Take a look at the seniority on the House Foreign Affairs Committee:
Chairman Tom Lantos (DEM-CA-12th)
Rep. Howard Berman (DEM-CA-28th)
Rep. Gary Ackerman (DEM-NY-5th)
Del. Eni Faleomavaega (DEM-AS-At-Large)
Rep. Donald Payne (DEM-NJ-10th)
Rep. Brad Sherman (DEM-CA-27th)
Rep. Robert Wexler (DEM-FL-19th)
Rep. Eliot Engel (DEM-NY-17th)
As you can see, the committee’s top membership is dominated by left-leaning Democrats, but also Democrats that are staunch supporters of Israel. This is no accident, and Israel’s interests on the committee have enough redundancy that they can survive the loss of any one (or even two or three) members. The chairman, Tom Lantos, is an interesting case. He ranks 112th on the Progressive Punch scale, which means he is more progressive than 75% of his colleagues. Yet, his worst ranking is on issues of War and Peace where he ranks 193rd. Critics of Lantos will never forget his role in propagating the fake Kuwaiti incubator story prior to the Persian Gulf War. He was the chairman of the committee that perpetrated the hoax. Critics are also unforgiving about Lantos’ vote for the second Iraqi war, and many of his votes since then. In fact, Lantos, who is 80 years old, has a primary challenger.
You would think that a man as well established and powerful as Lantos would have nothing to worry about, but that is not the case. His primary challenger is formidable:
Former state Sen. Jackie Speier claims she has an internal poll that shows her beating Lantos in the primary by a 57%-27% margin. Speier has some name recognition built up after she ran for Lt. Governor in 2006, narrowly losing the Democratic primary, but she has not yet officially announced a campaign against Lantos.
Speier’s pollster also told Roll Call that her poll did not include any push questions, but simply asked, “Who would you most likely support in the Democratic party primary for United States Congress, if the choice was…” and then the two candidates’ names given in rotation.
If San Franciscans are willing to toss out a liberal and member of the Progressive Caucus, like Tom Lantos, it can only be because of his Hawkish foreign policy (of which, his staunch support of Israel is an informing part).
And this has the potential to open up some real wounds within the Democratic Party. Although there were some rumblings about Ned Lamont’s campaign against Joe Lieberman, the ‘Jewish community’ as a whole understood that it wasn’t an anti-Semitic, or even anti-Israel campaign. It was about Lieberman cozying up to the president, stepping on the Democratic message, criticizing Democrats, and being an idiot about the war.
A successful primary against Lantos will be taken much more personally. Lantos is is a good progressive Democrat with a long record. Yes, that record includes foisting the Kuwaiti incubator hoax on the nation as a way to rally support for a war to liberate Kuwait. But that was seventeen years ago, and most people don’t make the connection between the decision to liberate Kuwait and the rise of anti-American terrorism.
Lantos is a Holocaust survivor. He is a passionate friend of Israel. His defeat will be a blow. It will send a message, but the message will be threatening. Undoubtedly, people will begin to connect dots…progressives went after Lieberman, they went after Harman, they went after Lantos…and they’ll begin to wonder whether pro-Israel politicians are no longer welcome in the Democratic Party.
And, of course, that’s hogwash. But that won’t prevent more and more people from thinking it. I’ve written before that the American people’s patience for the status quo in U.S.-Israeli relations is limited. It is especially limited by debacles like the 2007 NIE, where Israel’s government is flat out calling our Intelligence Community a bunch of naive clowns, and their surrogates in the America press are doing the same.
True supporters of Israel, whether right-wing or left-wing, should realize that their alliance with the Republican Party is only one of cynical convenience. The natural home for Jewish-Americans is with the party that sharply delineates matters of church and state, that supports human rights, and the protects civil liberties. And that is the Democratic Party. But the Democratic Party cannot ignore the plight of the Palestinians in the occupied lands, nor will it smite all of Israel’s potential enemies. Peace must be made, settlements must be abandoned. And the United States, under a Democratic government will assure Israel’s security so that they need never worry about another Yom Kippur War.
If Tom Lantos loses his seat on the House Foreign Affairs Committee, it will be taken over by Rep. Howard Berman. Berman will be no different than Lantos when it comes to looking out for Israel. And if he leaves office, Gary Ackerman will take over. Nothing will change, unless these gentlemen change, or unless the parties in the Middle East change. Defeating Lantos won’t change where power lies, but it will send a chilling message. How that message is received will determine if it does any good.
Worldwide, the left is perceived as being anti-semetic, sometimes with justification. In America, the Jewish community is very much a core democratic constituency. As a progressive, liberal, and a Jew I am supportive of primary campaigns against pro-War or anti-Liberty Democrats whatever their faith and background.
The Lamont-Lieberman race was an easy call. I will have to look more into Lantos’s record before I am ready to concern myself with that race.
If you are right and primary campaigns against congressmen like Lantos will trigger charges of anti-Semetism then progressives should insulate themselves from such charges in advance. Either by helping to promote progressive Jewish voices, progressive Jewish candidates, or by vocally supporting progressive Jewish elected officials. Probably all three.
Furthermore, we must begin to advocate for the left wing liberal wing in Israel, and that doesn’t necessarily mean Labor, which is right wing when it comes to foreign policy or policy regarding the Palestinians. Even Rabin was a hawk in spite of his peace virtues, the first to propose Palestinian bantustans in the West Bank and Gaza. A beginner but not and solution maker in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
I don’t think there is any doubt that a Lantos defeat will be seen as a very big deal. His opponent is actually partially Jewish, and I don’t think it will be about her. It will be, more broadly, a threatening sign that any Democrat that supports some of the more unpopular aspects of Israeli policy (like, say, preemptively blasting Iran into the stone age, or blowing the shit out of Beirut over a kidnapping) is going to be unsafe, even in overwhelmingly Democratic seats.
There’s no question that that kind of development would have its positive aspects. But there is a negative side to it as well. Democrats like Ackerman, Harman, etc., may begin to feel like there is no home for them within the party. And their biggest donors may feel the same way.
And, what I want to see is a situation where they don’t feel the need to leave the party, but, rather, a need to press Israel to change strategy to something that can sustain American domestic support without limiting itself to the Christofascist lobbies.
I don’t think we can overestimate how much symbolism would be involved in defeating, in a primary, the sole Holocaust survivor in Congress, over his foreign policy hawkishness.
That, my friend, will shake mountains in Washington, and in Tel Aviv. And I’m concerned that all the wrong lessons will be taken out of it.
I hadn’t thought about the fact that he is the sole survivor of the Holocaust in congress. In that light, it is interesting that his challenger is Armenian.
I seriously doubt that Democrats would leave the party over a primary like this. At lest not so long as we can maintain a majority. Also many of their seats are probably very safe democratic and they would lose them very quickly if the become Republican.
Besides the Republican party is not very welcoming to non-Christians. Especially in its current form.
I think what you might see is a new kind of Republican. Maybe Mike Bloomberg would serve as a template. They’ll run as pro-Israel progressives, but they’ll run as Republicans in very Democratic seats. They’ll only be viable in a few seats, but that may be all they need.
You have to consider that the Republicans party, on a House level, no longer exists in New England, and is rapidly dying in the mid-Atlantic and upper midwest. If they are going to make a comeback, they could do worse than welcoming people like Lieberman and Lantos into their fold.
The loss of majority status definitely argues against it, but it also argues for it, out of necessity.
One has to agree with Luam. We have been hearing this threat that Jewish Americans will flee the Democratic party if they do not support the Zionist, antiPalestinians, voice in Congress or whereever.
It was persistently claimed on Daily Kos. Then the 2006 elections arrived and proved that these fear mongers were simply right wing Zionists, with or without a party, who were just trying to scare Daily Kos into curbing IP essays, which were advocating for peace and justice.
Well, Daily Kos did ban a few dozen advocates for peace anyway. Why rock the boat when money is rolling in.
There is no reason that we should be worrying about Concern trolls from the CT for Lieberman wing of the Neocon party.
They appear to be way to the right of most jews on Israel so why worry about it? If we should worry, what do you propose we do?
The nail has been hit on the head.
Lantos is a hawk of the Lieberman kind, and he deserves to be replaced by a real human rights liberal.
I blogged on this issue of a Senate or a House foreign affairs committee being there solely for the purpose of defending Israel, whatever it does. If Israel wants our support, it must begin to act like a true liberal democracy, rather than as an ethnocentric nationalist force that only supports Zionism. Palestinians are people too with rights and a history that gives them a place not only within Israel, but within the occupied Palestinian territories.
The Holocaust just does not deserve to be degraded by the same kinds of forces which created it.
http://www.boomantribune.com/?op=displaystory;sid=2007/12/4/154717/607
Thanks for putting this issue front and center, Booman! I’m hoping Speier will throw her hat into the ring. As you note, Lantos is not the only hardline supporter of Israel among the Democrats on that committee. However, Lantos’ defeat would be an important shift. As Mearsheimer and Walt note, several legislators
I’m certainly not going to base my vote for a candidate solely on their position on Israel, but it does matter. Israel’s interests and America’s interests are not identical, Likud propaganda to the contrary, and candidates who will support Israel even when it is harmful to the US are suffering from divided loyalties and are not fit to serve. The question of when Israel’s interests are counter to US interests is one on which reasonable people can disagree, however. What isn’t open to question is that a leader elected by US citizens should be prepared to cut Israel — or any other “ally” — loose when the allegiance has become detrimental to our interests.
Being a hawk, however, is a showstopper for me. War may sometimes be necessary, but those situations tend not to be very ambiguous: Europe is in flames, bombs are falling on US territory, etc. For hawks — as I define the term, anyway — there are vastly more occasions that call for war, and the readiness of hawks to resort to war is, I believe, the main cause of war. One of the main reasons I was reluctant to support Al Gore in 2000 is that Gore was part of the same hawkish Dem faction that Lantos belongs to. (I held my nose and voted for him anyway, for all of the good it did us.)
As far as Israel goes, we need leaders who will present an ultimatum to Jerusalem: withdraw to the 1967 borders in exchange for US-guaranteed security, or keep doing what you are now in return for an arms embargo and official indifference to aggression by your neighbors. If Israel wants to keep being America’s problem, it is the least we can ask.
Why are hawkish dems the only type serving on the foreign relations committee?
I didn’t realize this either and it certainly is unsettling.
Because they are the ones that have the most interest in foreign relations. Non-interventionists tend not to want to waist one of their committee assignments on foreign relations. They are much more domestic oriented, so they want domestic oriented committees. Its not that mysterious, but it is a concern.