Democratic Leadership Assures the Security of the Jewish State without Sacrificing Jewish Values in the United States

By: Howard Veisz February 16, 2012 Republicans are cynically attempting to peel Jewish voters away from the Democratic Party by contending that President Obama has not supported Israel. The Republican pitch not only seeks to mislead Jewish voters about the administrations support for Israel, but seeks to distract voters from a Republican domestic agenda that undermines principles that are fundamental to the American Jewish community. The Republican Party has sought to claw its way back into power by aligning itself with the most extreme elements of the religious right groups that seek to demolish the separation of church and state and conform American law to the religious rights notions of biblical truth. In so doing, the Republican Party has come to advance a different kind of two state solution one that that ends with a Jewish state in the Middle East and a fundamentalist Christian state at home. Fortunately, Americans do not have to sacrifice the separation of church and state in America to safeguard Israel. President Obama has provided more military aid to Israel than any prior president, provided Israel with more sophisticated weapons than any prior president and, as Secretary of Defense Gates testified to Congress, has taken more concrete steps to improve the security of Israel than any prior president. And he has done so while reminding Americans of the critical role that separation of church and state has played in preserving not only our democracy, but the robustness of our religious practice. [fn.1] Strengthening Our Military Alliance With Israel President Obamas support for the State of Israel has been extolled by people far more credible than the Republican candidates. One assessment that merits particular respect was delivered by Secretary of Defense Robert Gates on March 2, 2011. Secretary Gates served both Republican and Democratic administrations for 45 years, and gave his assessment not in a campaign speech but in testimony to the United States Congress. Secretary Gates
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testified, slightly more than two years into President Obamas administration, that in terms of concrete steps to improve the security relationship between the two countries, more has been done in the last two years than in any comparable period in my entire career. Dennis Ross, a career diplomat, a staunch supporter of Israel, a leading member of the American Jewish community, and President Obamas hand-picked Middle East envoy, similarly stated in an April 4, 2011 speech to the Anti Defamation League Leadership Conference: In all the time that Ive served, in all the different administrations Ive been in, I have never seen the kind of strategic cooperation that exists today between the United States and Israel, and thats a fact. Ehud Barak, Israels Defense Minister and former Prime Minister, echoed these conclusions when he stated in a recent interview that the U.S. helps preserve the military advantage of Israel more than ever before. President Obamas administration, in his words, contributes to the security of Israel in an extraordinary way, including its efforts to prevent a nuclear Iran. [fn.2] These assessments are consistent with reporting by the Wall Street Journal. In an August 14, 2010 article, U.S., Israel Build Military Cooperation the Journal reported that increases in U.S. military aid to Israel, and a series of joint military exercises in Israel over the past month stem from policy directives that the White House gave the Pentagon early in Mr. Obamas presidency to deepen and expand the quality and intensity of cooperation to the fullest extent. The Journal further noted that U.S. military aid to Israel has increased markedly this year to a high of $2.78 billion and is slated to jump to $3 billion in 2011. The increased quality as well as quantity of U.S. military aid to Israel is demonstrated by President Obamas shipment to Israel of deep penetrating bombs potentially useful in any strike against Iranian nuclear sites that Israel sought since 2005. Israels requests were rebuffed by the Bush administration, but fast tracked by the Obama administration. As President Obama himself put it, in a speech before the American Israel Public Affairs Committee: The bonds between the United States and Israel are unbreakable and the commitment of the United States to the security of Israel is
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ironclad . Its why we have increased cooperation between our militaries to unprecedented levels. Its why we are making our most advanced technology available to our Israeli allies. Its why, despite tough economic times, we have increased foreign military financing to record levels. Beyond supporting Israels military, President Obama has exercised his power as commander in chief to destroy our common enemies Islamic terrorist leaders and networks wherever they exist. President Obama ordered the raid that killed Osama bin Laden in May 2010. During the same month a U.S. drone strike in Pakistan killed Al Qaedas third ranking leader. [fn.3] In August 2011, another drone strike in Pakistan killed Mustafa Abu al-Yazid, who had become Al Qaedas top operational planner, and its second in command, after bin Laden was killed. [id.] And in December 2011, President Obama ordered a drone strike in Yemen that killed Anwar al-Awlaki, whose jihadist rhetoric inspired plots against U.S. airliners and the shooting of 13 people at Fort Hood. [id.] By the end of 2011, the Obama administration eliminated 22 of Al Qaedas top 30 leaders. At the United Nations, President Obama blocked the Palestinians attempts to obtain statehood while they refuse to recognize Israels statehood. Abroad, he persuaded the international community to impose tough sanctions on Iran including a European boycott of Iranian oil to deter it from pursuing its nuclear ambitions. By strengthening our military alliance with Israel, destroying terrorist networks that threaten both of our countries, and standing up for Israel on the world stage, President Obama has met or exceeded the level of support provided by every past president. His actions abroad have been matched by his defense of principles that are important to the Jewish community in this country. Preserving Religious Freedom and the Separation of Church and State at Home This countrys defense of Israels right to exist, not merely in name but as a Jewish State, is firmly rooted in history. In the aftermath of World War I the League of Nations explicitly recognized the historical connection of the Jewish people with Palestine and the grounds for reconstituting their national home in that country. [fn.4] The League gave Britain a mandate to secure the establishment of the Jewish national home and empowered a Jewish Agency to work with Britain to effect the establishment of the Jewish National Home and the interests of the Jewish population in Palestine. After the extermination of six million Jews during World War II, the United Nations belatedly turned to the
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Leagues unfinished business, and adopted a Resolution that explicitly created the Jewish State of Israel. [fn.5] What is in question is not Israels character but the character of this country whether separation of church and state will prevail or whether this country will be transformed into a theocracy whose laws and policies are dictated by the religious right. In 2005, the National Director of the Anti-Defamation League warned that the religious rights agenda goes well beyond legitimate engagement in controversial social and political issues and that it is attempt[ing] to restore what it perceives as the ruins of a Christian nation by more closely seeking to unite its version of Christianity with state power. [fn.6] He further cautioned that while the Jewish Community is not the prime target of this movement . . . we may become its major victim [id.] The religious rights effort to use the power of the state to impose its version of Christianity on all Americans is incompatible with American ideals that are enshrined in the Constitution and that, not long ago, were embraced by religious leaders of all denominations. In 1960, John F. Kennedy, then seeking to become the countrys first Catholic president, felt compelled to assure a gathering of Protestant leaders that he believed in the separation of church and state and would not accept instructions on public policy from the Pope or other leaders of his church. In his words: I believe in an America where the separation of church and state is absolute, where no Catholic prelate would tell the president (should he be Catholic) how to act, and no Protestant minister would tell his parishioners for whom to vote . . . . I believe in an America that is officially neither Catholic, Protestant nor Jewish; where no public official either requests or accepts instructions on public policy from the Pope, the National Council of Churches or any other ecclesiastical source; where no religious body seeks to impose its will directly or indirectly upon the general population or the public acts of its officials; and where religious liberty is so indivisible that an act against one church is treated as an act against all. . . . This is the kind of America in which I believe. And it represents the kind of presidency in which I believe a great office that must neither be humbled by making it the instrument of any one religious group, nor tarnished by arbitrarily withholding its occupancy from members of any one religious group. I believe in a president whose religious views are his own private
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affair, neither imposed by him upon the nation, nor imposed by the nation upon him as a condition to holding that office.

Today, the religious right is using its grip on the Republican Party to create a different kind of America and a different kind of presidency. The groups that dominate the religious right seek to conform U.S. law to their interpretation of biblical law or at least to policies that they seek to portray as biblical imperatives. To these groups, it is no longer enough to outlaw abortion; we must also legislate birth control services out of existence, drive science from the classroom, deny climate change, eliminate the minimum wage, abolish Social Security and Medicare, and make the tax code even more favorable to the rich all in the name of biblical truth. Forbes columnist John Zogby, writing about the GOPs tight alliance with the Christian right in April 2009, noted that the national Republican Party remains closely tied to the Christian right and the narrowest issue positions it has represented. The Party, he continued, no longer has room for any elected official who deviates from the tightest orthodoxy on these issues. [fn.7] The 2010 midterm election and its aftermath certainly bear that out. The dangerous alliance between the between the Republican Party and the religious right can best be illustrated by examining one of the religious rights leading organizations, the American Family Association (AFA). In this election cycle the AFA sponsored, or co-sponsored, a series of events that provided a platform for Republican candidates and gave them an opportunity to demonstrate their allegiance to the AFAs cause. In March 2011, the AFA sponsored the Rediscover God in America Conference, at which Newt Gingrich was a featured speaker. In August 2011, the AFA financed and organized a national day of prayer event that was the springboard for Rick Perrys presidential campaign an event, in the words of AFA founder and chairman Donald Wildmon, at which anyone who wants to pray to Jesus to save our country is welcome. And in October 2011, the AFA and a few other likeminded groups sponsored the Values Voter Summit at which every Republican presidential aspirant (Gingrich, Romney, Santorum, Paul, etc.) dutifully appeared to seek the sponsors support by pledging to use the presidency to advance their objectives. The AFAs website describes its vision for America in a philosophical statement. It asserts that God has communicated absolute truth to mankind and . . . all people are subject to the authority of God. Therefore, AFA believes that a culture based on biblical truth best serves the well-being of our nation . . . .
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The AFA has translated its call for a culture based on biblical truth into a detailed legislative agenda. Part of the agenda was spelled out at the AFAs Rediscovering God in America Conference. David Barton, a speaker at the conference and a leading light of the religious right, laid out a vision for America that is a strange amalgam of God and greed. With respect to minimum wage laws, for example, Barton instructed the faithful that Jesus has an entire teaching on the minimum wage. . . . He has an entire teaching against it. On the subject of taxes, Barton laid out what God has commanded with respect to capital gains taxes, estate taxes, and the progressive income tax. He asserted that the Bible is so good on economic issues and specifically on taxation that there is no need to look further to know what kinds of taxes are good and what kinds of taxes are bad. Among other things, according to Barton, the Bible is very clear on what Jesus teaches about capital gains taxes (he opposes them) and condemns estate taxes as one of the most immoral taxes out there. Jesus, according to Barton, also prefers a flat tax to a graduated income tax. The AFA reaches a broad audience through radio talk shows that are broadcast over its 192 stations. [fn.8] Bryan Fischer, the AFAs director of issues analysis and the host of a daily two hour talk show, is the AFAs voice. Fischer described the campaign platform that the AFA and likeminded groups demand from the GOP in a November 20, 2011 web posting. In his words, the ideal GOP candidate will denounce Social Security and Medicare as wealth transfer programs and will make clear that there is no such thing as an entitlement program because no one is entitled to somebody elses money. The ideal GOP candidate will veto any budget or appropriations bill that funds Planned Parenthood or embryonic stem cell research. The ideal GOP candidate will veto any increase in the national debt ceiling and will eliminate the departments of Education, Commerce, Energy, Health and Human Services, Housing and Urban Development and the EPA by the end of the decade. It is not only the substance of these positions that is alien and dangerous; it is the attempt to transform them from a political ideology to a theology. To advance that theology, moreover, the religious right has sought to denigrate the place of other religions in American society. In a Speech that he gave at the Values Voter Summit, the AFAs Fischer declared that the next president must be a man of sincere, authentic, genuine Christian faith no Jews or other persons who do not satisfy his definition of a genuine Christian need apply. In a July 21, 2011web
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posting [fn.9] Fischer explained why he sees no conflict between a religious test for public office and the First Amendment: The First Amendment . . . was written for one specific purpose: to protect the free exercise of the Christian religion. . . . The real purpose of the amendment was, not to countenance, much less to advance Mahometanism, or Judaism, or infidelity, by prostrating Christianity; but to exclude all rivalry among Christian sects and to prevent any national ecclesiastical establishment, which should give to a hierarchy the exclusive patronage of the national government.. . . When the founders used the word religion they used it much as we did on the playground when I was growing up in America a generation ago. . . By the term religion we meant some variety or brand of the Christian religion, since that was all that was represented among us. . . .Such was the case at the time of the Founding.

Fishers assumption that the Founding Fathers experience was as limited as his childhood playground experience, and his assertion that the First Amendment protects only the free exercise of the Christian religion assertions he has repeated on the AFA radio network are sheer nonsense. So it might be imagined that the GOPs presidential candidates would condemn such remarks, and distance themselves both from the speaker and the organization that sponsors him. But the opposite is true. Gingrich, after speaking at the Rediscovering God in America Conference, joined Fischer in his broadcast booth and commended his work. He then joined Fischer in railing against what Gingrich derided as the secular intellectuals and secular news media and secular judges [who are] trying to reshape America. Gingrich warned AFA listeners that unless they take a stand the people who want to reshape America into a secular model are going to win. In January 2012 Gingrich went a step further and made the AFAs Don Widmon a national co-chair of his Faith Leaders Coalition a group that Gingrich assembled, according to his website, to promote his candidacy among Christians throughout the country. Gingrichs courtship of the religious right, like that of many of his GOP rivals, has followed an alarming arc. He stirs their passions by telling them that their religion is under attack. He focuses their anger at New York elites and at Saul Alinsky radicals turning a Jewish community organizer who has been dead for
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more than 30 years into a boogeyman and a focal point for the religious rights anger. Such tactics have never ended well, and have often ended disastrously. Romney is in a somewhat different position, since his Mormon religion has been specifically assailed by some members of the religious right. Yet, like every other Republican contender, he has had to conform his positions to the religious rights agenda. The religious rights influence over the Republican Party is well demonstrated by Romneys forced conversion on virtually every issue, including at least one issue on which he had spoken forcefully for the other side. In 1994, when he ran against Ted Kennedy for the Senate, Romney fervently defended freedom of choice. In so doing, he recognized that the battle over freedom of choice was largely a battle over freedom of religion a battle over whether one religious group could use the state to impose its teachings on others. In keeping with President Kennedys remarks 34 years earlier, Romney asserted: One of the great things about our nation . . . is that were entitled to have strong personal beliefs, and we encourage other people to to do the same. But as a nation, we recognize the right of all people to believe as they want and not to impose our beliefs on other people. I believe that abortion should be safe and legal in this country. . . . I believe that since Roe v. Wade has been the law for 20 years, that we should sustain and support it, and I sustain the right of a woman to make that choice, and my personal beliefs, like the personal beliefs of other people, should not be brought into a political campaign. On a personal level, he emphasized that he and his family were committed to upholding freedom of choice ever since a dear close family relative that was very close to me . . .passed away from an illegal abortion. When he campaigned for governor of Massachusetts in 2002 Romney reiterated that position. In his quest for the Republican presidential nomination, however, Romney renounced his prior beliefs and hopped on the religious right bandwagon. Demonstrating the completeness of his submission to the new Republican theocracy, Romney assured the audience at the Value Voters Summit that he will not only nominate judges who will overturn Roe v. Wade, but will end federal funding for abortion advocates like Planned Parenthood a group he previously supported. He has since pledged to eliminate Title X family planning programs that were created under the Nixon administration to provide family planning and womens health services to women who could not afford them.
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What is most significant is not that Romney changed his opinion about abortion or Planned Parenthood, but that he changed his opinion about America. Gone is his belief in an America where no religious group can impose its will upon the general public and in which the presidency cannot be the instrument of any one religious group. Abandoning those beliefs and replacing them with subservience to the religious right can have only two results. First, making the religious rights position on abortion and family planning the law of the land will inevitably be followed by the rest of its agenda, for all of it is presented as the will of God. Second, placing the religious rights view of biblical truth over competing views will effectively make it a state religion, diminishing the status of every religion and every citizen with a different body of ethical and moral beliefs. President Obama has taken a different path a path rooted in the Constitution and in the American tradition that President Kennedy so eloquently addressed. In a speech on religion and politics that he gave in June 2006, then Senator Obama stated that progressive leaders would be wrong to ask believers to leave their religion at the door before entering into the public sphere and that we would do well to recognize some overlapping values that both religious and secular people share when it comes to the moral and material direction of our country. But, contrary to the views espoused by the AFA and its allies, Obama plainly stated that we are not just a Christian nation but are also a Jewish nation, as well as a nation of other religions and nonbelievers. Democracy, Obama concluded, demands that the religiously motivated translate their concerns into universal rather than religion-specific values. It requires that their proposals be subject to argument, and amenable to reason . . . . Politics depends on our ability to persuade each other of common aims, based on a common reality . . . . Those on the other side of the debate, he stated, need to understand the critical role that the separation of church and state has played in preserving not only our democracy, but the robustness of our religious practice and need to remember that some of the denominations active in todays religious right were once prosecuted minorities that championed the First Amendment. Obamas view of the proper relationship between religion and politics is one that we can believe in, and that we have to support if we are to preserve religious equality and freedom in America.

Notes

1. June 2006 speech by then Senator Obama. 2. Will Israel Attack Iran, New York Times, January 25, 2012. 3. Killing of Awlaki is Latest in Campaign Against Qaada Leaders, New York Times, December 10, 2011. 4. League of Nations Palestine Mandate. 5. United Nations Resolution 181, adopted November 29, 1947.
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6. Address by Abraham Foxman, National Director of the Anti-Defamation League, ADL National Commission Meeting, November 3, 2005. 7. GOPs Christian Right Pact Costs Votes, Forbes, April 9, 2009. 8. With Rally, Christian Group Asserts its Presence in 12 Race, New York Times, August 4, 2011. 9. Bryan Fischer: No Longer Alone: Herman Cain Agrees on Banning Mosques.

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