Despite having 85 new members of the House and several new senators, Eric Cantor of Virginia is still the only Jewish Republican member of Congress (one race is still undecided). So, this is a bit odd.
With powerful friends like Mr. Cantor, a Virginia Republican and one of the highest-ranking members of Congress, the Israeli government was viewed by some as one of the big winners of the midterm elections.
The Republican-controlled House, analysts say, will be more inclined to defend Mr. Netanyahu, even against Mr. Obama, who has repeatedly clashed with the prime minister over the president’s demand that Israel freeze settlements to advance peace negotiations with the Palestinians.
“The administration has to take into account that Israel now has a friendlier forum,” said Abraham H. Foxman, national director of the Anti-Defamation League, a Jewish advocacy organization. “It will therefore think carefully about doing things.”
You might think that Israel’s interests would be best protected by the party that actually elects Jews to high office. But, for some bizarre reason, Israel actually finds the party-of-no-Jews to be friendlier. Why is that?
I’ve always wondered why the Anti-Defamation League thinks Israeli politics are their business.
Anyway, the reason is simple: they don’t care what’s in their best interest. They want Greater Israel, and the people who also believe in Greater Israel are the Tea Baggers: far-right Evangelical and/or Christian Reconstructionists. I’ve lived with them for 18 years of my life, BooMan. I personally don’t know why we haven’t treated them as a larger threat than they are. Roe v. Wade gave them a springboard into politics, but they are on a crusading mission. They will support Israel if it commits literal genocide tomorrow. Why? Because the Bible is the literal truth from God, penned by man with God working through them, and Israel can do no wrong, ever.
I’m not joking, either. Before I left that church for good (Calvary Chapel), I was in an argument with a man over this. I specifically asked if he would still defend Israel if it committed genocide tomorrow. He said yes. They are zealots, fanatics, and insane. Their church is a cult. And it’s not just that church, although Calvary Chapel and Chuck Smith were the leaders of the movement in the 1960’s.
I should note that I never belonged to the church, but I did attend and pretend to be one of them while I lived at home. I was afraid that if I told them I was an atheist that I’d be sent to some reform school at Jesus Camp or something.
Their movement is also very anti-semitic, so in that sense I can see why it’s confusing. These type of Christians are affiliated with groups like Jews for Jesus, and have them regularly come in to church services to tell about how they eventually “saw the light” and why the Jews were wrong to reject Jesus or some shit; I only half-paid attention.
Yeah, but you do know why the Teahadists and the Fundies support Israel in the first place, right? Because they believe the destruction of Jerusalem will lead to the second coming. So they are basically egging on Netanyahu to bomb Iran. The better question is why Israel(the country) gets into bed with these clowns.
Of course I know that. They get very pissy when you tell them this to their faces, too, and adamantly deny it.
It’s why I noted their antisemitism.
Well, a fair number also get a tingle up their spine from fatuous neo-conservative military adventures, of which Israel has it’s share.
ADL’s Foxman is a neo-conservative. That’s all you need to know.
Israel is run by right wing crooks and religious nuts who are junior partners to the US right wing crooks and religious nuts. American Jews are mostly secular and liberal.
I don’t know if I’d go that far. I think American Jews are religious. They just have a more realistic view of the world.
Really? Most I know are non-practicing or secular. I don’t know very many who are religious. I’d say that most are religious in the sense that most Catholics are religious: they go to synagogue, but don’t particularly care for the religion itself. They just do it because it’s what they’ve always done. They haven’t taken the next step to ask “Why the hell do I do this?”
If you are right, then I think that goes for 98% of those attending religious service in this country. Especially the Evangelicals.
He’s not right. The reality is much too complex and nuanced for a comment on a blog, though.
While there are a small group of Democratic congressmen who do not flinch when The Lobby speaks, like Dennis Kucinich, I can’t say that I have ever seen that much space between Democrats and Republicans in the House in their support of Israel, right or wrong. Pelosi, Hoyer, even John Conyers tow the line when it comes to Israel and they have been noticably vocal in their support, right-wing Israel or not. I would even forget the Senate as there does not seem to be any exceptions to the rule over there.
In retrospect, as there is not really that much space between left and right in Israel in its support of the Greater Israel dream, I don’t find that making political distinctions when it comes to Israel very meaningful. That The Lobby is right wing is even less significant. Ask Cynthia McKinney.
I would even forget the Senate as there does not seem to be any exceptions to the rule over there.
Actually, there are(or kind of were). And the two that were/are good on the issue are both Jewish themselves(Sanders and Feingold). But overall, you are right. The only ones that vote against AIPAC sponsored garbage are people like Barbara Lee and Maxine Waters.
Because the Israeli interest is in doing what Israel wants, and the party of no-Jews is aligned with that because of the few Jews who created the neo-conservative movement for exactly that purpose. Thank you, Norman Podhoretz.
The most succinct statement I have come across of what I believe to be the real reason, is this:
“What’s in it for the U.S. to continue to support the increasingly fanatic, aggressive and extremist governments in Israel? The most obvious answer is this: Israel provides the convincing ‘pre-text’ for US oil wars in the Middle East. Big oil has said to Israel or Israel to big oil: ‘you scratch my back and I will scratch yours!’.”
http://www.digghelp.com/political-news/a-party-of-panic-and-depression/
“Israeli interests” are defined by Big Oil, the GOP, and the Israeli Right, but it is only the last that can give provide “authenticity.” The Christian Zionists who form the heart of the GOP base feed off that FAKE authenticity and so do the neocons. The reason they are the party of no-jews is that most American Jews on some level sense that this “authenticity” somehow doesn’t feel “Jewish.”
Which statement has more cultural resonance with the American public? — “this is a war to protect Big Oil,” or “this is a war to protect the Land that Made the Desert Bloom, the Only Democracy in the Middle East, surrounded by enemies that want to Drive her into the Sea?”
That’s the secular version, of course. Translated for the religious right it would read: the land that is allied with Christianity against the brutal, uncivilized, enemies of Christ? — and whose population is unknowingly preparing to fight the Final Battle in which nearly all of them will be killed, etc., etc.