by Mitchell Plitnick
It may seem like US Secretary of State John Kerry is chasing his own tail with regard to the Israel-Palestine issue. But he is, intentionally or otherwise, raising some important questions. One is what the official Israeli position really is on the two-state solution. Perhaps the most [...]]]>
by Mitchell Plitnick
It may seem like US Secretary of State John Kerry is chasing his own tail with regard to the Israel-Palestine issue. But he is, intentionally or otherwise, raising some important questions. One is what the official Israeli position really is on the two-state solution. Perhaps the most important one is how foolish, inept and impotent will the United States allow Israel to make it appear? And of greatest concern to Americans, why is this President even less willing to confront Israel, at so dire a time, than any of his predecessors?
At some point during President Barack Obama’s and Kerry’s last trip to Israel earlier this year, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu agreed to put a hold on issuing any new tenders for more settlement construction. To most, this means a settlement freeze, but it’s nothing of that kind.
Building continues at a fast pace, due to a very large number (some 1,500 residential units) of tenders approved between the Israeli elections and Obama’s visit. This was, of course, intentional, as Netanyahu knew he would probably need to make some kind of gesture to Obama. And another huge round of approvals is just waiting, held up in channels, and will probably be approved sometime in the next couple of months. In terms of construction work, there is likely to be almost no noticeable break.
But even this was not enough for Netanyahu. For much of the past months, the temporary hold on new tenders was only rumor. But a few days after Israel’s Army Radio announced it and the settlement watchdog group, Peace Now, confirmed it, Israel announced the approval of tenders for 296 units in the settlement of Beit El. Shortly after that, the Israeli government announced that it would declare four “settlement outposts” newly legal. The outposts are wildcat settlements set up without governmental approval (all settlements on territory captured by Israel in the 1967 war are illegal under international law). Sometimes Israel destroys them, sometimes it ignores them; in recent years, it has taken to legalizing some of them retroactively.
That Israel took these steps mere days before Kerry’s return to the region cannot be ignored. It was yet another direct slap in the face by Israel to its benefactor and the one country that stands behind it no matter how egregious Israeli behavior may be. This time, even Kerry took note.
He took the unusual step of summoning the Israeli ambassador for an explanation, and, from reports, at least some degree of dressing down. Which is all well and good, but Israel has no reason to worry about it. Apart from a perhaps unpleasant conversation for its Ambassador to the US, Michael Oren, Israel will face no consequences for once again embarrassing the United States.
How do we know this? Well, despite these Israeli actions, the United States pushed the European Union into delaying a vote on labelling imports from Israeli settlements, distinguishing them from products made in Israel proper. Of course, the US is willing to do this in part because it feeds the illusion that there’s a peace process for Kerry to work on, one which would be hindered by an EU move of this sort.
The middle of June has been set as an arbitrary deadline for Kerry’s efforts. Not coincidentally, Iran’s presidential election is scheduled for June 14. At that point, we can expect the Palestinian issue, already pushed aside by first, the Iran war talk, and more recently by the escalating Israeli involvement in Syria, to be completely shunted. Mid-June is also the point at which the EU is now scheduled to vote on labelling settlement products.
This would seem to be a process of going through the motions for the Obama Administration. Obama himself subtly indicated to the Israeli public in his speech there that he was not going to stop them from committing national suicide if that was their chosen course. Meanwhile, he seems only too eager to please AIPAC and the rest of their lobbying cohorts. Meanwhile, his Secretary of State is becoming a laughingstock as a result.
The Palestinians have been cynical about Kerry’s efforts from the beginning. Before this latest trip, one unnamed Palestinian “senior official” expressed his pessimism, saying that the Palestinian position of insisting that Israel release Palestinian prisoners and cease all settlement activity has not changed and neither has the Israeli position. Israel, for its part, continues to mouth platitudes about supporting Kerry’s efforts while acting to thwart them on the ground at every turn.
But while the Israelis are making the right official statements, they are also sneering at Kerry. The Israeli journalist Barak Ravid sums up the view of Kerry, both in Israel and among more veteran diplomatic hands in the US: “A senior Israeli official who has met with Kerry several times said the secretary of state has a messianic enthusiasm for the Israeli-Palestinian issue and acts like someone who was sent to bring the redemption. A Western official familiar with Kerry’s activity agreed with this assessment. ‘Sometimes there’s a feeling that Kerry thinks the only reason his predecessors in the job didn’t bring about a peace agreement is that they weren’t John Kerry,’ he said.”
This is not a negotiator who is inspiring confidence either at home or abroad. And he’s allowing Israel to make a fool of him. Even if this is, as one hopes, a strategy to move the United States out of the center of this conflict, which it is politically incapable of resolving, the cost is becoming very high. And while Israel laughs at Kerry, the only Israeli cabinet member who has shown any semblance of interest even in the failed Oslo process, Tzipi Livni, is isolated in that cabinet and fending off assaults from her left and right as she debates the governmental majority over whether Israel is even interested in a two-state solution. Likud and HaBayit HaYehudi, two of the four major coalition partners, both officially oppose it in their party platforms. The other two, Yesh Atid and Yisrael Beiteinu, both officially support some kind of two-state solution, but with conditions that are incompatible with any conceivable agreement.
Kerry’s credibility as Secretary of State is off to a shaky start, to say the least, and the lack of regard with which he is being held by not only the Israelis but also the Palestinians is going to hurt him throughout the world and especially in the Middle East. In the worst case scenario, that will severely handicap US diplomatic options, which would inevitably mean a focus on non-diplomatic means to secure perceived US interests.
In the article, Ravid mentions former US Secretary of State James Baker, who managed to get the ultra-right wing Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Shamir to the Madrid Conference, which ultimately led to the Oslo peace process. The surrounding circumstances have certainly changed in more than twenty years since Baker’s day. But while the circumstances that both forced and allowed Baker and his boss, George H.W. Bush, to push Shamir to Madrid are radically different, that’s not the greatest factor.
The real difference is that Baker and Bush were willing to exercise real pressure on Israel to get Shamir to acquiesce. That is something Obama has repeatedly shown he won’t do. No matter how insulting Netanyahu’s behavior, no matter how much Israel acts to counter the best interests of the United States, as well as of itself, Obama will do no more than make mild statements calling Israel “unhelpful.” And Israel couldn’t care less about that.
It’s easy, and certainly correct, to blame AIPAC for this state of affairs. But even AIPAC has its limits, and they cannot brazenly defy a second-term President who is determined to get something done. Bush the Elder did it. Bill Clinton did it at Wye River. Even Bush the Younger did it in 2003, when he reduced Israel’s loan guarantees after Israel refused to alter the route of its security fence according to US wishes.
Somehow, Obama can’t find the same backbone. And ultimately, even if Kerry’s efforts were far more sensible than they are, without that level of presidential backing — a level that all of Obama’s predecessors reached, despite their own one-sided and destructively myopic support of Israeli excesses — there is no chance for success.
]]>Criticism of former Senator Chuck Hagel for not backing the 2007 US “troop surge” in Iraq demands an explanation of why that relatively small reinforcement was not the main driver for reversing Iraq’s descent into violent chaos. In fact, when proposed in late 2006, there was widespread doubt about its potential [...]]]>
Criticism of former Senator Chuck Hagel for not backing the 2007 US “troop surge” in Iraq demands an explanation of why that relatively small reinforcement was not the main driver for reversing Iraq’s descent into violent chaos. In fact, when proposed in late 2006, there was widespread doubt about its potential for success among experts. And that skepticism was not, as detractors allege, off target. In reality, a different change in Bush Administration Iraq policy was the primary game-changer. Nonetheless, widespread belief still persists that the troop surge alone reversed the downward spiral in Iraq during 2003-2006. Some have tried to correct the record, but without much success.
When I served with the Iraq Study Group (ISG) led by former Secretary of State James Baker and former Congressman Lee Hamilton in 2006, many of its core Middle East experts felt the “troop surge” would fail because it was far too small. It increased US troops in Iraq by less than 20 percent. The situation, which included the robust Sunni Arab insurgency, widespread al-Qaeda in Iraq (AQI) terrorism and rampant sectarian cleansing, had gotten too far out of control for so few troops to make a real difference. Some believed as many as five times the 21,500 troops the Bush Administration sent in were needed. After all, troop levels had risen and fallen modestly before with little change in what had been a grindingly indecisive anti-insurgency war.
Unknown to the ISG (and evidently most of everyone outside the executive branch) the Bush Administration had quietly made another decision truly capable of sparking a major improvement on the ground in Iraq. The White House agreed to a deal with the bulk of the Sunni Arab insurgents fighting US forces. The insurgents not only wanted to stop fighting US/UK forces, but also to partner with Coalition forces against al-Qaida in Iraq. Although holding their own and inflicting heavy casualties, the insurgents had tired of suffering heavy losses themselves, were appalled by damage to their own communities from the fighting, and had been angered by extremist AQI abuses in their home towns and villages.
In fact, insurgent leaders began approaching US forces over two years earlier with the same offer. But it was rebuffed by the Bush Administration (despite the support of many US military officers in Iraq) because the Shi’a-dominated Iraqi government bitterly opposed such a deal. In late 2006, however, in the face of a severe spike in violence — and despite more objections from the Iraqi government — the US accepted the deal. That triggered what was called Iraq’s Sunni Arab “Awakening” (up to 100,000 Sunni Arab insurgents changing sides).
It took nearly two more years of hard fighting to bring most all Sunni Arab insurgents into the arrangement, weaken the power of AQI, and curb sectarian cleansing. The modest US “troop surge” improved tactics set in motion by General David Petraeus, and gains in Iraqi Army professionalism helped too, but these were not nearly as critical as what some called the far more sweeping “deal with the devil.”
Sadly, Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki, who objected to the deal well into 2008, continues to exclude the Sunni Arab community from the Iraqi political mainstream. Despite assurances to the contrary, he has hounded many Sunni Arab fighters who took part in the “Awakening”, arresting and even taking out a good number of them. This has soured Sunni Arabs on Maliki and his Shi’a allies, causing enough Sunni Arabs to resume assisting AQI to make it difficult to stop the lethal bombings.
Why the decision to make this deal with the vast majority of the insurgents was withheld from the Iraq Study Group (and others) is unknown to me. It almost surely would have changed our recommendations, and likewise might well have made lawmakers like Chuck Hagel less skeptical of what otherwise appeared to be an inadequate fix in the face of a far greater challenge.
Equally bizarre has been the sloppy use of the US “troop surge” by most American media outlets as misleading shorthand for everything that altered the Iraqi playing field back in 2007-2008. As a result, critics continue to hound opponents (like Hagel) about a troop surge that could well have been a military failure if not for the stunning, belated, and initially secretive deal that transformed most of our Sunni Arab foes in Iraq into American allies.
Photo: US Army soldiers move down a street as they start a clearing mission in Dora, Iraq, on May 3, 2007. Soldiers from the 2nd Platoon, Alpha Company, 2nd Battalion, 3rd Infantry Regiment, 3rd Stryker Brigade Combat Team, 2nd Infantry Division are patrolling the streets in Dora. DoD photo by Spc. Elisha Dawkins, US Army. (Released)
]]>I’m pleased that President Obama is reportedly enlarging his list of possible candidates for senior national-security posts to Republicans, notably former Sen. Chuck Hagel, as reported by Josh Rogin, the Cable Guy, on yesterday. As has been pointed out by more than one commentator over the last few years, Obama’s [...]]]>
I’m pleased that President Obama is reportedly enlarging his list of possible candidates for senior national-security posts to Republicans, notably former Sen. Chuck Hagel, as reported by Josh Rogin, the Cable Guy, on yesterday. As has been pointed out by more than one commentator over the last few years, Obama’s basic foreign-policy views don’t seem all that far from the kind of fundamentally realist views pursued by the administration of President George H.W. Bush, and particularly his two leading advisers, Brent Scowcroft and James Baker — both of whom opposed the Iraq War — not to mention Colin Powell, who served under Bush I as Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. As I understand it, Obama consults Powell, who will forever regret not standing up to the Cheney-Rumsfeld-neocon cabal, on foreign-policy matters on a not infrequent basis. Moreover, realist Republicans — the bane of neo-conservatives — have always been far more tough-minded about Israel and the distinction between Israeli and U.S. national interests in the Middle East than Democrats. Because Israel and the Middle East are certain to be central to the foreign-policy success or failure of his second term, that kind of tough-mindedness should be especially appealing to Obama. So why Obama would only consider Democrats — and a particularly partisan and polarizing one like Susan Rice — for secretary of state when he has so much on his domestic agenda already has been very puzzling to me. A Republican in tune with Obama’s views could be particularly effective at running interference — especially with Congress — on the foreign-policy front, especially with respect to the Middle East.
Hagel has already been mentioned, but there are other possibilities.
My personal favorite is retiring Indiana Sen. Dick Lugar. As with the Bush I administration veterans, skeptics will immediately cite his age — 80 — as a disqualifying factor, and I understand he does have some minor ambulatory difficulties these days. (Recall, however, that FDR ran the U.S. from a wheelchair for 12 years.) But as is shown by this video of Lugar’s recent acceptance of an award from the Friends Committee on National Legislation — especially after the 15-minute mark when he takes questions — his mind is as sharp as a tack; his knowledge encyclopedic; his access to and interest in foreign leaders impressive; and his concern about the general state of the world, including the have-nots (listen to his discussion about Egypt) seemingly quite genuine.
Described by the New Yorker as “Obama’s favorite Republican,” Lugar defended Obama’s policies during the presidential campaign on Israel, Iran, and China, among other issues, warning back in September that, “We’re really going to have hell to pay,” if the U.S. or Israel carries out an attack against Iran. And given his negotiating skills (his main presentation in that video addresses all the WMD diplomacy he has carried out as follow-through on the 1992 Nunn-Lugar Cooperative Threat Reduction Act), his venerable age and breadth of experience, and invariably civil and engaging demeanor, all but the most rabidly right-wing Republican lawmakers are likely to show deference in his presence.
It is true that Lugar has too often followed his party’s leadership; the worst example, of course, was going along with the Iraq invasion (as did Kerry and Clinton, of course), although he did express pretty strong reservations at the time and became one of the first Republicans to break with Bush’s strategy by calling for a quick withdrawal. (Of course, Hagel was far ahead of him on Iraq). He was also a strong supporter of the most pertinent recommendations of the Iraq Study Group which, of course, was c0-chaired by Baker and Lugar’s fellow-Hoosier, former Rep. Lee Hamilton. I remember back in the 80′s when he defied his party and Ronald Reagan by leading the drive to pass the Comprehensive Anti-Apartheid Act of 1986 and then to override Reagan’s veto. To so flagrantly break with the president was not only politically courageous. It also demonstrated a sensitivity to the aspirations of what was then called the “Third World” that was and remains all-too-rare among Republicans and an understanding that being a foreign-policy “realist” in the late 20th century required factoring popular grassroots movements into the balance-of-power calculations made by governments operating in an international system. His early determination that it made no sense to try to sustain or even reform Marcos dictatorship in the face of the “People Power” movement showed a similar awareness. Moreover, from the early 1980′s, he worked to temper the aggressiveness of Reagan’s Central America policies; in stark contrast to many of his Republican colleagues, his door was always open to human rights, peace, and church groups during the period.
Add to all this Lugar’s consistent support for international treaties and conventions, particularly in the arms control and disarmament field — a major personal priority of Obama’s — as well as his backing for legislation designed to address global warming and climate change, food security, and global health, and Obama would have someone who appears almost entirely in tune with him on just about all of the critical issues he faces in the second term. A highly respected Republican with 36 years in the Senate, most of them on the Foreign Relations Committee — who better to have your back when it comes to dealing with Congress? (An excellent profile of his “legacy” can be found in this National Interest piece by John Shaw.)
There are, of course, other Republicans worth considering. Former Utah Gov. and Obama’s ambassador to China, John Huntsman, certainly falls into the realist camp and would probably make a very effective secretary of state, especially in overseeing the much-ballyhooed “pivot” to Asia. But the fact that he served under Obama, his lack of Congressional ties and experience, as well as his failure to gain any traction for his candidacy in the presidential primary campaign, would likely combine to make him far less persuasive to fellow-Republicans than Lugar. In fact, many Republicans might consider his nomination something of a provocation.
Another Republican worth considering would be former U.S. Trade Representative, former Deputy Secretary of State, and former World Bank President Robert Zoellick, despite his brief association in 1998 with the Project for the New American Century urging the U.S. to adopt regime change in Iraq as its official policy. Aside from that lapse, I have seen virtually no evidence (does anyone have some?) that Zoellick has neo-conservative sympathies. Indeed, neo-cons and aggressive nationalists like John Bolton were pretty upset when Romney appointed Zoellick the head of his transition team. I would wager that Zoellick may have played an important role in persuading Romney to substantially reduce his hawkish rhetoric and stress his agreement with Obama on any number of foreign-policy issues during the third presidential debate. (See Jon Stewart’s hilarious rendition here.)
A protege of Baker during the George H.W. Bush administration, Zoellick is highly, highly competent, as shown by the speed with which he gained the confidence of a World Bank staff demoralized by the petty scandal, seeming cluelessness, and general flakiness of his predecessor, Paul Wolfowitz, who shamelessly rewarded key officials in governments that support the U.S. Iraq invasion with top posts after he took over the Bank. Moreover, Zoellick’s experience at the Bank — dealing with a large multi-national and multi-cultural staff; visiting remote, impoverished regions all over the world; and raising money and other support from emerging economies eager to claim their place at the table — no doubt gave him insights into a far more complex and multi-polar world than most Republicans believe exists. Finally, his deep involvement in international finance and economics almost certainly gave him an appreciation of the limits of U.S. power and the urgency of reducing imperial overstretch of the last couple of decades or more.
Of course, Zoellick is anything but a backslapping pol and, unlike Lugar, Hagel, and Huntsman, has never even run for office. On the contrary, he’s a loner, arrogant, and doesn’t suffer fools gladly, but it may actually be healthy for Republican lawmakers to be on the receiving end of that.
Of course, there are others. On the foreign service professional side, see Robert Wright’s nomination of Deputy Secretary of State William Burns — as well as some of the possible downsides of Kerry — on the Atlantic’s website. If Obama inclines to an older crowd, then diplomat extraordinaire Thomas Pickering, who, among many, many other civic activities, chairs the International Crisis Group, would be fabulous. Pickering, who has served in many key embassies, was most notable for his service as Bush I’s UN ambassador during the Gulf War. He is also a core member of the Iran Project, which, in the eyes of Benjamin Netanyahu and the Israel lobby, probably makes him unacceptable. But Pickering, a former ambassador to Israel, did serve with distinction under Republican, as well as Democratic, administrations.
]]>Perhaps that’s why, just in time for the holidays, the Republican Jewish Coalition (RJC) launched a scathing attack on some of the most prominent — and pro-Israel– [...]]]>
Perhaps that’s why, just in time for the holidays, the Republican Jewish Coalition (RJC) launched a scathing attack on some of the most prominent — and pro-Israel– Jewish Senators and organizations like the Anti-Defamation League (ADL).
Noah Silverman, RJC’s Congressional Affairs Director since 2006, may have been moved by the sight of boiling oil when he made his debut as an official RJC blogger. No sooner writ than said, Silverman’s pontifications splattered over to RJC’s e-mail list on Thursday night.
Silverman attacks Jews and Jewish organizations who have come out in support of the immediate ratification of the New START Treaty. Picking up where the Emergency Committee for Israel (ECI) and JINSA left off, Silverman’s rails against “an unprecedented effort to ‘make START a Jewish issue‘ by pressuring Jewish communal organizations to advocate for the treaty’s ratification.”
He’s irate with the ADL and the American Council of World Jewry, both of whom objected when Senate Republicans made it known that they would use member prerogative to block ratification: “We are deeply concerned that failure to ratify the new START treaty will have national security consequences far beyond the subject of the treaty itself,” a Nov. 19 letter from the ADL to all members of the Senate asserted. ”The U.S. diplomatic strategy to prevent Iran from developing nuclear weapons requires a U.S.-Russia relationship of trust and cooperation.”
Granted that the ADL was speaking from the perspective of its anti-Iran agenda. Nonetheless — and perhaps especially so — it’s bizarre to hear the RJC’s Silverman challenging the right of Jewish organizations to weigh in on issues other than Israel. And Silverman is livid that Senate Democrats would dare to use an argument about Israel’s security to enlist AIPAC in the effort to get START ratified.
MJ Rosenberg — citing Nathan Guttman in the Forward and Ron Kampeas at the Jewish Telegraphic Agency — suggests that
AIPAC is in agony. It desperately wants to support the US-Russia START treaty aimed at limiting nuclear warheads because the treaty would greatly advance Israel’s security.
But it is afraid of defying right-wing Republicans in the Senate. Sen. Jon Kyl (R-AZ), in particular, is telling AIPAC “don’t you dare.” His reason is simple: Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) has ordered Republicans to block anything the President submits to the Senate except, of course, tax cuts for millionaires. That includes START.
Tight-with-the-right Washington Post blogger Jennifer Rubin is Silverman’s source that the involvement of AIPAC in a non-Israel issue is shocking. Rubin writes, “An experienced Israel hand tells me, ‘Well, they of course claim there is a direct link to Israeli security. But, no, this must be very rare.’ A Capitol Hill adviser from another office says ‘I’ve never seen this done with AIPAC on a non-Israel issue.’”
But it’s not all that rare, according to Rosenberg:
AIPAC argues that it does not get involved in congressional battles that do not directly involve Israel. Of course, they do. They always have. Even when I worked at AIPAC decades ago, they put their full lobbying weight behind a then-controversial plan to establish a military base on the Pacific island of Diego Garcia.
Why? Because the Republican President at the time asked them to. More recently, AIPAC made sure that its friends in Congress knew that the “right vote” for Israel was supporting both Iraq wars. (Had AIPAC not indicated its support for war, far fewer Democrats would have voted for the second Iraq war.)
Silverman frames the effort to pass START as evidence of “a panicked White House is scrambling to salvage what it can of its legislative agenda before its influence in Congress is diminished next year.” But the letter to AIPAC which so outrages Silverman was written by two longtime senators who supported arms control long before Barack Obama was elected president.
Michigan Democrat Carl Levin was first elected to the Senate in 1978, where he’s Chair of the Senate Armed Services Committee. He’s been consistently supportive of conventional forces and basic, reliable weapons systems to protect national security. His support for START is anything but last minute. In a column in the Niles Daily Star on July 9, Levin wrote:
As Adm. Mike Mullen, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, described it, New START will “make our country more secure and advance our core national security interests.” This treaty is in keeping with a long tradition of bilateral, verifiable arms control agreements with Russia and its predecessor, the Soviet Union, and it strengthens the U.S. commitment to stopping the spread of nuclear weapons.
Silverman not only ignores Mullen’s endorsement of START, he seems completely oblivious to the support expressed by Republicans for “resetting” the Treaty. They include what Jim Lobe calls are the “big guns in what remains of the Republican foreign policy Establishment, including five former secretaries of state whose service spanned the last five Republican administrations.” They include Colin Powell, James Baker, Henry Kissinger, George Schultz and Lawrence Eagleburger, who wrote in a Washington Post op-ed that there are “compelling reasons” for Republicans to approve ratification of START.
Bloomberg News reports that several Republican senators — among them Richard Lugar, Bob Corker, Lamar Alexander, Bob Bennett, John McCain, and Kyl himself, are hinting they could support the reset of START in the lame-duck Senate session if (and perhaps only if) the Senate voted to extend the expiring Bush-era tax cuts to cover Americans in all income groups. So it’s domestic politics, not national security, that may determine the fate of START, JINSA notwithstanding. MJ Rosenberg also thinks that “Kyl may come around and then AIPAC can too.”
Silverman, who worked for seven years as a legislative aide in Kyl’s office, also uses his first blogpost to defend Kyl against what he deems to be assaults on his former boss’s reputation. He is no doubt bristling at the thought that his former boss will give in on START out of political expediency. Although the RJC launched some of the most vicious ad hominem attack ads against Obama before the 2008 election, Silverman huffs that “Pro-Obama commentators attacked Kyl in the most demeaning and personal terms — including calling him unpatriotic.”
The “demeaning” attack on Kyl to which Silverman links is a Huffington Post rhymed rant by self-described Ranting Political Poet Jim Parry. The personal attack: a single Tweet by Washington Monthly contributor and blogger Steve Benen. And the accusation of Kyl’s being “unpatriotic”? A tweet by actress Elizabeth Banks, co-star of the frat-boy comedy film Zack and Miri Make a Porno.
Does Silverman really consider two tweets and a rant “pro-Obama news commentary”? If so, it explains alot.
Like why, after 25 years of Republican Jewish Coalition activism, there is only one single Jewish Republican to be found in the U.S. Congress — in either the upper or lower chamber.
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