenhower, who joined the Soviet Union in forcing Israel’s founding father, David Ben-Gurion, to withdraw from the Sinai Peninsula after a joint Israeli-British-French attack on Egypt.

In 1991, when Iraqi Scud missiles rained down on Tel Aviv, the administration of the first President Bush urged Israel not to strike back so as to preserve the coalition of Arab states fighting Iraq. Prime Minister Yitzhak Shamir resisted his security chiefs’ recommendation to retaliate and bowed to American demands as his citizens reached for their gas masks.

After the war, Mr. Shamir agreed to go to Madrid for a Middle East peace conference set up by Secretary of State James A. Baker III. Fearful that Mr. Shamir would be intransigent at the negotiating table, the White House pressured him by withholding $10 billion in loan guarantees to Israel, causing us serious economic problems. The eventual result was Mr. Shamir’s political downfall. The man who had saved Mr. Bush’s grand coalition against Saddam Hussein in 1991 was “thrown under the bus.”

In all of these instances, a Republican White House acted in a cold and determined manner, with no regard for Israel’s national pride, strategic interests or sensitivities. That’s food for thought in October 2012.

 

Efraim Halevy was the director of the Mossad from 1998 to 2002 and the national security adviser to the Israeli prime minister, Ariel Sharon, from October 2002 to June 2003. \

* Personal footnote on tenuously related topic of thin, sneering lips:

This morning I was juggling my attention among my getting-up routine, watching Morning Joe, listening to WIP sports talk radio, and flipping on and off the TODAY Show (for my health and beauty tips). As has been the case in the last few weeks with all the MSNBC contributors who are ex-GOP politicians, officials and operatives (e.g., Steve Schmidt [famed as stand-in for Woody Harrelson in the original version of HBO's Game Change] and Michael Steele [the previous Reince Preibus -- which sounds more like a minor intestinal conduit than a person, imho]), former R-FL Rep. Joe Scarborough has flipped the switch from pundit/host to full-blown campaign tool. Case in point this morning: they air a vid of Obama's Romnesia riff to a crowd of 11,000 cheering maniacs, in which Bar reels off the policy 180's and 360's the other guy has executed in the months-weeks-days past. Cut to Joe Scar-butt, his face looking like the breakfast sausage he'd had was not sitting at all well with him. After dramatic face and pause, he allows as to how "disappointed" he is that President Obama, after all the personal sacrifices he'd made to become President Obama, was reduced to making a speech like that.

Really? Well, after a speech from a TV talk show host like that one, I've got a nausea face for Joe Scar-schmo, and I've got three little words in response to a GOPer whose contempt and disdain appear outstripped only by his arrogance, stupidity and dearth of appreciation for the power and charm of humor:

You disappoint me!