by Marsha B. Cohen
News sites throughout the US — and Israel — are still displaying shock over the defeat of House Majority Leader Eric Cantor by a Tea Party challenger in Virginia’s June 11 primary. The GOP leader was widely expected to succeed John Boehner as Speaker of the House of Representatives within the next [...]]]>
by Marsha B. Cohen
News sites throughout the US — and Israel — are still displaying shock over the defeat of House Majority Leader Eric Cantor by a Tea Party challenger in Virginia’s June 11 primary. The GOP leader was widely expected to succeed John Boehner as Speaker of the House of Representatives within the next 3 years; hardly anyone predicted his loss to the political newcomer, Dave Brat. Cantor is the first Majority Leader since 1899 to fail renomination by his party.
Cantor’s defeat will have widespread repercussions for US domestic politics, epitomizing the growing fissure in the Republican party between mainstream center-right Republicans and the Tea Party. Cantor himself danced awkwardly between the two, blurring their boundary. But nothing in Cantor’s stated positions or House votes on social and economic issues distinguishes him from other conservative Republicans.
Cantor was the sole Jewish Republican in the House of Representatives during his 7 terms in office, putting him on the very short list of the Jewish members of Congress who have found a political home within the GOP. There are currently no other Republican Jews in the Senate, so Cantor’s departure from the House will mean that there won’t be a single Jewish Republican in either chamber of Congress. In the 113th Congress, 21 Democrats in the House and 11 in the Senate are Jewish, as is 1 Independent senator. This will be rather awkward for the Republican Jewish Coalition (RJC), which has not only been arguing for three decades that American Jews are abandoning their traditional loyalty to the Democratic party and increasingly identifying as Republican, but also that Jewish interests are better served by Republicans. Cantor was the RJC’s poster boy.
Indeed, here’s RJC Executive Director Matt Brooks statement on Cantor’s resounding defeat:
We are disappointed that our friend Eric Cantor lost his primary race tonight, but we are proud of his many, many accomplishments in Congress…Eric has been an important pro-Israel voice in the House and a leader on security issues, including Iran sanctions. We deeply appreciate his efforts to keep our country secure and to support our allies around the world.
Although support for pro-Israel and anti-Iran legislation has been overwhelmingly bipartisan, Cantor has played a unique role on the GOP side of the aisle. Alexander Burns of Politico points out:
…with Cantor’s defeat, there’s no longer a point man to help organize trips to Israel for junior GOP lawmakers, as Cantor routinely did. Jewish nonprofits and advocacy groups have no other natural person in leadership to look to for a sympathetic ear. No other Republican lawmaker can claim to have precisely the same relationship with gaming billionaire Sheldon Adelson, a primary benefactor of both the Republican Party and the Republican Jewish Coalition.
Cantor reportedly spent more than $5 million on his re-election campaign, while his opponent, an Economics professor at Randolph-Macon College, spent only $122,000. With big bucks backing him, Cantor seemed to have little to fear from a political novice supported by the Tea Party. “Brat’s campaign portrayed Cantor as a creature of Washington and an ally of special interests, particularly those representing the financial industry,” writes Jonathan Cohn of The New Republic. According to the Center for Responsive Politics, Cantor’s top three campaign contributors for the 2014 cycle were the Blackstone Group, Scoggin Capital Management, and Goldman Sachs.
The New Jersey based pro-Israel political action group NORPAC was also among the major contributors to Cantor’s campaign committee, though Cohn seems to have overlooked this. Ranking #9 on Cantor’s list of top donors, NORPAC had bundled $24,560 from pro-Cantor contributors in the 2014 election cycle, about $2000 less than Goldman Sachs’ $26,600.
AIPAC, the much larger and better known pro-Israel lobbying group, does not donate to candidates or bundle campaign contributions. But the campaign contributions of AIPAC’s presidents and individual activists can be documented, and they can serve as a bellwether of AIPAC’s organizational support. Until recently, AIPAC presidents personally contributed mostly to pro-Israel Democrats running in national elections, Jewish or not, and to the small number of Jewish Republicans then in the House and Senate. While AIPAC has tended to favor incumbents, it has also supported the challengers of candidates running for re-election whose positions were deemed insufficiently supportive of Israel. Since joining AIPAC ‘s Board roughly a decade ago, Michael Kassen has been extending his own campaign contributions to some of the most conservative Republican members of Congress — including Ed Royce, Virginia Foxx, and Ted Cruz — whose domestic policies are sharply at odds with those held by center-to-liberal Jewish Americans. Kassen became president of the organization in 2012 and AIPAC’s Chairman of the Board in 2014.
In a twist of irony, by contributing to the Tea Party’s increasing hold on Congress — as long as candidates’ stated support for Israel was loud and clear — pro-Israel donors like Kassen may have inadvertently contributed to a political climate conducive to the defeat of their single greatest success story, Eric Cantor.
This article was first published by LobeLog.
Photo: Rep. Eric Cantor shakes President Barack Obama’s hand at the conclusion of a bipartisan Congressional leadership meeting in the Oval Office Private Dining Room on Nov. 10, 2013. Credit: White House Photo by Pete Souza
]]>The “Sheldon Primary” is how casino mogul Sheldon Adelson showcases his political clout in the United States. As Jim Lobe reports, Israel was the main issue on the table for the line of Republican hopefuls who came to Las Vegas this weekend to curry favor with the pro-Israel billionaire [...]]]>
The “Sheldon Primary” is how casino mogul Sheldon Adelson showcases his political clout in the United States. As Jim Lobe reports, Israel was the main issue on the table for the line of Republican hopefuls who came to Las Vegas this weekend to curry favor with the pro-Israel billionaire and fervent supporter of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
The influence Adelson has over the GOP on Israel was underlined by an embarrassing moment for New Jersey governor Chris Christie at the gala. In an attempt to impress his audience with pro-Israel bromides, he uttered the words “occupied territories” — a grievous mistake in front of someone like Adelson, who rejects a two-state solution and considers the West Bank to be part of Israel, indivisible. Christie, not known for making fulsome apologies or backing down from a controversy, nonetheless apologized to Adelson in private, according to Politico, trying to make clear that it was only a poor choice of words. For the record, “occupied territories” is correct according to the official US government position, which takes it cue from the United Nations.
Adelson is also in Israeli headlines this week, and not just because of his moment with Christie. Not satisfied with Israel Today (Israel Hayom), the free, pro-Netanyahu tabloid he set up in 2007, Adelson has now bought two other Israeli outlets, the national-religious daily Makor Rishon and the online version of the insolvent center-right daily Maariv, NRG, for $5 million from its parent media group. NRG, which reflects Maariv’s center-right editorial line, reaches a large online audience. Makor Rishon, printed only in Hebrew, has low circulation but is very well-read among the national-religious settler establishment. The purchase indicates further consolidation of media ownership in Israel, but the politics of it is another matter entirely.
Israel Today, founded in 2007, evokes memories of the hyper-partisan dailies of 1950s Israel. Since 2010, it has been the highest circulated daily in the country. Critics and supporters of Likud — even Netanyahu himself — say that the paper’s editorials helped him triumph in the 2009 Knesset (parliamentary) elections.
After seven years in print and two national elections, Israel Today (nicknamed “Bibiton”) has transformed the face of Israeli media. Economically, its free distribution upset the models for the other main dailies (Haaretz, Maariv, and Yediot Aharonot). Israeli media watcher Tal Schneider estimates that it currently costs Adelson $3 million a month to keep it afloat. Adelson’s print competitors simply cannot match this level of capital. Shlomo Ben-Zvi, owner of the national-religious daily Makor Rishin who took over Maariv and NRG in 2012, once hoped that he would be able to compete with Adelson directly. But his attempt never had a real chance given the financial distance between the two men.
Israeli legal efforts to undercut Adelson have also failed. A 2009 Knesset bill (quietly applauded by some of Israel Today’s competitors) would have barred foreigners from owning Israeli newspapers; it was clearly aimed at undercutting Adelson’s influence. Though that bill failed, Knesset members have now introduced legislation that would limit free newspaper distribution and fix prices for print sales. Israel Today will lose its competitive advantage if this becomes law.
Ambitious Israeli right-wing politicians seem to agree that the casino mogul has gone too far with his purchase of Maariv‘s properties — Israel Today, NRG (due to its relationship with Maariv), and Makor Rishon all have a reputation of being very close to the Prime Minister’s Office under Netanyahu.
Netanyahu’s nominal allies cannot stand the advantage Adelson’s tabloid gives him. Naftali Bennett and Avigdor Lieberman, Netanyahu’s Minister of the Economy and his Minister of Foreign Affairs, respectively, have both belittled Israel Today as the country’s own Soviet Pravda. They would also would jump at a chance to become the prime minister of Israel.
Netanyahu’s leadership rivals thus fear that if Adelson has his way, he will bless “Bibi” in perpetuity, while they scrape and shuffle outside the door for editorial blessings…not unlike the search by the 2016 Republican hopefuls in Las Vegas for Adelson’s largesse.
– Paul Mutter is a foreign policy blogger on leave from the NYU Arthur L. Carter Institute of Journalism. He contributes to PBS Tehran Bureau, The Arabist, Mondoweiss, Truthout, Salon and Foreign Policy in Focus. He primarily writes about US foreign relations, Israeli politics and the Persian Gulf region.
Photo: Jewish American billionaire Sheldon Adelson, left, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, center, and Adelson’s wife, Miriam. Credit: Eyal Warshavsky
]]>by Marsha B. Cohen
In a break with diplomatic tradition Ron Dermer, an American-born former Republican activist, is scheduled to attend the Republican Jewish Coalition’s (RJC) Spring Leadership Meeting in Las Vegas next week and share the speaking platform with New Jersey Governor Chris Christie, former UN Ambassador John Bolton, Ohio Governor Jon [...]]]>
by Marsha B. Cohen
In a break with diplomatic tradition Ron Dermer, an American-born former Republican activist, is scheduled to attend the Republican Jewish Coalition’s (RJC) Spring Leadership Meeting in Las Vegas next week and share the speaking platform with New Jersey Governor Chris Christie, former UN Ambassador John Bolton, Ohio Governor Jon Kasich and Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker.
The keynote speaker at the Meeting’s Gala Dinner will be former Vice President Dick Cheney and the meeting will be held at the Sheldon Adelson-owned Venetian Resort and Hotel March 28-30. Adelson is a long time supporter of the RJC and has been one of its major sources of funding.
The audience will be limited to members of the RJC’s National Leadership, an elite status requiring a minimum contribution of $1000 to the organization. Also attending will be college students “who have shown strong support for both Republican and Jewish causes on and off campus” and were awarded grants covering the conference fee and meals for their commitment to serving the RJC’s “active student ambassadors” on their campuses.
It is highly unusual for foreign ambassadors to directly involve themselves in the politics of the country in which they are serving, particularly by actively aligning themselves with an opposition party.
“The issue can be tricky,” explained one former US career diplomat to LobeLog. “As a sitting ambassador I often met with opposition figures to show that my country values pluralism and to hear different points of view.”
“I would not be a speaker at a political rally of any side, however,” said the former diplomat. “Doing so is an inappropriate level of involvement in a sovereign country’s domestic politics by a foreign representative.”
A retired senior officer in the US Foreign Service agreed that an embassy’s responsibility includes finding out what opposition leaders in their host country are saying. “In my day it was always an embassy’s job to have contacts across the political spectrum, except where a group was repugnant (terrorists) or put off-limits by an autocratic regime.”
However, the former senior officer emphasized that “Exchanging views with a government’s opponents would normally be carried out by ‘working level’ officers.”
The former senior officer suggested that the best solution for an embassy to glean information about opposition viewpoints was by lower-level embassy officials attending meetings at which they do not speak. “At first blush, the Israeli ambassador’s being a speaker at such an event would seem to cross the line.”
Dermer apparently committed himself to speaking at the exclusively partisan event within days of his taking up the post of Israel’s top diplomat in the US early last February, when he replaced another American expatriate, Michael Oren.
The same RJC e-newsletter sent out on Feb. 6 that welcomed Dermer as Israel’s new ambassador also announced that Cheney, Bolton and Walker were confirmed as guest speakers at the RJC Leadership Meeting. An announcement adding Kasich was e-mailed on Feb. 10, and another highlighting Christie’s participation and quietly adding Dermer’s name to the lineup was sent out on Feb. 14.
Asked to comment on the possible consequences of Dermer sharing a partisan platform with exclusively Republican speakers, the retired American foreign service officer explained, “For a foreign ambassador to appear publicly before a Republican group opposed to a Democratic administration could easily be seen as grounds for having him recalled by his government.”
“At a minimum, his utility in Washington would be affected as senior Democrats might decline to meet with him. His sending government could then decide to reassign him in favor of a neutral official,” said the former officer.
Known as “Bibi’s brain,” Dermer won’t likely face repercussions from Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu any time soon.
Leading US Jewish Democrats also appear unconcered about the upcoming event. Both the National Jewish Democratic Council and the office of the head of the Democratic National Committee, Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schulz (D-FL) declined to comment on Dermer’s apparent upcoming breach of diplomatic protocol.
But Dermer has another problem now: the diplomats of the Israeli Foreign Ministry are on strike. Netanyahu has accordingly canceled his historic upcoming visit to South America, and Pope Francis may have to postpone his visit to the Holy Land as well.
According to Barak Ravid of Haaretz, Foreign Ministry officials, including diplomats abroad, are refusing to process passports and visas for Israelis abroad, arrange travel for government officials, transmit diplomatic cables to intelligence and defense agencies, promote economic and trade agreements, or engage in public diplomacy.
Among the consequences of the strike thus far is that “Israeli missions abroad refused to disseminate any of the government’s talking points about the Iranian arms ship that Israel captured earlier this month, or to brief politicians and journalists in their host countries about it.” Israeli diplomats are also refusing to attend meetings of UN institutions in New York, Vienna and Geneva.
Nevertheless, according to the RJC’s office in Washington, DC, Dermer is still planning to attend their Leadership Meeting. “He’ll be there,” responded a surprised staff member. “He’s here in Washington, and we haven’t heard anything about him not coming.”
There are two possibilities. Dermer may have not yet advised the RJC that he won’t be able to make it to Las Vegas if the Israeli diplomats’ strike hasn’t ended by next week because he’s hoping it will be over by then.
The other possibility is that Dermer plans to attend the RJC Leadership Meeting strike or no strike. He could justify his attendance with the claim that he is attending as a private person, rather than in his official capacity as a diplomat. Nonetheless, it’s almost certain that he will continue to be identified in RJC publicity and on the meeting’s program as “Ambassador Ron Dermer,” and will be introduced as Israel’s ambassador to the US.
Stay tuned.
Photo: Speaker John Boehner meets with Ron Dermer, Israel’s ambassador to the United States, in his office at the US Capitol January 28, 2014. Credit: Heather Reed
]]>by Jim Lobe and Eli Clifton
Following on David’s post about Sheldon Adelson’s nuclear strategy for dealing with Iran’s nuclear program, it might be useful to recall some of the casino magnate’s favorite Israel-related organizational beneficiaries. Perhaps they should be asked if they, too, believe that Tehran and its [...]]]>
by Jim Lobe and Eli Clifton
Following on David’s post about Sheldon Adelson’s nuclear strategy for dealing with Iran’s nuclear program, it might be useful to recall some of the casino magnate’s favorite Israel-related organizational beneficiaries. Perhaps they should be asked if they, too, believe that Tehran and its inhabitants should be nuked if Iran doesn’t bow to the demands of Bibi Netanyahu (another beneficiary of Adelson’s largesse) after a demonstration bombing in the middle of some Iranian desert. Eli has compiled a list of recent contributions by both the Dr. Miriam and Sheldon G. Adelson Charitable Trust, the Adelson Family Foundation, Dr. Miriam and Sheldon G. Adelson Charitable Trust,and Sheldon Adelson himself, based on U.S. government tax records. While these two channels may not be the only ones Adelson uses to supply funding for his favored organizations, they are the most transparent.
It turns out that the biggest beneficiary over the last six or seven years has been the Zionist Organization of America (ZOA), which has received a total of $1.704 million, followed closely by the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies (FDD), at $1.510 million between 2008 and 2011.
Next on the list is the American Israel Education Fund, the arm of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) that sponsors tours for U.S. lawmakers and other influential elites to Israel. It received $1.048 million in 2007.
Two organizations received $1 million each: the One Jerusalem Charitable and Educational Fund in 2007, and the Friends of Israel Initiative, which was founded in 2010, is headed by former Spanish Prime Minister Jose Maria Aznar, and did almost nothing, so far as I can tell, in 2012. John Bolton, however, is one of its charter members.
The Anti-Defamation League (ADL) received $530,000 between 2001 and 2007, while the Middle East Media and Research Institute (MEMRI) received $500,000 between 2007 and 2012, according to the tax records.
Close behind was the Endowment for Middle East Truth (EMET), which received $400,000 during that same period of time.
Lesser beneficiaries included the Committee for Accuracy in Middle East Reporting in America ($321,000 in 2007-08); the Friends of the Israel Defense Forces ($236,000 between 2007 and 2012); and the American Islamic Congress ($195,500) in 2008-09. These channels also provided token amounts to Christians United for Israel (CUFI), the Republican Jewish Coalition (RJC), and the American Friends of UN Watch.
(A spreadsheet detailing all of these grants can be viewed here.)
Again, given the fact that Adelson spent at least $98 million on the 2012 election cycle, and given his oft-stated devotion to Israel, I suspect this represents a fraction of his actual pro-Israel-related philanthropy. But we do know that he has given significant amounts of funding to these groups whose leaders will hopefully clarify whether they share Adelson’s rejection of sincere negotiations with Iran and his possibly genocidal strategy for dealing with its nuclear program.
]]>This week Mitt Romney raised British eyebrows — and hackles — with several gaffes that undermined the objective of his trip to London: to boost his limited to nonexistent foreign policy credentials.
Romney “must wish he was already on the next stop of his foreign tour, in Jerusalem, where [...]]]>
This week Mitt Romney raised British eyebrows — and hackles — with several gaffes that undermined the objective of his trip to London: to boost his limited to nonexistent foreign policy credentials.
Romney “must wish he was already on the next stop of his foreign tour, in Jerusalem, where he will undoubtedly be getting better treatment than he has so far on his initial visit to London,”Anshel Pfeffer opined in Haaretz on Thursday as one Romney misstep after another was reported in the British press.
In telling NBC News’ Brian Williams that there had been “disconcerting” omens about the London Olympics such as “stories about the private security firm not having enough people,” the presumptive Republican presidential nominee may have been gearing up for his Israel-based stop on his foreign policy muscular mastery tour. While Romney may have been referring to the scandals surrounding G4S, the private security firm accused of failing to live up to its £284 million contract to provide security for the London Olympics, his criticism of British stewardship at the 2012 Olympics will play well to Israelis who have been offended by the Olympic Committee’s reaction to Israeli special requests.
Indeed, Israelis have been angered that the International Olympic Committee once again turned down a decades-old request for a moment of silence during the opening ceremonies in memory of 11 Israeli athletes killed in a terrorist attack at the Munich Olympics in 1972. President Obama endorsed the commemoration of the 40th anniversary of the massacre (immediately denounced as a “politicizing” ploy by Obama critics on the right) as did Romney a few days days later. According to Friday morning reports from London, the British Zionist Federation organized an off-site and virtual event that attracted 200 attendees to the Israeli Embassy in London and another 20,000 in different venues around the city. There is no media mention yet as to whether Romney was among them.
The revelation last week that Olympic swimmers from Israel were not being provided with special security at their training camp in Corby, a town two hours from London, also provoked outrage in the Israeli press, particularly in light of the bus bombing at the Burgas Airport in Bulgaria that killed five Israeli tourists. The British organizers insisted that the security provided to all Olympic participants was sufficient, and other Israeli athletes said they felt safe in London and the Olympic Village. The alleged security lapse in Corby reportedly was exposed only after a greater level of protection for the Israeli swimmers was in place. Romney’s jab at British security arrangements for the Olympics, to which Prime Minister David Cameron and the British press took exception, will no doubt be taken as another sign of his concern for Israelis.
Romney’s arrival in Israel on Saturday follows a five day get-out-the-Republican-vote drive in Jerusalem in mid-July, launched by the Republican Jewish Coalition (RJC). Ari Fleischer, George W. Bush’s press secretary, and Matt Brooks, RJC’s Executive Director, have been desperately trying to entice the 77% of Jewish Americans who traditionally vote Democrat to join the Romney camp. The nearly 164,000 American Jews and dual nationals who make their homes in Israel tend to be more religious — and more politically conservative — than their non-expat coreligionists in the US, and reportedly vote Republican by a 3 to 1 margin. The RJC estimates that there are 150,000 potential voters in Israel who could swing the 2012 election in Romney’s favor. Romney’s Israel visit is the crown jewel of the RJC campaign, which targets not only the third largest American expatriate community in the world (Canada and Mexico rank first and second, the UK ranks fourth), but Jewish voters in the US, as well as evangelical Christians who harbor doubts about Romney.
Ironically, the RJC’s prospects for success have been enhanced by measures implemented by the Obama administration in 2009 that make it easier for Americans living abroad to vote. While Republican governors are doing everything they can to make voting more complicated and difficult in their own states such as implementing increasingly bureaucratic registration procedures and more stringent voter ID laws, the voting rights of the 6.32 million Americans living abroad are protected by the Federal Voting Assistance Program. Expats, some of whom may never have lived in the US, can quickly and easily register to vote and get an absentee ballot via a secure and user friendly website. The absentee ballot can be printed out, filled in, then scanned and emailed or snail-mailed back to election officials in the last state of residence.
The RJC drive to amass votes for Romney in Israel points to an emerging paradox of which the RJC hopes to take advantage; it is now easier than ever for Americans living abroad to vote in a US election while an increasing number of obstacles confront American voters who live on US soil. In other words, block the vote here, rock the vote there!
While Ed Sanders of the LA Times anticipates that Israelis will take Romney’s visit “in stride” and “with a grain of salt,” the fulsome advance coverage and interviews abroad published thus far in the Israeli press strongly hint that it will fall upon the foreign press corps to provide any critical coverage of Romney’s 36 hours in Israel. It’s not surprising that casino magnate and GOP mega-donor Sheldon Adelson’s Israel Hayom (Israel Today) — Israel’s largest circulation daily (because it’s free) — has nothing but effusive praise for Romney and undisguised contempt for the US president. Current headlines include “Romney to Israel Today : Israel Deserves Better Treatment than it’s Getting from Obama” and “The Opposite of Obama” by Michael Goldfarb.
Even the writers for the more literary and reputedly “liberal” Haaretz are gaga-eyed and oozing with starstruck praise for the GOP presidential contender for his looks as much as what they surmise are his policies. Ari Shavit gushes:
…he is devoting half an hour of his time to me, removing his jacket and shaking my hand, and giving me a big smile. He says a few words about the surprising heat in England, asks what’s going on in Israel. He radiates old-fashioned American warmth…When I observe the tall, handsome man who is answering my questions so cautiously, I have a feeling that the drama surrounding him is even bigger than he is.
Such praise is rarely rendered in the US press, even by Romney’s biggest fans. But it is not that different from the characterization of Romney in Israel Hayom: “Romney is a soft-spoken man. Up close he looks like a movie star: tall, graying at the temples and tanned. He definitely has the presidential look.” Translation: Romney doesn’t look like that half-schvartza the Democrats are trying to re-elect.
Meanwhile, Haaretz political reporter Barak Ravid, whose ear never tends to be far from the whispers of Netanyahu government insiders, insinuates that President Obama’s signing of United States-Israel Enhanced Security Cooperation Act a day before Romney’s arrival in Israel is deliberately intended to upstage his GOP rival and steal his thunder. However, the legislation was passed by Congress just last week. (Had Obama signed the legislation any sooner, the same criticism would have applied. If Obama had for any reason put off signing the legislation until next week, there is no doubt that the Israeli media, and Romney, would have attributed the postponement to the President’s purported hostility toward Israel.)
That Iran must be prevented from acquiring a nuclear weapon will be the easiest point on which Romney will agree with Netanyahu. Romney has already hinted that he approves of a US strike against Iran ahead of his Israel visit. Nevertheless, political strategists, as Ed Sanders notes, are predicting that Romney will face “challenges and minefields when dealing with the specifics of how he would restart peace talks, prevent Iran from building a nuclear bomb and respond to Israeli calls to release imprisoned American spy Jonathan Pollard.” However, in advance interviews with the GOP candidate, Israeli journalists have thus far not been holding Romney’s platitudinous responses to a particularly high standard of scrutiny and specificity on these issues.
Beyond his inability to offer policy prescriptions that differ substantially from the status quo, there are other potential pitfalls that also lay ahead for Romney this weekend due to the awkward scheduling of his Israel trip, which coincides with the Jewish observance of the Ninth Day of Av, a fast day second in importance only to the Jewish Day of Atonement (Yom Kippur) for observant Jews. This has necessitated, as many press reports have noted, the rescheduling of what was to have been a Saturday night fundraiser to the Monday morning before Romney’s departure for Poland. With a $50,000 per couple minimum entry fee, only about 20-30 guests are expected, among whom may be Sheldon Adelson himself. Adelson is on the RJC’s Board of Directors.
Interestingly, no one seems to have noticed how scheduling details of the trip might affect Romney’s stated plan to visit the “Western Wall”, or the reception he will receive there if he does. After spending much of the day at the Olympics on Saturday, Romney is scheduled to arrive in Israel that afternoon. Will he offend local sensibilities by showing up at the Western Wall (camera crew in tow) on the Jewish Sabbath? Or will he wait until Sunday, when the Ninth of Av, which actually falls on Saturday this year, will be observed by traditional Jews since fasting and mourning are prohibited on the Sabbath. Over a hundred thousand people customarily squeeze into the Western Wall plaza to lament the Temple’s destruction. Will Romney attempt to join them (camera crew in tow) or request that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu remove them? Either way, he is courting the risk of being pelted with stones by frock-coated, black-hatted, ultra-orthodox worshippers. Not exactly the kind of photo op that a presidential candidate could use to woo Jewish voters with.
]]>
The showing of the movie in the Rayburn House Office Building will be hosted by the Republican Jewish Coalition (RJC) and a right-wing D.C. [...]]]>
The showing of the movie in the Rayburn House Office Building will be hosted by the Republican Jewish Coalition (RJC) and a right-wing D.C. Israel lobby group called the Endowment for Middle East Truth (EMET). The RJC invite makes it a point to give “special thanks to Majority Leader Eric Cantor [R-VA] for making this event possible.”
It’s EMET’s involvement that piqued my interest. EMET — whose acronym, emet, is the Hebrew word for ‘truth’ — has a bit of a history with Clarion involving an exposed lie from EMET president Sarah Stern.
Stern, a right-wing activist who has worked for the American Jewish Committee and the Zionist Organization of America, brags in her EMET bio about her efforts on the Hill — behind the backs of the Israeli and U.S. administrations — to spike the Oslo peace process of the 1990s.
In Sept. 2008, Stern hired flak Ari Morgenstern to help EMET promote the movie “Obsession” during its distribution to tens of millions of ‘swing-state’ homes during the 2008 election. Morgenstern gave an interview to me at the time, describing himself as an EMET spokesperson.
Five days later, EMET pulled out of the “Obsession” distribution project — a $17 million effort we now know was likely funded by major Chicago Republican donor Barre Seid. Stern told JTA at the time that she was hoodwinked by Clarion, and that she’d never talked to Morgenstern.
But she was lying. JTA‘s Eric Fingerhut got the goods (with my emphasis):
[T]he communications strategists for the project, Baron Communications LLC and 30 Point Strategies, shared e-mails and phone records that showed Stern had at least four telephone conversations earlier in the week with Morgenstern. In addition, they produced an e-mail from Sept. 22 which showed Stern approving of a press release and other materials announcing EMET’s participation. Another e-mail a day later from Stern included a lengthy note backing the project’s mission and the sign-off “Soldier On!”
But Stern hadn’t run the project by EMET’s board, so she pulled out.
I was a bit surprised, then, to see two months ago that Stern landed on Clarion’s new hawkish advisory board, which has some overlap with her shop.
Daniel Pipes and CSP chief and “Iranium” star Frank Gaffney are listed on both the EMET and Clarion advisory boards. James Woolsey, who never saw a neocon project he didn’t want to hitch his wagon to, and Iran hawk Kenneth Timmerman, both sit on EMET’s board and are featured prominently in “Iranium.”
Other hardliners among the EMET advisors include CSP fellow and JPost editor Caroline Glick; Hudson and Ariel Center‘s Meyrav Wurmser, the wife of Cheney advisor David and founder of MEMRI; Heritage‘s Ariel Cohen; Gal Luft, a so-called greenocon whose colleague Anne Korin appears in “Iranium”; and a host of other right-wingers.
In fact, there are two fundraising videos on EMET’s website where Stern is praised by Steven Emerson, Gaffney, Pipes, Heritage’s Cohen, Hudson‘s Tevi Troy, and Lori Palatnik, who, along with her husband, works for the ultra-orthodox, Israel-based evangelist group Aish Hatorah, which is intimately tied to Clarion.
Another troubling place where Stern gets support from is the House Foreign Affairs Committee, whose hawkish new chairperson, Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen (R-FL), has a long-established relationship with Stern. On an EMET page, Ros-Lehtinen commends Stern’s services:
I am writing in strong support of Sarah Stern, who has worked with my office on matters of legislative importance…. I have known Sarah for many years and find her to be passionate and knowledgeable…
Three of the top-listed EMET advisors are ex-Israeli diplomats associated with the Likud. These are the very figures with whom Stern worked on Capitol Hill to spike Oslo. From a piece on IPS written by myself, Eli and Jim, at the time of the “Obsession” controversy (with my emphasis and added links):
Also among the top names of listed advisers to EMET are three Israeli diplomats. Two of them, Ambassadors Yossi Ben Aharon and Yoram Ettinger, were among the three Israeli ambassadors whom then-Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin referred to as “the Three Musketeers” when they lobbied Washington in opposition to the Oslo accords. Indeed, Stern began her career at the behest of three unnamed Israeli diplomats who were based in Washington under Rabin’s predecessor, Yitzhak Shamir, according to EMET’s website.
Ettinger was at one time the chairman of special projects and is still listed as a contributing expert at the Ariel Centre for Policy Research, a hard-line Likudist Israeli think tank that opposes the peace process.
Ben Aharon was the director general – effectively the chief of staff – of Shamir’s office.
The third Israeli [diplomat], Lenny Ben-David, was appointed by Likud prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu to serve as the deputy chief of mission – second in command – at the Israeli embassy in Washington from 1997 until 2000. Ben-David had also held senior positions at the American Israel Public Affairs Committee for 25 years and is now a consultant and lobbyist.
Just like Clarion, where the producers and writer/director of the “Iranium” film are from the Israeli religious right, here we have, again, the Israeli right pushing policy on Washington.
There are few other ways to accurately describe it: This is the Israeli right directly pushing on Capitol Hill for an escalation with Iran, even pressing for an attack on the Islamic Republic.
These are the people we are supposed to trust about bombing Iran.
]]>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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