At J Street two days ago, two former Congressmen who were important Obama supporters in the Jewish community last year– Bob Wexler and Mel Levine– said that Obama’s decision earlier this year to reverse George Bush on the anti-ballistic-missile system planned for Poland and the Czech Republic had an Israel component.
Florida biggie Wexler told J Street that Obama has "engaged internationally" to put Israel in a "stronger position." He offered as evidence the fact that the U.S. had removed the anti-missile plan. We did so, Wexler said, so as to have the Russians on board in isolating Iran over nukes.
Mel Levine said the same thing at a later panel: that Obama’s decision "gives us at least the promise of Russian cooperation" in the Middle East.
I’m glad Obama cashiered the ABM idea. The issue here is why? Notice that both Congressmen, who were longtime AIPAC figures, spoke of the decision in the context of American support for Israel, and meantime in the coverage of the Obama decision in the media, the Israel angle was not mentioned. When Walt and Mearsheimer published The Israel Lobby and U.S. Foreign Policy, I wondered if their title wasn’t overbroad. Didn’t they mean the lobby and U.S. policy in the Middle East? The comments by the two hawkish Israel-loving former congressmen at J Street suggest that the authors were right.
