WASHINGTON — Rep. Tom DeLay is a perplexing figure for the American Jewish community.
The Republican lawmaker from Sugar Land, Texas — who last week was unanimously chosen majority leader of the U.S. House of Representatives — has for years been a lightning rod for liberal Jews who sharply disagree with his conservative stances on abortion and other domestic policy issues.
And DeLay’s comments about Christianity — he has suggested it is the only religion that answers life’s big questions, and has called on Christians to elect Christian lawmakers — have come close to anti-Semitism, some say.
In the last two years, however, DeLay has emerged as a leading pro-Israel advocate, working to get legislation passed that would bring U.S. aid and support to the Jewish state.
While some question DeLay’s motives, many Jewish leaders have chosen to embrace his support. After his election as House majority leader last week, most pro-Israel activists were celebrating.
“Tom DeLay is a true leader and has a time-tested record of being a dear and valued friend of the pro-Israel community,” said Melvin Dow, a fellow Texan and former president and chairman of the pro-Israel lobby, the American Israel Public Affairs Committee.
DeLay is one of several prominent Christian leaders who have vocally aligned themselves with Israel since the Palestinian intifada began two years ago, and been welcomed by Jewish leaders who’ve been able to put aside other disagreements with the evangelical Christian community.
Understanding that Israel is in a precarious situation, they believe now is not the time to choose which allies to support and which to discard.
But because DeLay is a legislator, and a very powerful one at that, Jewish leaders say they still hear concerns about him.
“There is discomfort in some segments of the Jewish community,” said Abraham Foxman, national director of the Anti-Defamation League. “The Jewish community is uncomfortable with the domestic agenda that Tom DeLay represents.”
As part of its “Strange Bedfellows” campaign, for example, the group Jewish Women Watching plans to distribute condoms at the United Jewish Communities’ General Assembly this week. The move is a protest against the links between Jewish leaders and Christian conservatives.
One member of the group, noting that a vast majority of Jews are pro-choice and believe in separation of church and state, said Jewish leaders who support DeLay seem to feel that his stances on domestic issues are less important than his stance on Israel. “Tom DeLay becomes a better Jew than someone who wants to say something critical about Israel.”
DeLay’s bona fides on Israel have solidified in the past year.
He was the architect of a pro-Israel resolution that passed Congress last spring, a month after the Passover suicide bombing attack in Netanya. The resolution called on the United States to provide additional aid to Israel, and “condemns the ongoing support of terror” by Palestinian Authority President Yasser Arafat and other Palestinian leaders.
He also sponsored an amendment to the White House’s emergency supplemental aid package, giving Israel $200 million in emergency anti-terrorism aid. President Bush rejected the spending package, but voiced strong support for the Israel aid. The money is expected to be in the next foreign aid appropriations bill, which Congress will tackle early next year.
In a speech at AIPAC’s policy conference in April, DeLay consistently referred to the West Bank and Gaza as “Judea and Samaria” — their biblical Hebrew names, saying he had grown tired of the media calling the land “occupied territories.”
“As long as I’m in Congress, I’ll use every tool at my disposal to ensure the Republican Conference, and the House of Representatives, continues to preserve and strengthen America’s alliance with the state of Israel,” DeLay said April 23.
Just two weeks earlier, however, he had called on Christians to send their children only to colleges where they could get a “godly education,” and said Christianity was the only religion that answers questions about the purpose of life.
“Only Christianity offers a comprehensive worldview that covers all areas of life and thought, every aspect of creation,” DeLay told 300 people at the First Baptist Church of Pearland, Texas, on April 12. “Only Christianity offers a way to live in response to the realities that we find in this world.”
Foxman has criticized those comments, as well as remarks DeLay made last month at a Christian Coalition rally, when he called on people to elect lawmakers “who stand for everything we believe in and stand unashamedly with Jesus Christ.”