The narrative of yesterday’s primaries was that both Democratic and Republican incumbents are going to be in trouble this November and that anti-establishment candidates are favored.
Representative Joe Sestak ended Pennsylvania Senator Arlen Specter’s political career, Democrat Bill Halter forced Arkansas Senator Blanche Lincoln into a runoff, and the Tea Party candidate Rand Paul won in Kentucky’s Republican primary.
But the primaries also demonstrate the Israel lobby’s continued power, and the continuation of politicians being elected who are progressive except for Palestine. In that sense, the Israel lobby, a part of the Washington establishment, still won.
The Pennsylvania Democratic primary is the perfect example: on major issues like health care and labor, Sestak ran to the left of Specter. Sestak has been criticized by right-wingers for speaking at the Council on American-Islamic Relations in 2007, and for signing a January 2010 letter that criticized the Israeli blockade of Gaza.
Specter has been a stalwart supporter of Israel, raking in a lot of campaign donations from pro-Israel contributors.
But Sestak, as Jeffrey Blankfort points out today in Counterpunch, has toed the AIPAC line on Israel during the campaign. There’s no mention of his signature on the letter criticizing Israel’s blockade on Sestak’s website. Instead, there are the usual platitudes about supporting Israel’s “right to defend itself against attacks from Gaza,” and the promise that he will continue to “provide robust military aid to Israel in the years to come.”
Readers who are already celebrating the long overdue departure of Arlen Specter from the the US Senate should be advised, to borrow a phrase from noted plagiarizer, Joe Biden, that there was “no space between” the foreign policy positions of long-time Pennsylvania Senator and the ex-Navy admiral, Rep. Joe Sestak who defeated him in Tuesday night’s primary balloting.
Based on the interviews that Specter and Sestak, gave to the Philadelphia Jewish Exponent, last week, their support of Israel is no less ardent than that of, at minimum, three quarters of both the Senate and the House, while with regard to Iran, the retired admiral takes even a harder line than did the grizzled former Republican.
Rand Paul, the son of libertarian Ron Paul, who is a strong critic of Israel, has not followed in his father’s footsteps. In a position paper on Israel, Rand Paul doesn’t deviate from the Washington establishment consensus on Israel/Palestine.
Paul and Sestak may have run as outsiders on some issues, but they didn’t touch the third rail in American politics of never criticizing Israel.
