It's difficult for me to address Mitt Romney's blunders in Israel because I come at them from a different place than many in the pro-Israel community.
One, I do not share the view that Israel should not be an issue in American politics. For instance, an organization I support, Americans For Peace Now, spoke for most, if not all, pro-Israel organizations when it issued this statement:
It is deeply troubling that Governor Romney, his advisors, and some of his key supporters are seeking to exploit Israel as a partisan issue to score political points in this election campaign. This is a reckless and irresponsible tactic that comes at the expense of the best interests of both the U.S. and Israel.
Wrong.
Why shouldn't Israel be a "partisan issue" in American elections? If Democrats and Republicans have differing views on an issue, why shouldn't they try to "score political points" off of them?
That is what they do on every other issue. Why should Israel be above or beyond politics? U.S. taxpayers send more money to Israel than any other country and millions of Americans care deeply about Israel's fate. What makes it not a legitimate issue?
Unfortunately, however, the two parties do not have differing views on Israel. Both candidates and both parties support the Netanyahu government's positions on Iran, the Palestinians, Hamas and pretty much everything else. Sure, Mitt Romney went overboard in Jerusalem by saying that on critical matters like Iran we should defer to the wishes of Israel (rather than decide these issues exclusively based on U.S. interests) but that is what successive administrations have been doing for years. It is certainly what the Obama administration has done. Obama just doesn't proclaim it while in Israel's capital.
That is why Israel's hawkish Minister of Defense Ehud Barak says that Obama has been the president most supportive of Israel in its 64 year history. President Shimon Peres, who has played a part in that history since the beginning, says pretty much the same thing.
There is no indication that Romney would be any different. Sure, his statements in Israel indicate an over-the-top quality that Obama's lack. Nor would Obama have made that invidious comparison of Israeli and Palestinian cultures. But Romney isn't president. If he should be elected, there is little doubt that his policies would be virtually identical to those of Obama, or Bush, or Clinton, etc., except for the Muslim-bashing elements that are the specialty of some of his neocon aides and his fundraiser Sheldon Adelson.
Romney can be no more "pro-Israel" than Obama because Obama simply does everything Israel asks for: from raising aid levels, to accepting Israeli settlements, to vetoing every resolution Israel wants vetoed at the United Nations, to piling Iran sanction on top of Iran sanction (while leaving the possibility of war on the table), to exempting Israel from budget cuts that will affect every other program in the budget. What more can Romney do? Move our capital to Jerusalem?
In short, the whole GOP argument that Obama is not pro-Israel enough is hogwash.
Where I differ from Americans For Peace Now and other pro-Israel organizations is that I wish candidates would make Israel a political issue, because the politically expedient status quo policies both parties endorse don't advance U.S. interests or Israel's.
I wish one of the two parties would say that the United States will do everything in its power to prevent Iran's development of nuclear weapons through diplomacy -- and not by means of a war that would result in needless deaths and crash the world economy. I wish one of the two parties would say that the United State will promote Israeli-Palestinian negotiations that include representatives of Israel, the Palestinian Authority and Gaza with only one condition: that all sides foreswear violence. I wish one of the two parties would commit our country to serving as an honest broker in the Middle East rather than as "Israel's lawyer," as former Clinton-era negotiator Aaron Miller memorably put it.
Of course, I don't expect any of that to happen -- not so long as both parties seem more dedicated to impressing some donors to defending U.S. interests or Israel's. It certainly is not happening in this campaign, which has already become a race to demonstrate who can be more effusive about Binyamin Netanyahu's policies.
Something's got to give. Israel's survival is at stake (whether Netanyahu understands that or not). The Palestinians are being squeezed to death, particularly in Gaza. And a war with Iran that would make the Iraq war look like a summer outing could be ignited at any time.
All these things should be issues in our presidential campaign, not simply opportunities for pandering. Unfortunately it won't happen this year. On the Middle East, it's tweedle dum and tweedle dee.
When Democrats say Romney is "anti-Israel" or Republicans say Obama is, don't believe them. If "pro-Israel" means following Binyamin Netanyahu's lead on all matters relating to the Middle East, they are one and the same. And that is the pity.
Follow MJ Rosenberg on Twitter: www.twitter.com/mjayrosenberg
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But if the topic moves away from America and onto foreign policy, America supports our allies, and our allies include Canada, some of South/Central America, all of Western Europe, some of Eastern Europe, ISRAEL, Australia, New Zealand, Japan, etc.
Basically, the world's good countries are all on the same side, generally, and stick up for each other.
And then you have countries like Russia and China who stick up for Syria and terrorist organizations.
Romney seems to have no honor or honesty, thus no problems with those things.
When someone is over friendly to you he will definitely s00rew you.
Now, on to the matter at hand, wouldn't it be wonderful if US Presidents, and Presidential candidates, worry more about US citizens and interests rather than a foreign country's?
LOLOLOLOLOL
As Stephen Walt wrote, "The losers will be the American people, whose Middle East policy will continue to be dysfunctional, and Israel, which will continue down its present course towards becoming an apartheid state. And of course the Palestinians will continue to suffer the direct costs of this unhappy situation. But that's democracy at work. If you don't like it, then you'll need to convince politicians that they will pay a price at the ballot box for this sort of mindless pandering. Until they do, it would be unrealistic to expect them to behave any differently."
So everybody loses -- apartheid Israel, the Palestinians, and American taxpayers. How dysfunctional is that?
http://walt.foreignpolicy.com/posts/2012/07/30/this_year_in_jerusalem
What better way is there to make sure that diplomacy won't work than to tell the Iranians that if you won't stop you nuclear program...we won't do anything.
Netanyahu forgets which country hes running
Kramerica-Industries disagrees. the last thing our country needs is one more neo-cong chicken hawk who sits by his computer and whats to send our troops to die for a foreign country.
If you believe negotiating with Iran is the best option, do you think it is more likely to succeed if the Iranians believe there is a chance of the crushing power of the American army would come to stop their nuclear program and perhaps destroy their country if negotiation fail. Or would negotiations work better if as Mr Rosenberg would have it America would come out and say there will be no repercussions, if negotiations fail America will simply allow Iran to go on with its nuclear program.
Israel is our ally. The Palestinians are not. Israel deservs our support
Israel is our welfare client not our ally.
In which of Israel's wars did the US contribute any troops? Unlike many of our allies, Israel fights for itself.
Defeated, occupied then brought in fanatical settlers to steal their homes and farms.
America would still be at war with Japan and Germany not the wonderful peace that we
have. Think about it if you desire peace.
The Palestinians need to stop making excuses and make peace already.
Excellent post. Our help that has actually encouraged their intransigence.
Both parties must perceive some gain from negotiation versus war. The party that gets everything it wants forcibly does not want or need negotiation.
Israel's monopoly on overwhelming force allows it to take what it wants. "Negotiations” become dictation, and the inevitable rejection of such dictation becomes an excuse for more war.
Combined with US cover, this has created an Israeli mindset of war being easier than good faith negotiations:
“This week, the first of hundreds of leaked confidential Palestinian documents confirmed the suspicions of a growing number of observers that the rejectionists in the peace process are to be found on the Israeli, not Palestinian, side.”
http://www.commondreams.org/view/2011/01/26-8
“We pretend that the PalestiniaÂns still need to make concessionÂs for peace when there are none left to make..."
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/mj-rosenberg/what-the-al-jazeera-block_b_812951.html
While this has led some to view violence as the only answer, others believe international pressure (BDS) might be more effective in modifying this mindless intransigence:
http://www.commondreams.org/view/2009/08/20-10
"When concerts are canceled in Tel Aviv, when tourists don’t come to Israel, I believe, many Israelis will start putting pressure on their political leaders to finally negotiate a lasting peace..."
http://www.inthesetimes.com/article/4311/to_boycott_israelor_not/
If truth and logic prevailed there would be peace.
Unfortunately superstition and fairy tales from the iron age rule the day.
Because, MJ Rosenberg is a one-sided, anti-Israel hatemonger.