| Submit your comments on this article |
| It is so idealistic. So there. Well, kinda... |
| 2002-04-06 |
| Emmanuel Goldstein at Airstrip One takes a couple whacks at me for my comments to Asparagirl's post. (Hand me that ear, will you? I think it's mine...) So it's just fellow feeling right? Not the fact that the Republican party has significant swathes run by fruit-and-nut postmillennial dispensationalists (fundamentalists to you and me) who see Israel as fulfilling Revelation. The Publicans do have the support of what we call here the "Religious Right." (Who else are they gonna support? The Dems make a point of opposing most issues dear to the socially conservative heart.) But the party's a coalition, not a monolithic organization, and the days of its dominance by our own version of the fundos is past. Don't get me wrong - they're there, they're still somewhat influential, but they're not in charge. Now, the Religious Right is a good thing in general - and we Brits could do with a bit of moral rearmament ourselves - however their influence on American foreign policy is immense. Of course there are many who see the Religious Right as being massively influential on the Republican Party on issues like abortion or homosexuality, but these moral libertines also tend to be pro-Israel. So they would say that, wouldn't they. Yep. Would and do. But I think you're overestimating their influence on foreign policy. But consider. Buchanan failed to pick up the evangelical vote that should have been his for the taking in 1992 and 1996. Was it (a) the fundis all read their Adam Smith and said "No Pat, we want free trade", (b) the fundis objected because Pat was a Papist (yet voted for the Roman Alan Keyes) or (c) because Pat wouldn't support Israel? The questions that he kept on receiving were on Israel, not Rome. Now where was the missing margin of victory. We have vastly differing interpretations on Buchanan, who's a paleoconservative, not a fundo. I - and I think quite of few other Publicans - regard Buchanan as a vanity campaigner, with more ego than base. Jumping the party in 2000 was a good thing not for Pat but for the party. (I think he misinterpreted that "Go, Pat, go" thing.) The party didn't have to indulge him anymore, and since his vote was in the 2 percent range they won't have to indulge him again. McCain greeted his departure with a simple "Good riddance," though Bush was more tactful. I don't think being a Papist had anything to do with it - I didn't even know he was one. Being an unpleasant fellow did, coupled with his antagonism to immigration. Immigrants tend to be not welfare recipients as he believes, but entrepeneurs, starting small businesses and prospering more often than they crash. That should make them a natural Publican constituency, which Buchanan as an ideologue turns his back on. Bush, inheriting his father's pragmatism and having better political skills, embraces them. Free trade is also an historical Publican position that Buchanan abandons, and with it large blocs of the party. So he basically shot himself in the mouth. The Israel question kept the Republican status quo safe to lose against Clinton. The Religious Right are the constituency that keeps the Republicans from taking a moderate stance on Israel. After all what would you do if you were the congressman for Dumpsville and many of your more active supporters and donors got all worked up about levelling the Al-Aqsa mosque and building the third Temple? I don't think Americans really see the opening for a moderate stance on Israel, and believe me, they look for it. We see it as a conflict between Israel and Hamas/Islamic Jihad, with Yasser as an aider and abettor and behind the scenes oft-times driver. Prior to the arrival of Hamas/Jihad we had PFLP and DFLP as the aggressors, shooting up airliners and tossing old men in wheelchairs off cruise ships. It's not just the American religious right but the mainstream who're alienated from the Palestinian position, despite a continuing effort by a liberal press to "understand." We really do put them into the category of Evil. Why you'd start saying things (roughly) like "Israel's capital should be Jerusalem" (Gingrich) and "The Palestinians have a homeland in Jordan" (I'm not sure who said this, but I thought it was Dukakis)? Hell, if I was concerned about re-election I'd mouth the same sort of platitudes. Truth to tell, I don't care where the capital is, though politicians make their money saying stupid things. Sometimes they even mean them. I think the original idea behind Jordan was as someplace to dump the Palestinians but I could be wrong. The issue that's of most concern to us keeps coming back to the continuing campaign of mindless violence. If that were to stop and the Palestinians were to begin negotiating in good faith - making agreements and keeping them - then American opinion would turn against Israel if they weren't doing the same. But we find the penchant for rioting at the drop of a hat, screaming "Death to [Fill in Name Here]," and continuous indignation repellant. We, the mainstream, also see it as something manufactured; Yasser is just as much a dictator as Saddam, with his own reasons (personal power) for keeping the rabble whipped up. I wrote to someone in an e-mail once that the way for the Palestinians to drive a wedge between the US and Israel would be to make peace. Settle down, start some light industry, wave hello to the Jews across the fence now and then, and ignore them. Israel's internal politics have the potential to make it unpleasantly like Greece or Italy on a bad day. There are a lot of stiff necks there, a fair number of indigenous rabbinical goofs to play off against their leftist goofs, and enough people fond of the sound of their own voices to keep the country's internal tensions exacerbated. So let's lay off the David and Goliath and small l Libertarian stuff. The reason why America supports Israel is that both parties support it, and one of them supports it because much of its grass roots believe that it will bring on the end of the world. I agree that both parties support it, I disagree that the "grass roots" you're thinking of is that powerful. To me, agnostic and cynical, it's the rioting and the bloodcurdling threats and the assassinations. And the lies. Lotsa lies. And bad faith. And posturing. And pretensions to tin-hat dictatorship... Idealistic, yes. A sane basis for policy, well... Idealistic and principled. Come and join us. Well said, sir. His protectionism wasn't a selling point, but his ethnocentrism that had border violations into racism and the America First, Second ... and Nteenth mindset were the ones that had me sitting out the 1992 primary. I'm an atheist Republican myself. I support Israel against the Palestinians for a lot of different reasons. However, Biblical prophecy is not really high on my list of reasons for favoring Israel. You call that criticism? I'd call it fairy tale ramblings mixed with a thimblefull of details to peg it to a current events context. Last I heard Gary Bauer lost the GOP primaries without a whimper, and Colin Powell is a high church Episcopalian. Goldstein is out to lunch on his analysis, as his logically circuitous last sentence shows. Goldstein's comments were the second where someone in the UK mentioned the "immense" influence the Religious Right has on the Republican party here. It's true that they are a factor, but the party's stand on abortion is more than an issue driven by the Religious Right. It's an issue that gets at the definition of "human rights", and some honest intellectual debates can be seen there. Frankly, the notion that American support for Israel is based on chiliastic delusions is just, well, daft. But I wouldn't be surprised to find that this a commonly held belief in the UK. I was going to post a comment on the Airstrip One site about the daftness of believing that the only reason most non-Jewish Americans support Israel is because most Americans are Christian Millenialist Fundamentalists who think Israel will bring about the end of the world... and then I read the next post, a thoroughly confused ramble about (I think) whether or not Isreal is a "Westernized" country or was it "Orientalizing" due to the increased numbers of Sephardic (non-European) Jews, and if the latter is the case then should he, Mr Goldstein, continue to hold Israel up to the "high standards" that he would a "Westernized" country. I can't deal with that kind of blinkered thinking, I'm sorry. I hold every country up to "high" standards, they don't get a pass if they are "Oriental." Now if you'll excuse me, I'm late for my Republican Apocalyptic group's weekly book-burning, Rapture-vigil. |
| Posted by:Fred Pruitt |