A case in point is the recent “forum” hosted by the Republican Jewish Coalition—an event where the organization made the special effort not only to exclude, but make a public show of its exclusion, of a particular approach despite its growing popularity. In brief, the RJC banned Ron Paul from its forum, citing his “misguided and extreme views.”
But several Jewish writers immediately came to Paul’s defense, condemning the RJC’s forum as a political “beauty contest.” In a recent column, Jewish correspondent Jeffrey Goldberg says Paul is actually the one candidate who reflects Israel’s own views:
He is, in one sense, a true Zionist, a believer in two core values of the Jewish liberation movement: Jewish independence and Jewish self-reliance. Independence is self-explanatory; self-reliance, in the context of national defense, holds that the Jewish state shouldn’t seek the help of foreign soldiers to defend it.
I was struck in the foreign policy debate by something Rick Perry said, when asked about a looming confrontation between Iran and Israel: “(I)f we’re going to be serious about saving Israel, we better get serious about Syria and Iran, and we better get serious right now.”
“Saving Israel” should ideally be Israel’s job. This is what Israelis tend to think.
My friends, you don’t need to do nation building in Israel. We’re already built. You don’t need to export democracy to Israel. We’ve already got it. You don’t need to send American troops to defend Israel. We defend ourselves.
Here is some of what he said in the foreign policy debate on this subject: “Israel has 200, 300 nuclear missiles. And they can take care of themselves. Why should we commit — we don’t even have a treaty with Israel. Why do we have this automatic commitment that we’re going to send our kids and send our money endlessly to Israel? So I think they’re quite capable of taking care of themselves.”
Goldberg is not the only Jewish writer to make this point. He cites New York Sun columnist Seth Lipsky. Among other things, Lipsky corrects the mistaken notion that opposing the broader version of nation-building and the war of terror of the current and previous administrations is somehow siding with the enemy or blaming America. Instead, Paul’s approach would have been simpler, cheaper, and more streamlined:
[I]t can’t be said that he would go easy on al Qaeda or has any sympathy with its crimes. He would no doubt say — as he did at an editorial dinner of The New York Sun in 2009 — that one thing he wanted was to avoid a trillion dollar expedition when there was a simpler, constitutional approach of bringing the war to our enemy.
So far, such an approach has not even been considered, and with groups like RJC excluding it even from being heard, it will take the continued efforts of the grass-roots movements to make the politicians do so. But this means some Evangelical voters may need to rethink the issue for themselves first.
This is not to mention the effectiveness of courting the Jewish vote on the home-front. As the gay-married Jew Ari Shapiro noted on his NPR show last week, it’s really a waste of time for Republicans: “The [other] six candidates each spent a lot of time speaking with these Jewish Republicans. It’s striking, given that Jews make up about 2 percent of the U.S. population, and overwhelmingly vote Democratic.”
Source @AmerVisionNews
