From “Conservative pro-Israel groups’ relevance at risk in 2012“:
Conservative pro-Israel groups that have spent millions of dollars targeting President Barack Obama’s policies toward the Jewish state are facing a daunting reality: If the president wins anyway, their political influence may never be the same.
For groups such as the Republican Jewish Coalition and the Emergency Committee for Israel, as well as a vocal class of Israel-boosting GOP opinion leaders, the 2012 presidential election is an almost existential test of relevance. In a sense, the 2012 race is to conservative Israel hawks what the Wisconsin gubernatorial recall was for organized labor; a campaign that could permanently strike fear into their political enemies or raise embarrassing questions about their viability as a national political force.
Funded in large part by billionaire gaming magnate Sheldon Adelson — an unswerving supporter of Israel and its conservative prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu — these groups have helped place Israel at the core of the GOP message on foreign policy. They’ve aired television ads seeking to woo Jewish voters away from the Democratic Party; one group, Secure America Now, has run multiple ads in Florida simply clipping from Netanyahu’s warnings about the threat of a nuclear Iran.
So far, the impact of all those efforts is uncertain at best: A poll released in September by the American Jewish Committee found Obama leading Mitt Romney by 41 points among Jews, 65 percent to 24 percent. A Gallup Poll last month was even more optimistic for Obama, showing him ahead 70 percent to 25 percent.
Jewish voters aren’t the only constituency that cares about Israel; evangelicals in particular are strongly hawkish when it comes to the U.S.-Israel relationship. But when it comes to swinging votes in 2012 on the basis of Israel policy, Jews have been the focus of Republican efforts, and may be the best indicator of whether the issue packs a punch in the presidential race.
The flipside of this argument is US policy on the Israel-Palestinian conflict. If both Obama and Romney’s policy towards Israel are essentially the same, hasn’t the lobby won out in the end? Maybe we’ll get to see on Monday if any daylight exists.
I think it will still be significant if the lobby loses on its desire to see Iran bombed, even if not the sort of death-knell being described in this article.
I don’t think I can bring myself to vote for Obama (drones, NDAA, Libya, Guantanamo, running interference for Bush-Cheney crimes, consolidating and expanding the civil liberties abuses of the previous administration, Wall Street bailouts and inaction on making much needed changes in that area, etc.), but it does seem like there is a substantive difference between Obama and Romney on bombing Iran. On Israel-Palestine, not so much. I admit, it’s difficult to know exactly what’s going on behind the scenes or in people’s heads; but if Romney is elected, it’s hard to see how he will not be owned by the faction that wants to attack Iran, and he has to know that.
Do you really think that it’s only Israel that wants to bomb Iran?
Does anybody believe that the U.S is an unwilling participant in any of this?
In a word: yes.
The question is how can anybody be so naïve to believe that this isn’t the case? Bush, the war president who was going to “out-Israel” anyone else who came before him and after him, said no to a strike in 2007.
The American defence establishment has balked at the idea from the getgo. Whether we’re talking the current head of the CIA(Petraeus) who was the highest-ranking general before he came to the CIA, wether it is the former secretary of defence, Bob Gates who recently warned that a strike could be ‘catastrophic’ and ‘haunt us for generations’(he is right) or the current unwillingness of the army brass.
Just look at the words of the currently most highly-ranked general, Martin Dempsey. He recently said he doesn’t want to be “complicit” in a strike against Iran.
Those are words one uses in criminal cases.
And then we got the Israeli defence establishment. Bibi has been cleaning many of them out but if you go down the list of recent and current heads of the Shin Bet, Mossad and various intelligence/army heads it is overwhelmingly skeptical.
The only people pushing for this are political insiders in Israel and their tools in the Israel lobby.
The professionals, both in Israel and back in the States, see the war for the folly that it is. Think it’s a coincidence that the pros are against and the armchair amateurs are for it?
Saudi Arabia would like to see an attack on Iran by USISrael. In case you didn’t notice, SA has also been deeply involved in demise of Syrian regime (and more directly, in murdering the Bahrain rebels). The US and EU could care less about civil rights in SA, same as in Israel & Israeli OT.
Yes.
Only Israel and its supporters in the USA want war with Iran, not the majority of the American people.
Only Israel and its supporters in the USA are fomenting war with Iran. Tirelessly. Relentlessly. Unforgivably.
Only Israel and its supporters in the USA ignore the NIEs, and the idiotic physical impossibility of making nuclear weapons out of uranium hexafluoride gas, fercrissake, like trying to make a BIC lighter out of cigarette smoke.
And if Romney wins, and he hands the keys to the kingdom to Netanyahu and there is war with Iran, there will be anti-semitism in this country as a direct result of Israel and its supporters in the USA peddling a needless chimera.
And if Obama lose * * * ?. But in that case, was it The Lobby or The Big Banks and Big Oil, etc.?
If Obama loses, the purity patrol of the Democratic Party will hold progressives who could not vote for the continuation of the policies subsidizing Israeli aggression responsible, especially since Nader is not running.
Maybe at the political level but the grassroots are already moving beyond Israel.
But the grassroots have no power when it comes to the US 2-party system, no matter if its Stein or Paul, or Nader or Johnson.
thanks for the link adam, there are a lot of choice quotes in that article and chit chat about netanyahu sticking his nose in where it doesn’t belong. ” Netanyahu had taken an “unprecedented” gamble by meddling directly in U.S. electoral politics.” etc etc
Hmmm…just occured to me….would the zios and netanyahu have chanced to go public in the US against our President if he wasn’t black?
I wonder if that was one of their calculations.
It would be great if Obama perceived this, got a second term and gave Netanyahu some payback.
But Obama figures he needs the Zionist Jews so he can play white golf forever while simultaneously getting kudos for being anti-white. On Fox News now, “Iran exepected to be big issue in debate tomorrow,” message delivered by Israeli spokesman, to Dick and Jane, given high deference by Fox News lady host.
The article you cite mentions that a weakness of Obama is that he has not visited Israel while President. Imagine that we have come to a point where the President of the US has to visit a micro-state like Israel to prove his gravitas.
@Les
Yes, that’s because in USA’s “judeo-christian” moral system, America must defend and fund Israel uber alles, not matter what Israel does, because it is God’s will.
In fairness, it is only natural that a wedge lobby loses the majority at some stage.
Getting hysterical over Israel’s self inflicted problems won’t put food on any table.
“But when it comes to swinging votes in 2012 on the basis of Israel policy”
I didn’t think swingers would be interested much in Israel.
There’s no sky between US and Israel, say both main US political contestants; neither is asking the voting US public to compare what USA gives its own welfare system for the poor or the rich/corporations, comparatively. te Swingers in the know will vote for 3rd party, or not vote. AIPAC wins regardless. US is enroute to dying for Israel.
Mr. Horowitz already wrote what I thought. President Obama’s policy will be to continue to fund and support Israel’s subjugation of the Middle East and seizure of Palestinian territory. The president might express his reasons differently and spin Israel’s oppression in an alternate light, but US policy with Israel will not change from this election.
you’re quite correct. fundamental US policy will remain to support Israel’s continued right to exist and to support the end of the occupation by direct negotiation between Israel and Palestinians. it will not be settles in any other way and can’t be settled as long as Hamas rules Gaza and refuses direct negotiations and recognition of Israel.
Michael Scheuer calling U.S. a “slave” to israel
link to informationclearinghouse.info
It’s amazing that radical authoritarian Statist’s like Netanyahu and the modern Republican party can still be called “conservative.”
It might be a test of the Lobby’s relevance in it’s current form – but the election might well open up more room on the right for the lobby, in other words, the agenda might get even crazier.
If Romney wins the agenda can be expected to become far more crazy. With a
worldview that was appopriate to l960′s foreign affairs, with advisors such as Dan Senor, Doug Feith, and W. Cristal, he can be expected to inaugerate a highly agressive, confrontational approach to middle east problems, embroiling the us in wars in Iran, Syria, Lebanon and, most probably, continuing the fruitless operations in Afganistan. Of course we have neither the troops nor the funds for such ambition. There will be no coalition partners because the European countries are over the fiscal cliff with several Euro partners moving in the direction of Greece and Spain.
The end result will be implosion of our currency, financial markets and employment.
The brightest, the best and the wealthy will be leaving. Political chaos can be expected to ensue with Romney following the Bain Capital course – acting like a good taker or banana republican – financially advantaging himself, his family and his cronies and then moving on to a more stable environ or restructuring the country to an oligarchy as in Israel. Ordinary US citizens will pay a terrible price just as will
ordinary Israeli citizens.
I like the last little section saying “oh yeah some Evangelicals are rabidly pro-Israel as well”. There should have been much more mentioning of this last “little” group; as unfortunately they are today a very powerful constituency in the world of right wing American Republican politics. That is the whole “dispensationalist”/rapturist “flock” of so-called “Christian Zionists” following bloated gasbags like John Hagee and company who believe that by supporting Israeli occupation and oppression of the Palestinians in particular and Arabs in the Middle East in general they are (for one fattening Hagee’s wallet) and more generally speeding up the end of the world.
@Abdul:
You’re absolutely right. The CZ’s are flickin’ through their Old Testaments right now applying as many scripture verses about the fall of Damascus to the current Syria issue. Iran and Russia are the terrible Gog-Magog alliance and in the Fundie’s minds it’s all coming to an end.
Nowhere near enough attention is paid. These people live in a fantasy world, but are in positions of power and influence in the US.
@ Adam:
‘Maybe we’ll get to see on Monday if any daylight exists.’
Daylight? What should that look like? Obama needs to come up with at least the bottom line of his Cairo-speech — to begin with. Man, did this guy mess up.
considering that most American Jewish voters are gonna vote for Obama, I think that you’re not correct.
Adelson and other conservatives don’t speak for American Jewry and they will continue not to speak for it after this election, no matter the result.
the power of a lobby is not built on presidential elections, but on local, state and congressional ones.
should monday’s debate show that there’s significant seperation between israel & the u.s. on greenlighting an israeli attack upon iran, look for additional cracks to appear in the special relationship between israel and the u.s., each of which will be well received by a public that’s fed up knowing that the tail’s been wagging the dog.
nobody is gonna “greenlight” an Israeli attack on Iran’s nuclear weapons site because Israel doesn’t have the ability (short of a nuclear attack) to destroy them without a sustained campaign of bombardment…..and unless the Saudis “greenlight” it, such campaign isn’t really feasible.
it would take the US up to three weeks to wipe out Iran’s program.
Israel could likely only damage it enough to delay by a year or maybe two. just wouldn’t be worth the effort.
by separation i mean words from obama to the effect that, unlike romney, rather than automatically following israel’s lead, he’ll make the decision as to whether or not to back an israeli attack on iran based on what’s in the interest of the u.s. of a.. will he have the balls to utter such words? depends upon how serious he is in wanting a second term.
Obama has already made it crystal clear, in public, that he’s not gonna be dictated to by Netanyahu. Romney is not going to publicly disagree with Netanyahu prior to the election.
But the reality is that the US does not “follow” Israel on matters concerning Iran and never will. The US follows its own interests and we’ll never be led by Israel concerning Iran.
However, there’s not going to be any emphasis on denouncing the rather rotten Netanyahu in the debate. Neither party wants to publicly dump on Israel and it’s just not gonna be done in public without any overriding reason.
It’s not much more likely than if the two of them start competing on which of them is more opposed to Saudi Arabia’s policies.
It’s not on the agenda and it’s not something that the American people are clamoring for.
how has Obama has already made it crystal clear, in public, that he’s not gonna be dictated to by Netanyahu?
and if he did so wouldn’t that somewhat contradict your theory “Neither party wants to publicly dump on Israel and it’s just not gonna be done in public”.
It’s not on the agenda and it’s not something that the American people are clamoring for.
maybe you’ve missed the continual ragging on congress for their 29 standing ovations of netanyahu. (only over 10 million results from a google search of those ovations btw). what you think and the no daylight crowd think the american public is clamoring for might align with the rest of us. personally, i would like nothing better than obama telling netanyahu, in public, to back off and otherwise criticize israel for acting like a rouge state wrt jerusalem and settlement building and a host of other issues. which is, i presume, your idea of ‘dumping on Israel.’ but please refrain from lumping the american public into one category wrt israel, if you’ve learned anything from the dem convention, we don’t walk in lockstep over israel because most of our politicians do.
Annie, the US has sent the same message to Israel and to Iran that the US is NOT going to back into a war after an unapproved attack and leaked the messages to the press, Obama sent both Panetta and Dempsey (and others) to say the same thing publicly.
when Netanyahu demanded a meeting with Obama to press him to approve some sort of attack, Obama publicly refused to meet .
that’s clarity.
——-
try not to confuse disapproval of the Congress’ kissing Netanyahu’s warmongering with any sort of desire on the part of the American public to
sever ties with Israel. it’s not there and it’s not the same thing.
the American public is far to the right of those of us who really desire to see Obama beat Netanyahu and his ugly cabinet out of power and into the ground.
nope, it was team israel who blathered obama’s refusal to meet nets all over town. the only crystal clear, in public about that comes from the other side.
and ‘leaking the messages to the press’ is NOT crystal clear, in public.
Obama sent both Panetta and Dempsey (and others) to say the same thing publicly
oh, make no mistake..i agree he’s made his point and we all know what it is. but both you and i know there’s no msm source confirming Obama sent a public message. not when officials are in foreign countries make statements picked apart by the foreign press. crystal clear, in public it means out of the horses mouth at a news conference or a public debate. exactly the kind of forum you are referencing here: Neither party wants to publicly dump on Israel and it’s just not gonna be done in public.
crystal clear, in public means you can quote obama, and you can’t.
the American public is far to the right of those of us…
the American public is far to the right of you? sounds like reagans ‘silent majority talk. Former Israeli ambassador to UN:
link to haaretz.com
my point, is you could make you point better if you didn’t bloviate them with exaggeration like claiming nasrallah apologized.
obama, he made it known. we got the message and so did israel when nets threw down the gaunlet demanding a statement on a red line and only heard silence from obama. after all, who is obama to have to kowtow to nets demands. but it’s an election year. there’s no way obama would make it crystal clear, in public in the run up to elections. it would land on a romney commercial in a second flat.
good bye, take the last word.
try not to confuse disapproval of the Congress’ kissing Netanyahu’s warmongering with any sort of desire on the part of the American public to sever ties with Israel.
changing the goalposts are we? who said anything about severing ties? why do you keep pushing the envelope to make your arguments?
We can’t live with them, we can’t live without them, and they make sure of this.
These Lobby’s are only doing what they know how to do, the press on the other hand has no excuse for their behaviour.
This is why I am awaiting for someone in the msm of the status of a say Chris Matthew to speak up. The Helen Thomas episode occurred back when muzzleing was the preferred method of discounting someone who steps out of line.
Keeping the issue out of the news is still of paramount importance.
link to muzzlewatch.com
“The announcement of a prestigious international academic prize doesn’t typically generate endless sturm und drang on the pages of major newspapers around the world, threatening to turn into an international incident. But when that prize is given by a German city, and the recipient is Judith Butler, one of the great thinkers of our time– who also happens to be a vocal critic of Israeli policies—apparently it signifies the end is near.
Within minutes of announcing that Judith Butler, who can best be described as the Mick Jagger of left academia, had won the prestigious Theodor Adorno prize for her extraordinary and wide-ranging body of critical theory work, the hapless judges of the Frankfurt prize were besieged with complaints by those who said it should be revoked immediately.
Writing in the pages of the Wall Street Journal, Richard Landes and Ben Weinthal claimed the decision to give Butler the award would threaten Germany and Israel’s “special relationship”, and compared it to
Germany’s circumcision bans, Berlin sending submarines to a newly belligerent Egypt, and ugly revelations of German behavior in the Munich Olympics terror attack.
Elsewhere in Opposite-landia, the weird through-the-looking-glass world created by those who would defend Israel at all costs, right-wing critics claimed Judith Butler is anti-Semitic. Judith Butler loves Hamas. Judith Butler is too political. Judith Butler isn’t political enough . Or my favorite, Judith Butler is ignorant.”
RE: “If both Obama and Romney’s policy towards Israel are essentially the same, hasn’t the lobby won out in the end?” ~ Adam Horowitz
MY COMMENT: That would have been the case but for the Republican Jewish Coalition and the Emergency Committee for Israel having “bet the farm” (so to speak) on Israel being a winning issue for the GOP.
this remark assumes ‘conservative pro-Israel groups’ have had a different influence in the past than they will ever again, if obama is elected again. i am not so sure that will be the case. the primary difference between now and the last election is it’s his last term. is that supposed to mean ‘conservative pro-Israel groups’ have constantly been successful in preventing 2nd terms for presidents they didn’t like? because ‘conservative pro-Israel groups’ have lost elections before. they are still successful at drawing their ‘red lines’ and the dems are just about as conservative wrt israel as the hawks. they push dems as much as they do conservatives.
On “real politik” level, permissiveness toward oppression of Palestinians affects American interests very mildly, support of “indivisibility of Jerusalem as the capital of Jewish state” may cause some problems with absolutely no gain, while an attack on Iran can lead to very unpleasant problems, which may be even termed “catastrophic” — if you live in Israel. USA can “go home” only little worse for the wear, after all.
The resistance of American establishment and government to these ideas reflects exactly that. On the issue of Palestinian we can basically do what we like, so the only problem is in figuring what we like. On the other extreme, the idea of actually attacking Iran (rather then making verbal attacks) is so idiotic that it has almost no chance being executed. My impression is that majorities both Jewish and non-Jewish Americans have that impression too.
Have you seen Sheldon Adelson lately? He reminds me of Master, sitting atop Blaster, the CZ/American/Uncle Sam; in Barter City.