BUSH OUTSOURCES FOREIGN POLICY TO ISRAEL,
INCREASING DANGER OF NEW ATTACKS ON U.S.
GEORGE BUSH, with the concurrence of his purported opponent, John Kerry,
has effectively outsourced his major foreign policy to Israel, thereby
creating a substantially increased risk of further attacks on the U.S.
mainland.
Both men, however, appear motivated primarily by domestic political
considerations rather than the safety of their country. It has been
clear for a long time that the single most effective thing America could
do to improve both its relationships and its security in Middle Eastern
affairs would be to end its coddling of the right wing Israeli
government, pressuring it instead to come to a reasonable accommodation
with Palestine.
While much of American Œeven handedness‚ in the Middle East over the
years has been a charade, the latest move clearly ends even the illusion
of fairness. As the AP reported, „A senior Israeli official, speaking on
condition of anonymity, said Sharon thought that no American president
had ever made concessions so important to Israel as Bush did on
Wednesday.‰
Pollster John Zogby told Dana Milbank and Mike Allen of the Washington
Post, „This is pretty much the final nail in the coffin of the peace
process as far as Arabs are concerned."
Wrote Milbank and Allen: „[Zogby] said his polling indicates the
Palestinian cause is among the top three issues for 90 percent of Arabs
in all Arab countries he has surveyed. ŒIt's not even a political issue,
it's a bloodstream issue,‚" Zogby said.
Milbank and Allen gave an unusually frank description of the domestic
politics involved:
||| Domestically, ~~ the move could enable Bush to chip away a few more
of the Jewish voters who have traditionally been loyal to Democrats. And
in a tight election, the small minority of Jewish voters -- who tend to
have strong turnout levels -- could give Bush an edge in battleground
states such as Florida, Ohio and Pennsylvania.
"Given that Jews turn out at an 80 percent turnout rate, if you swing
the Jewish vote 10 percent in Ohio, that could give you Ohio," said
Nathan Diament, a lobbyist for the Orthodox Jewish movement. Though he
believes Bush's motive is principle rather than politics, Diament also
notes that the courting of Jewish donors -- hugely important to
Democrats -- could aid the Republican Party. . .
House Chief Deputy Majority Whip Eric I. Cantor (Va.), the House's only
Jewish Republican, echoed that point. "American Jews see that President
Bush gets the fact that Israel is fighting the same fight against
terrorism that we are," he said. "The very liberal Jews are not going to
be able to put aside their environmental or abortion politics. But for
the mainstream Jewish community, Israel is of paramount importance."
Republican officials in Washington said that while they are confident
Bush made his decision for sincere policy reasons, they believe the
potential impact on the politics of 2004 could be substantial. "This
will make it that much harder for John Kerry to win Florida," said a
Republican aide on Capitol Hill who refused to be identified because of
the sensitivity of the issue. Associates said Bush's strategists believe
that even small inroads into the Jewish vote could mean the difference
between winning and losing Florida, and several Republicans believe the
announcement could further inhibit Kerry's fundraising in the Jewish
community.
David Winston, a pollster who advises GOP lawmakers, said that the
policy change "is clearly going to generate some favorable reaction from
people who have not been traditional Republican voters."
"This expands the opportunity for the Republican Party," Winston said.
|||
There is a big price to be paid for viewing „the special relationship‰
as a political asset. Mark Mawozer, writing in the Financial Times,
notes that:
||| The tidal wave of anti-American feeling has eroded its position as
an honest broker over Palestine, while lavish aid has given it scant
leverage over Israeli policy. Other administrations, if not this one,
have also resented the extent of the Israeli lobby's power over Congress
and White House alike.
John Foster Dulles, the late US secretary of state, had underlined the
dangers of a situation in which "much of the world - and the Israeli
government - believed Israel could in crucial moments control US
policy". President Bill Clinton was not pleased when Benjamin Netanyahu,
then Israeli prime minister, once referred - with unnecessary candor -
to the US as Israel's strategic asset.
Here surely is the partnership's paradox: despite enjoying a global
supremacy unprecedented in history, the US finds itself reacting to
events, not shaping them. Where the Middle East is concerned, the power
of initiative lies not in Washington but in Jerusalem.
Can any great power acquiesce indefinitely to such a self-limiting
posture? President George Washington had warned Americans in his
Farewell Address that "a passionate attachment of one nation for another
produces a variety of evils". He was referring to their fondness for the
French. One wonders if the current US attachment to Israel will ever go
the same way. |||
The Jewish electorate in America has changed dramatically in the past
decades. For much of the 20th century, Jewish activism, along with
mid-western populism, were major sources of the country‚s progressive
ideas. But with the rise of Israel as an symbol and the upward mobility
of succeeding generations, the Jewish electorate became increasingly
conservative, much of it now a part of a SUV liberal right that is no
longer much interested in populist politics.
While Muslims are an increasingly important voting bloc, they are
poorer, less well organized, and less concentrated than the Jewish vote
and thus less appealing to politicians.
What is amazing about all this is that under discussion is a policy that
could easily lead to another disaster of the scale of 9/11. It is hard
to find a parallel for such a negligently reckless foreign policy in
recent American history.
While politicians have repeatedly catered to ethnic groups with a
foreign agenda, it is unusual for such behavior to cost so much in
money, goodwill, and national security.
For example, some such causes ˆ such as Northern Ireland and South
Africa ˆ have offered positive outcomes. Some ˆ as with efforts to
please the Cuban right ˆ have been negative but not causing any major
damage.
Israel is, however, in a lonely class with Taiwan, both with a long
history of directly interfering in American politics against the larger
interest of, and at significant risk to, our country.
Beyond these two examples, you have to go back to New York City during
the rise of Mussolini to find something somewhat comparable. Mussolini
not only got significant support from the Italian-American right but in
ŒFriendly Fascism,‚ Bertram Gross notes that Mussolini also won "the
friendship, support or qualified approval" of the American ambassador,
Cornelius Vanderbilt, Thomas Lamont, many newspapers and magazine
publishers, the majority of business journals, and quite a sprinkling of
liberals, including some associated with both the Nation and The New
Republic.
This combination of ethnic and elite support has a familiar ring today
and raises some of the same issues.
Writing a review for the history site, H-Net, Stanislao G. Pugliese
notes that „[Philip] Cannistraro shows how the fascist government made
strident efforts to recruit both leading prominenti such as Generoso
Pope (publisher of Il Progresso and other Italian-language newspapers)
as well as the masses. Mussolini's representatives in America shrewdly
played on the anxious (and new-found) nationalism of the Italian
Americans. Fascist rhetoric appealed to Italian Americans, many of whom
were suffering from overt discrimination; harking back to the glories of
ancient Rome, Italo Balbo's flying squadron, and the Duce's declaration
of an ŒAfrican Empire‚ were powerful ingredients in an ideology of
compensation.‰
True, there was an Italian-American left far more vigorous than today‚s
Jewish counterpart. It would help elect the likes of Fiorello La Guardia
and one of the most progressive representatives ever to sit in Congress,
Vito Marcantonio. But it also ran into plenty of trouble, including
major clashes between black shirts and anti-fascists and
the assassination of its major newspaper editor, Carlo Tresca, by
members of the pro-Mussolini Mafia.
The Mafia would eventually join the American cause but with the
questionable payoff that the Americans - because of its utility in
fighting European communists - helped it regain control of Sicily after
the war and looked the other way as it strengthened its position in the
U.S.. The bargain curses us to this day.
In 1979 the Fifth Estate reported: „Upon his arrival in Italy, [Carlo]
Gambino gave Mussolini a gift of $100,000 and asked if there was any
favor he could do for the dictator. The Duce replied that there was an
anarchist in New York City who caused much trouble for Italy by his
"lies." Mussolini and Gambino both agreed that it would be best if the
source of the problem was eliminated. Galante was a capo in the NYC
Gambino family who functioned as an enforcer.
„In Naples, one of [Lucky] Luciano's lieutenants, Vito Genovese, was
appointed to a position of interpreter-liaison officer in American army
headquarters and quickly became one of AMGOT's most trusted employees.
It was a remarkable turnabout; less than a year before, Genovese had
arranged the murder of Carlo Tresca, editor of an anti-Fascist
Italian-language newspaper in New York, to please the Mussolini
government.‰
In the end, even Generoso Pope later joined in supporting Franklin
Roosevelt but to this day the city‚s Italian American politics is marked
by divisions symbolized by Mario Cuomo and Geraldine Ferrero on one side
and Alphonse D‚Amato and Rudolph Guiliani on the other.
Today, but without a healthy left, Jewish-American politics presents
some of the same dangers that Italian-American politics did in the 1920s
and 30s: a misbegotten conversion of love of one‚s roots into loyalty
to a government that is a betrayal of much of what those roots are meant
to mean.
And, as a result, all Americans, regardless of their roots, are placed
in danger. ˆ SAM SMITH |
