EDITOR’S NOTE: The Republican Jewish Coalition was asked to respond to the column by Ira Forman (at left). Instead, the group chose to reiterate statements about Howard Dean that appear in the initial ad.
The National Jewish Democratic Council’s hurried and politically motivated defense of new DNC Chairman Howard Dean should worry not only the American Jewish community, but everyone who hopes for a bipartisan commitment to stand with Israel in the war on terror. While NJDC may be willing to ignore the unpleasant facts about Dean, leading Democrats have joined the Republican Jewish Coalition in expressing deep concerns over Dean’s weak record of support for Israel and for the war on terror.
These concerns, as addressed in our recent advertising campaign, are fully justified, based upon Dean’s past statements. While he was campaigning for president, Israel was suffering regular terror attacks encouraged by Yasser Arafat, Hamas and others. Yet Dean said, “I don’t believe stopping the terror has to be a prerequisite for talking, you always talk,” clearly indicating that he would force Israel to negotiate while under the threat of terrorist attacks (The Associated Press, 9/10/03).
It’s no surprise, given such statements, that Clinton-Gore White House aide and Democratic strategist Kenneth Baer warned, “The pro-Israel community would be very worried if Dean became DNC chair” (The Forward, 1/28/05). For their part, President Bush and his administration have made clear that stopping terrorist attacks is absolutely a prerequisite for moving forward in the peace process.
Dean went even farther, adding, “I don’t find it convenient to blame people. Nobody should have violence, ever. But they do, and it’s not our place to take sides” (The Associated Press, 9/10/03). These comments suggest Dean has accepted the dangerous moral equivalency shared by many on the American and European left.
Previously, Dean described Hamas terrorists as “soldiers” in a war, legitimizing their cause and their tactics while they murdered innocent Israeli citizens, including Arabs (CNN, 9/10/03). In one television interview, Dean even indicated that a Hamas takeover of Palestinian territories might be a “good” thing (CBC/PBS, 1/3/98). It is deeply disturbing that the Democrats have elected a national chairman so willing to welcome terrorists to power.
Jay Footlik, who was Sen. John Kerry’s presidential campaign liaison to the Jewish community, warned that once Dean was elected DNC chairman, “a lot of mainstream, middle of the road, centrist Jewish Democrats would be very turned off and concerned and would be left wondering whether they have a home in the Democratic Party” (The Forward, 1/28/05).
Indeed, many Jewish Democrats are left wondering whether they have a home in their party, and not just because of Dean. As Baer wrote, “[T]he broader group of Democratic elected officials, and those who advise them, seem to wish the whole topic [of terrorism] would disappear, allowing Democrats to focus on the domestic concerns … To this group, foreign policy is merely a base to be touched and then ignored” (The New Republic Online, 2/14/05). As long as America and Israel face terrorist threats, Jewish voters must support leaders who will bravely confront terrorists, not hope they will go away.
Even more disturbing, Baer notes, is “a faction, which coalesced around Dean in the primaries, that takes foreign policy seriously but has a view antithetical not only to Republicans but also to a majority of the electorate. This group shies away from employing force abroad, almost instinctively doubts America’s stated intentions in foreign affairs and tends to look inward at what the United States has done to incite and fuel hatred rather than focus on causes intrinsic or unique to America’s enemies” (The New Republic Online, 2/14/05).
Just one example of this faction’s worldview is Dean’s insistence that “the capture of Saddam has not made
America safer” (Remarks to Pacific Council of International Policy, 12/15/03). If it were up to Dean and this group, Saddam Hussein would still be paying terrorists to kill Israelis and Americans. With Dean’s election as DNC chairman, it is this group that has seized control of the Democrats’ agenda, and all defenders of freedom should be concerned.
Despite the criticism of Dean’s views coming from leading Democrats, Dean’s unanimous election is an important barometer of the Democratic Party’s direction. Regrettably, that direction is towards indifference, if not outright opposition, to the war on terror. As The New Republic’s Peter Beinart wrote, “[P]ost-September 11 liberalism has produced leaders and institutions — most notably Michael Moore and MoveOn — that do not put the struggle against America’s new totalitarian foe at the center of their hopes for a better world,” and the Democratic grassroots increasingly “views America’s new struggle as a distraction, if not a mirage” (The New Republic, 12/13/04). In Dean, these grassroots activists may have found their oasis, but Jewish Democrats have found themselves wandering in the desert.
Matthew Brooks is the executive director of the Republican Jewish Coalition.
TWO VIEWS:
Howard Dean — Israel’s friend or foe?