Post-Midterms U.S Republicans Expand Senate Majority Affirmating Trump Policy On Israel And Iran
Post-midterms: Republicans expand Senate majority, affirming Trump policy on Israel and Iran
Considering that the Israel—and increasingly, the rest of the Middle East—has become more of a partisan issue, GOP control of the Senate is key for President Donald Trump to continue his policies, many of which have clearly favored Israel.
U.S. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) helped guide his party to expanding their majority in the 2018 midterm elections. Credit: Gage Skidmore via Flickr.
(November 7, 2018 / JNS)Despite losing its seven-year control of the House of Representatives, the Republican Party added some seats to its Senate majority on Tuesday in the midterm elections.
Considering that the Israel—and increasingly, the rest of the Middle East—has become more of a partisan issue, GOP control of the Senate is crucial for U.S. President Donald Trump to continue his policies regarding Israel, at the same time as some in the Democratic Party have been leaning away from traditional support of the Jewish state.
“We were also really happy to see that every Senate Democrat in a tough race that supported the [2015] Iran nuclear deal lost,” Republican Jewish Coalition spokesperson Neil Strauss told JNS. “We obviously made a huge investment in the North Dakota race, reminding the voters there that Heidi Heitkamp betrayed their confidence by supporting the deal, and that was a huge factor in that race.”
Strauss added: “And don’t forget, in 2015, we made a big investment in Indiana to make sure those voters knew that [Joe] Donnelly was betraying them to support President Obama’s failed Iran deal. The voters in Indiana didn’t forget, in part, because we wouldn’t let them.”
Idaho Sen. Jim Risch is expected to succeed outgoing Tennessee Sen. Bob Corker as chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee.
Here are the races previously noted to watch for regarding the Jewish and pro-Israel community.
Note: Jewish population figures are from 2012, and according to the North American Jewish Data Bank by the Jewish Federations of North America. All results are projections from the Associated Press.
ARIZONA
Jewish Population: 106,300 (1.6 percent of state population)
Result: While the race to replace the retiring Jeff Flake remains too close to call, Republican Rep. Martha McSally leads Democratic Rep. Krysten Sinema, 49.3 percent to 48.4 percent, respectively.
McSally applauded the president’s decision to recognize Jerusalem as the capital of Israel, as well as to move the U.S. embassy there from Tel Aviv. She also supported Trump’s decision to nix American participation in the Iran deal.
While she was one of 25 Democrats to oppose the nuclear accord, Sinema flipped and opposed the decision to withdraw the United States from it. She is also a supporter of the Iron Dome missile-defense system.
Sinema’s past anti-Israel activism consisted of railing against what she called the “Israeli occupation” as a member of numerous anti-Israel groups like the Arizona Alliance for Peace and Justice, which decried Israel’s “disproportionate” use of “violence and oppression.”
FLORIDA
Jewish Population: 638,985 (3.4 percent of state population)
Result: Too close to call, Republican Gov. Rick Scott leads incumbent Democrat Bill Nelson with 50.2 percent of the vote.
As governor, Scott signed an anti-BDS bill into law in 2016, which prohibits the state from investing in or doing business with companies that boycott Israel.
Meanwhile, Nelson, one of five Democrats running in a state that Trump won in 2016 to vote for Iran hawk Mike Pompeo’s confirmation as Secretary of State, supported the Iran deal and slammed Trump for the U.S. withdrawal in May (a decision that Scott supported) and said “pulling out of this deal now is a tragic mistake. It will divide us from our European allies, and it will allow Iran to build a nuclear bomb within a year, instead of preventing it for at least seven to 12 years.”
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu meets with governor of Florida Rick Scott at the Prime Minister’s office on May 14, 2018. Photo by Amos Ben Gershom/GPO.
INDIANA
Jewish Population: 17,470 (0.3 percent of state population)
Result: Republican businessman Mike Braun is projected to upset incumbent Democrat Joe Donnelly, 52.9 percent to 43.1 percent, respectively.
Braun criticized Donnelly’s support for the Iran deal. The incumbent said he was “concerned” about the U.S. withdrawal from it.
MISSOURI
Jewish Population: 59,175 (1 percent of state population)
Result: Republican Attorney General Josh Hawley is projected to unseat incumbent Democrat Claire McCaskill, 51.5 percent to 45.5 percent, respectively.
Hawley applauded the president for relocating the U.S. embassy in Israel from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem.
Meanwhile, McCaskill supported the Iran deal and opposed U.S. withdrawal from it. Hawley slammed McCaskill and accused her of “standing with the mullahs,” according to an email blast from his campaign.
She also withheld her support for the Combating BDS Act of 2017, which “contains problematic language that conflates Israel and the territories under its control,” according to J Street PAC, which endorsed her.
NEVADA
Jewish Population: 76,300 (2.8 percent of state population)
Result: Jewish Democratic Rep. Jacky Rosen is projected to unseat incumbent Dean Heller, 50.4 percent to 45.4 percent, respectively. Heller was the only Republican to run in a state Hillary Clinton won in 2016.
Since elected in 2016, Rosen has touted her record on Israel as having sponsored the Defend Israel Act and the Israel Anti-Boycott Act.
However, she criticized the United States for exiting the Iran deal: “After the JCPOA was agreed to, it should have been robustly enforced—not used as a political football. … Unfortunately, backing out of this agreement means undermining our international alliances, jeopardizing our national security and re-opening Iran’s path to developing a nuclear weapon.”
Heller, on the other hand, said the nuclear accord was “never good for America or our friends in the Middle East.”
“This agreement has done nothing to stop Iran from acquiring a nuclear weapon or promoting peace; in fact, it has done just the opposite,” said Heller in a statement. “Iran has been emboldened since President Barack Obama signed the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action three years ago.”
“The agreement, which handed Tehran billions of dollars to help bolster its military and spread terror around the world, represented a volcano waiting to erupt,” he added.
NEW JERSEY
Jewish Population: 504,450 (5.7 percent of state population)
Result: Despite being tried on federal corruption charges (where there was a mistrial, and the DOJ declined to refile the charges), incumbent Democrat Bob Menendez is projected to fend off Republican and former pharmaceutical executive Bob Hugin, 53.1 percent to 43.8 percent, respectively.
Sen. Robert Menendez (R-N.J.) speaking at AIPAC policy conference. Credit: AIPAC.
Menendez was one of the most outspoken Democratic senators against the original Iran deal. He did support the U.S. embassy move, which was also applauded by Hugin.
However, in order to mollify the left amid the re-election cycle, Menendez opposed Trump’s decision this past May to withdraw America from the deal.
PENNSYLVANIA
Jewish Population: 294,925 (2.3 percent of state population)
Result: Incumbent Democrat Bob Casey is projected to win re-election over Republican Rep. Lu Barletta, 55.6 percent to 42.8 percent, respectively.
While Casey has backed the Iran deal and condemned U.S. withdrawal from it, he favored moving the U.S. embassy to Jerusalem. He has also introduced legislation requiring the Department of Education to expand its definition of anti-Semitism to include support for the BDS movement and criticism of Israel that “demonizes,” “delegitimizes” or measures it through a “double standard.”
Despite controversial ties to white nationalism, Barletta fully supported Trump’s pro-Israel agenda, even being one of dozens of members of Congress to call on the State Department to allow “Jerusalem, Israel” to appear on U.S. passports.
“It is indisputable that Jerusalem is the capital of Israel,” said Barletta. “I am proud to stand with President Trump in recognizing this truth and applaud his decision to move the U.S. embassy to Jerusalem earlier this year after decades of broken promises by other presidents. However, I am disappointed that the State Department has yet to follow through on its end and fully recognize Jerusalem as Israel’s capital.”
TENNESSEE
Jewish Population: 19,575 (0.3 percent of state population)
Result: In the race to replace Corker, Republican Rep. Marsha Blackburn is projected to win over former Democratic Gov. Phil Bredesen, 54.7 percent to 43.9 percent, respectively.
Blackburn strongly supported Trump’s decision to withdraw America from the Iran deal, while Bredesen did not issue any statement on the matter during the campaign.
“Iran is a terrorist state. Their goal is to destroy Israel,” said Blackburn in a 13-second video. “Their goal is to undermine the United States. They cannot be trusted. I applaud the president on his actions.”
TEXAS
Jewish Population: 139,505 (0.5 percent of state population)
Result: Incumbent Republican Ted Cruz is projected to win re-election over Democratic Rep. Beto O’Rourke after a tight race, 50.9 percent to 48.3 percent, respectively.
Texas Sen. Ted Cruz in Des Moines, Iowa, on Oct. 31, 2015. Credit: Gage Skidmore via Wikimedia Commons.
Cruz has been one of the staunchest pro-Israel members of Congress, opposing the 2015 Iran nuclear deal and vouching for the now-enacted Taylor Force Act to eliminate most U.S. assistance to the Palestinian Authority
Additionally, a bipartisan bill co-sponsored by Cruz passed last month that would sanction members of terrorist groups like Hamas who use civilians as human shields.
Cruz is expected to introduce legislation that would mandate sanctions to block all Iranian access to the Society for Worldwide Interbank Financial Telecommunication, or SWIFT, sources familiar with the legislation told The Washington Free Beacon. Even if Iran’s access to the financial messaging-services system is not blocked during the second round of sanctions, the president can take action by fiat.
SWIFT announced this week it is “suspending certain Iranian banks’ access to the messaging system” after U.S. sanctions were reimposed on Nov. 5. Iran will still be able to access SWIFT for solely humanitarian purposes, said Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin in a conference call with reporters on Nov. 2.
In a recent debate, Sen. Cruz accused O’Rourke of siding with J Street, labeling the group “rabidly anti-Israel.”
J Street took it as “a badge of honor.”
WEST VIRGINIA
Jewish Population: 2,335 (0.1 percent of state population)
Result: Incumbent Democrat Joe Manchin is projected to win re-election against Republican Attorney General Patrick Morrisey, 49.5 percent to 46.3 percent, respectively.
Manchin has repeatedly been unafraid to break with his party, such as being against the Iran deal, though he announced his stance when there was already enough party support. He also supported U.S. withdrawal from the agreement.
Moreover, he was one of only two Democrats to vote in favor of David Friedman’s confirmation as U.S. ambassador to Israel.
The rise of the Diaspora ‘supremacists’
It is not only an outlook that sees the Diaspora as so much better than a renewed clannish ghetto. It is the concept of Israel itself, as much as it is their misrepresentation of what Israel is and does.
(November 7, 2018 / JNS) The template of Babylon vs. Zion has taken many forms since the majority of Jews in exile after the destruction of the First Temple and the loss of Jewish political independence declined to return to the Land of Israel. It exists among Orthodox Jews and the less-to-non-observant Jews. Jews of the right and the left. Jews of strong identity and those who seek to be assimilated. But there is a new category today.
If, in the past, Jewish nationalism was disfavored or even rejected more because of how the Jews preferring a Diaspora existence viewed themselves, we now see an increasing willingness, if not a perverse delight, in dissing Israel not as a particularly internal Jewish matter, from the Bundists, the early Reform, the American Council for Judaism to the Neturei Karta and British Jewish opponents of the Balfour Declaration, but as a matter which is to be judged as how the Jews are affected in their Diaspora locations.
Mairav Zonszein’s tweet is one that sets the tone for this second most dangerous threat to Jews today after anti-Semitic non-Jews, the resurgence of Diaspora “supremacism.” She wrote:
“The Pittsburg shooting exposed in the most crass and heinous way just how much israel and pro israel leaders manipulate antisemitism and abuse Jewish identity to serve political interests.”
Her accusation highlights what Dennis Prager wrote a fortnight later:
The security of the world’s only Jewish state is by far the greatest security issue for world Jewry. Yet many left-wing Jews attack Israel, support many of those who wish to destroy Israel, or, at the very least, do nothing to strengthen Israel’s security.
And he added a specific concern: “The ADL, which at one time was preoccupied with fighting anti-Semitism, is now preoccupied with fighting Donald Trump and fighting on behalf of the American left.”
I look to the late professor Tony Judt, who recalibrated this new supremacist think of “we in the Diaspora re better than the Jewish homeland.” Back in 2003, he infamously published
The very idea of a “Jewish state”—a state in which Jews and the Jewish religion have exclusive privileges from which non-Jewish citizens are forever excluded—is rooted in another time and place. Israel, in short, is an anachronism.
And provided the new twist in his justification for turning away from Zion:
Israel continues to mock its American patron, building illegal settlements in cynical disregard of the “road map.” The president of the United States of America has been reduced to a ventriloquist’s dummy, pitifully reciting the Israeli cabinet line …
In a later, and his last, interview in 2001, Judt expressed a feeling of “a declining sense of identification with the place: its behavior, its culture, its politics, its insularity, its prejudices have nothing to do with being Jewish,”and added, pointedly and presciently, “I know that is especially true of younger Jews.” Most relevant to my thesis are these words of his, which also contain a thought on the danger his wishful thinking presents for a Jewish future altogether in the Diaspora:
As to the future of Jews in the diaspora, they (we) will once again be the predominant community (once again as in classical times). I think Israel will grow increasingly marginal for most Jews, though I don’t quite know what their Jewish life will look like either in a secularized world.
Israel has not become marginal. Its successes in science and technology affect more non-Jews than Jews now. Even countries which have not been historically favorable to Jews, whether in Europe or, surprisingly, the Muslim Arab world, are realigning their relations.
What has developed, though, is the increased choice of the younger generation to redefine their Jewishness as having little to do with actually Judaism either as a religion, a culture or an ethnic identity. Their Jewishness is a Diaspora one, and their moorings are fixed not in relation to something Jewish; they seek to apply any sort of Jewishness vestige they have and link that with the general surroundings in which they live.
One example of this is the reciting of the Kaddish by IfNotNowers (whose siteincludes this blurb: “DO YOU WANT TO STOP TRUMP AND HIS ALLIANCE WITH NETANYAHU?”) as well as a group of British Jews outside Parliament to mark the deaths of Gazan Arabs. If one believed that their deaths were unjustified, why not join in a Muslim ceremony? Why take something quite Jewish, not to mention its Holocaust connection, and exploit it for the purpose of expressing support for non-Jews persons seeking to invade Israel to kill Jews? Even Leonard Bernstein, in mourning John F. Kennedy, felt a need to backtrack on his Third Symphony based on the Kaddisheven though there is little similarity in the victims commemorated.
As that blurb quoted above indicates, the battle to reject Israel in preference for the Diaspora is here linked to an ideological political position that is basically Diasporian in character. And it seeks to blame Israel not only for what Israel “does,” as it were, to Arabs trying to eradicate it, but to shift that blame on Israel for what an American president does.
In the New York Post, Jonathan Neuman noted, “Before the bodies of the dead had gone cold, let alone been buried and mourned, the Jewish left sacrificed an opportunity to cry in unity and chose instead to call for division.” The coalition of the Torah Trumps Hate, Hitoreri and Uri L’Tzedek groups, no matter how miniscule they may be, issued a demand that the National Council of Young Israel
“retract its message of praise for a president who fans the flames of anti-Semitism and whose policies are anathema to Jewish values. It is time for the Orthodox Jewish community to reassert its place as the leaders and promoters of Abrahamic ethics.”
While we Jews may know the real numbers of these making media splashes, that doesn’t help when 11 members of another extremist group, Bend the Arc, succeeded in having themselves described as “Jewish leaders,” in The Washington Postand The Hill, when demanding President Trump not come to Pittsburgh. Even Bari Weiss entangled herself in this supremacist attitude when she wrote, seemingly innocently, in The New York Times
“But to those who have spent their lives in places like Karachi or Aleppo, the things Pittsburgh Jews take for granted—our freedom from violence and fear—are nothing more than pipe dreams.”
But as my friend commented there:
Apparently Ms. Weis’ (and The New York Times’) sympathies and empathies are not broad enough to include Sderot and Ashkelon and Jerusalem. For today’s intersectionalized liberals, Jewish ones especially, Israel does not seem to exist on the radar of their sensitivities. Only dead Jews in their own backyard can merit the mourning they grant to the dead of Allepo and Karachi.
And whereas, as Yair Rosenberg has highlighted, there is a trend to universalize the Holocaust, these Diaspora supremacists employ an offshoot of this and push a new paradigm of universalizing Israel because for them, and their politics and identities, it is Israel’s Jewishness that seems to get in their way.
For the Diaspora supremacists, it’s not only a matter of diluting Judaism to create what they want Judaism to be in line with their external-from-Judaism essence. It is not only how Jewish they themselves want to be, if at all. It is not only an outlook that sees the Diaspora as so much better than a renewed clannish ghetto. It is the concept of Israel itself as much as it is their misrepresentation of what Israel is and does.
For the Diaspora supremacists, they are not only the better Jews (a new form of Ostjudenfahr or of Jews blaming Jews), but they are the genuine Jews and these illegitimate Jews, in Israel, are threatening them.
In seeking to be supreme and then to dominate, these Jews are channeling a greater hatred they claim to be combating.
Yisrael Medad is an American-born Israeli journalist and commentator.
Post-midterms: With Democrats retaking the House, Jewish leaders still see strong Israel support
Despite the election of certain pro-BDS candidates, the heads of committees significant for furthering policy related to the Mideast and Israel are mainstream Democrats: New York’s Eliot Engel for Foreign Affairs, and Nita Lowey, also from New York, for Appropriations.
The U.S. Capitol building. Wikimedia Commons via Martin Falbisoner.
(November 7, 2018 / JNS) The Democratic Party retook the majority in the House of Representatives on Tuesday night after a seven-year absence.
Despite the election of certain pro-BDS candidates, such as New York’s Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Minnesota’s Ilhan Omarand Michigan’s Rashida Tlaib, the heads of committees significant for furthering policy related to Israel are mainstream Democrats: New York’s Eliot Engel for Foreign Affairs, and Nita Lowey, also from New York, for Appropriations.
Rashida Tlaib (right), a Palestinian American who recently won her race for congress in Michigan, appearing along with fellow incoming Democrat from New York Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. Credit: Rashida Tlaib via Twitter.
“The House looks likely to be headed by leadership, including [Nancy] Pelosi and [Steny] Hoyer, who are strongly pro-Israel and revered by many in the Jewish community,” Norm Eisen, an attorney and former U.S. ambassador to the Czech Republic under President Barack Obama, told JNS. “So the baseline of support for Israel’s security and for the Jewish people globally will remain strong.”
The American Israel Public Affairs Committee and the Zionist Organization of America expressed optimism over what will be a split Congress, with the Senate remaining in Republican hands, even gaining a few seats.
“At a time of intense partisan polarization, candidates from both parties overwhelmingly expressed their support for Israel’s security and her efforts to reach peace with all of her neighbors,” AIPAC said in a statement.
“The 116th Congress will include many new members, as the American people elected over 90 new members of the House and Senate,” continued the organization. “Virtually all of the victors in this year’s election have issued position papers and statements reflecting their strong commitment to strengthening the U.S.-Israel relationship.”
ZOA national president Morton Klein told JNS, “I’m thrilled that my friend, Congressman Eliot Engel, one of Israel’s strongest supporters, will be chair of the House Foreign Affairs Committee.”
Rep. Eliot Engel (D-N.Y.) is expected to become the next chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee. Credit: Wikimedia Commons.
“He is one of Congress’s most principled and courageous leaders, who fully understands the truth of the Arab-Islamic war against Israel and the West,” said Klein. “He spoke out about the dangers of the Oslo Accords and [Palestinian leader Yasser] Arafat’s violations of it from the very beginning in 1993.”
However, Klein expressed concern over the three pro-BDS candidates.
“I am very worried that several extremely anti-Israel people have won House seats in Minnesota, Michigan and New York—the likes of which we’ve never seen before,” he said. “They have condemned U.S. aid to Israel and have promoted the ugliest Palestinian propaganda lies against Israel, including Israel committing ‘massacres in Gaza.’ ”
National Council of Young Israel president Farley Weiss echoed Klein’s sentiment.
“I think support for Israel will remain strong,” he told JNS. “The concern we have is that some new Democrats are not favorable for Israel, and the hope is that they will be marginalized. The House Democratic leadership and heads of most committees should be supporters of Israel if they remain as expected.”
“A divided Congress should have no impact on the pro-Israel policies of the administration,” he added.
Here are the races previously noted as key to the Jewish and pro-Israel community.
Note: Jewish population figures are from 2012, and according to the North American Jewish Data Bank by the Jewish Federations of North America. All results are projections from the Associated Press.
NEW JERSEY 7
Jewish population: 46,000 (6.28 percent of district population)
Geography: This district covers a large part of northern and western New Jersey, including wealthy New York City suburbs.
Result: With 50.3 percent of the vote, Tom Malinowski is projected to unseat five-term Republican Rep. Leonard Lance. The former served under Obama as the Assistant Secretary of State for Democracy, Human Rights and Labor.
Malinowski is a proponent of the 2015 Iran nuclear deal.
As a lobbyist for Human Rights Watch, Malinowski advocated against American support of the Israeli military and opposed the United States for giving the Israeli Defense Forces cluster munitions. He also asked then-New York Sen. Hillary Clinton to not back Israel’s construction of an “illegal” wall along the West Bank.
NEW JERSEY 3
Jewish population: 38,000 (5.19 percent of district population)
Geography: This district covers part of central New Jersey.
Result: While the race is too close to call, incumbent Republican Rep. Tom MacArthur leads Democrat Andy Kim, 49.8 percent to 48.9 percent, respectively.
MacArthur opposed the Iran deal and supported the reimposition of U.S. sanctions on the regime, while Kim backed the accord and has been endorsed by J Street PAC.
Quote: “There are voters where Israel is a top priority for them and would swing their vote regardless of party,” MacArthur’s campaign consultant, Chris Russell, told NJ.com. “People do vote on issues. This is one that is important to a significant group.”
CALIFORNIA 25
Jewish population: 46,000 (4.98 percent of district population)
Geography: This district covers both part of northern Los Angeles County and Ventura County.
Result: Although the race is too close to call, Democrat Katie Hill leads incumbent Republican Rep. Steve Knight with 51.3 percent of the vote.
Hill, a nonprofit director whose organization is the state’s “largest nonprofit provider of homes for the homeless,” according to her campaign website, was endorsed by J Street, and condemned the overall violence in Gaza during the U.S. embassy opening in Jerusalem in May and opposedAmerica withdrawing from the Iran nuclear deal.
CALIFORNIA 45
Jewish population: 31,000 (4.41 percent of district population)
Geography: This district covers Orange County, including Irvine and Laguna Hills.
Result: While the race is too close to call, incumbent Republican Rep. Mimi Walters leads Democrat Katie Porter with 51.7 percent of the vote.
Walters, who was against the Iran deal, has repeatedly stressed that Israel is one of the United States’ closest allies.
CALIFORNIA 48
Jewish population: 29,000 (4.13 percent of district population)
Geography: This district in Southern California covers Orange County, including Huntington Beach.
Result: With 50.7 percent of the vote, Democrat Harley Rouda is projected to unseat Republican Rep. Dana Rohrabacher.
Rohrbacher gave “three cheers” over the United States withdrawing from the Iran deal, while Rouda, endorsed by J Street PAC, slammed Trump’s move in May as “reckless.”
CALIFORNIA 50
Jewish population: 10,000 (1.42 percent of district population)
Geography: This district covers parts of San Diego County and Riverside County.
Result: Despite being indicted on campaign finance violations in August, incumbent Republican Rep. Duncan Hunter leads Democrat Ammar Campa-Najjar by 54.2 percent (NBC News and CNN have already projected a Hunter victory).
Hunter supported the president for withdrawing from the Iran deal, which the congressman said “should never have been entered into,” and that leaving the agreement “presents the opportunity to better hold the Iranian regime accountable for its decisions.”
Campa-Najjar served in the Obama administration and is a grandson of Muhammad Yousef al-Najjar, who was a member of the Black September terrorist group that killed 11 members of the Israeli athletic team at the 1972 Munich Summer Olympics and was assassinated by Israeli commandos in Beirut in 1973.
“As an American citizen living in the 21st century, I will never be able to understand or condone the actions and motivations of my grandfather,” he told Haaretz in February before telling local outlets that these remarks would not be utilized for political gain.
MICHIGAN 11
Jewish population: 17,500 (2.48 percent of district population)
Geography: This district is northwest of Detroit.
Result: In the race to replace retiring Republican Rep. Dave Tortt, Democrat Haley Stevens is projected to win over Republican Lena Epstein, 52.1 percent to 44.9 percent, respectively.
Stevens, who served in the Obama administration as chief of staff of the auto-rescue task force, gave a general overview of her stance on the U.S.-Israel relationship: “As the only democracy in the Middle East and our strongest ally in the region, Israel and her security are paramount to our interests at home and abroad,” she states on her campaign website, without giving a stance on the Iran deal other than to state “we must chart a way forward” by preventing Iran “from getting a nuclear weapon and also deal with terrorism, rockets and regional destabilization. Diplomacy must be the first option and is the best solution, but all options must remain on the table.”
Epstein, a businesswoman who was the Michigan chair for the Trump campaign, was lambasted for inviting a Messianic rabbi to say a prayer for the 11 killed during the Oct. 27 shooting at Tree of Life*Or L’Simcha Synagogue in Pittsburgh. She defended the move by saying that the rabbi came “because we must unite as a nation—while embracing our religious differences—in the aftermath of Pennsylvania.”
NEW YORK 19
Jewish population: 20,000 (2.79 percent of district population)
Geography: This district is located in Hudson Valley and the Catskills.
Result: Democrat Antonio Delgado is projected to unseat Republican Rep. John Faso, 49.8 percent to 47.6 percent, respectively.
Delgado recently came under fire for saying that “Israel is not a democracy.”
“Being pro-Israel and being pro-peace is critical, but I’m also pro-democracy, and as currently constructed, Israel is not a Jewish democracy,” he said. “Those settlements make it so that it can’t be.”
Faso rebuked his opponent: “Israel is not a democracy? Israel is a strong democracy. It is a vibrant democracy. It has got a vibrant free enterprise system. It has got a vibrant agricultural system and culture. Israel is a democracy. They are our main democratic ally in that region, and in fact, moving the embassy to Jerusalem was the right decision.”
TEXAS 7
Jewish population: 21,000 (3.01 percent of district population)
Geography: This district is just west of Houston.
Result: With 52.3 percent of the vote, Democrat Lizzie Fletcher is projected to unseat Republican Rep. John Culberson.
Fletcher has not said anything publicly about issues related to the Jewish and pro-Israel community.
VIRGINIA 5
Jewish population: 2,000 (0.27 percent of district population)
Geography: This district includes Charlottesville, home to the University of Virginia.
Result: In the race to replace the retiring Tom Garrett, Republican small business owner Denver Riggleman is projected to win against Leslie Cockburn with 56.3 percent of the vote. The latter has come under fire from the pro-Israel community.
She and her husband Andrew Cockburn’s book, Dangerous Liaisons: The Inside Story of the U.S.-Israeli Covert Relationship, “is largely dedicated to Israel-bashing for its own sake. Its first message is that, win or lose, smart or dumb, right or wrong, suave or boorish, Israelis are a menace. The second is that the Israeli-American connection is somewhere behind just about everything that ails us,” according to a New York Timesbook review.
Another predictive failure leaves Mideast ‘experts’ unchastened
Despite Arab gestures toward Israel that were previously considered inconceivable, the experts still insist that further progress requires Israeli concessions to the Palestinians. What makes them so sure?
(November 7, 2018 / JNS)Listening to “experts” on the Mideast has been positively embarrassing recently. They admit that the Arab world has just taken some dramatic steps toward normalization with Israel, and they admit that they had previously considered such steps inconceivable without Israeli concessions to the Palestinians. Yet in the same breath, they assert unequivocally that progress on the Palestinian track remains a prerequisite for further normalization. In other words, the failure of their previous predictions hasn’t dented their confidence in their predictive powers.
Mideast experts obviously aren’t alone in this. It’s a common failing among experts in many fields, and it has contributed significantly to “populist” disdain for expert opinion. But recent developments in the Mideast offer a particularly clear example of the problem.
One of the most significant of these developments was Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s visit to Oman, an Arab country with which Israel has no official relations, on Oct. 26. Given that even Egypt and Jordan, with which Israel does have relations, often keep Netanyahu’s visits secret, the fact that Oman made the trip public, with several Omani newspapers reporting it, may be even more noteworthy than the fact that it took place.
The next day, at the Manama Dialogue in Bahrain, Omani Foreign Minister Yusuf bin Alawi bin Abdullah went even further, telling the Mideast security summit that “Israel is a state present in the region, and we all understand this. … Maybe it is time for Israel to be treated the same and also bear the same obligations.”
That same weekend, an international judo tournament took place in the United Arab Emirates. Although much has been made of the fact that Israeli judokas were allowed to compete under their own flag and anthem for the first time in the history of the Abu Dhabi Grand Slam, that actually proves nothing except that the International Judo Federation finally developed a spine: After cravenly forcing Israeli athletes to complete under the federation’s flag and anthem at last year’s tournament, this year, it threatened to strip Abu Dhabi of hosting rights unless Israeli athletes were treated the same as athletes from other countries (the success of this tactic should be a lesson to other sporting associations that still kowtow to Arab states’ refusal to grant Israeli athletes equal rights).
But Abu Dhabi went far beyond the federation’s mandate. Nothing in the federation’s rulebook, for instance, required the hosts to grant Israeli Culture Minister Miri Regev the honor of awarding the medals at one of the tournament’s events. Nor did anything in the federation’s rules require Emirati officials to take Regev on an official visit to Abu Dhabi’s Sheikh Zayed Grand Mosque—the first such visit by any Israeli minister. As Times of Israel reporter Raphael Ahren put it, this “was something veteran analysts said they never imagined could happen in their lifetime.” In other words, Abu Dhabi took advantage of the cover provided by the tournament to make some dramatic gestures toward Israel.
Mideast experts readily acknowledged that the Omani and Emirati moves, coming as they did at a time when the Israeli-Palestinian peace process is frozen, were both unprecedented and completely unexpected. Yet that didn’t stop most of them from asserting that “only a final status agreement with the Palestinians can inspire normalization,” as Evan Gottesman of the Israel Policy Forum put it. Or as Yoel Guzansky of Tel Aviv University’s Institute for National Security Studies told Ahren, “The Palestinians are still the glass ceiling for Arab-Israel normalization. … This visit should be the beginning of normalization, not the end, but for the Gulf states, it’s likely the end. This is the most they can do for now.”
Yet what makes them so certain? After all, they’ve been wrong many times before. Just two years ago, after another round of unprecedented gestures, the “experts” similarly declared (wrongly) that the rapprochement had gone as far as it could without progress on the Palestinian track. So why are they convinced that this time, they’re right?
There are two answers to this. The first is wishful thinking. The experts making this claim generally favor Israeli concessions to the Palestinians, so they don’t want Israel to be able to normalize relations with Arab states without such concessions. Similarly, the few experts who confidently predict that normalization is possible regardless of the Palestinians are generally people who oppose such concessions.
The second answer is that predicting change is hard. For decades, with the notable exception of the peace with Egypt, Arab attitudes toward Israel were in stasis, making it easy to predict that the future would resemble the past. But now, with Arab attitudes in flux, nobody can really know how far Arab states are willing to go; I doubt they even know themselves. There’s simply no precedent to judge by.
Yet since human beings don’t deal well with chaos, the normal human instinct is to cling to the past as a guide even when that guide is clearly no longer reliable. And that’s especially true for “experts” because if they admit to being clueless, then why should anyone listen to them anymore?
That’s precisely why experts are so often wrong on so many issues—not because they’re stupid or evil, but because they’re too arrogant to admit that even experts can’t predict the future. They can’t predict whether a complex policy will succeed or fail, they can’t predict when a seemingly stable country will suddenly implode, they can’t predict when long-held attitudes will suddenly shift.
That doesn’t make them useless; experts excel at concrete tasks that don’t require oracular powers. For instance, though Israel’s intelligence agencies failed to predict the second intifada, they became very good at the day-to-day task of thwarting terror attacks once they adjusted to the new situation.
But unless experts acquire enough modesty and honesty to admit that they have no special expertise about the future, they will keep getting big issues wrong. And eventually, like the boy who cried “wolf,” people will stop listening to them altogether, even on issues where they do have something to contribute.
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