Posted on 01/22/2004 3:59:35 PM PST by quidnunc
For decades, most American Jews have believed there were far greater threats from the fringe right than the fringe left in this country. While this view may have been reasonable in the past, it is certainly not so today. The fringe right still exists — the neo-Nazis in Northwest Idaho, Matthew Hale, and David Duke, and the remnants of the KKK. But the views of the fringe right have been marginalized by their repudiation by virtually all mainstream elements on the political right.
The fringe left, on the other hand, has evolved into a broader left, and become more mainstream. The political perspective of this new left is vehemently anti-Israel, and the power and reach of this movement represent a real threat to Israel, and by extension to Jews who support Israel.
The left does not mean the Democratic Party in Congress. When pro-Israel resolutions come before the Congress, due in part to the extraordinary efforts of AIPAC [America Israel Public Affairs Committee], a very high percentage of both Democrats and Republicans vote a solidly pro-Israel agenda. There are some small differences between the parties, however, especially in the House. In particular, the support for Israel among African American Congressmen, all Democrats, has dropped in recent years. However, the defeat in the 2002 cycle of Cynthia McKinney, and Earl Hilliard, two members who were hostile to Israel, and the election to their seats of Denise Majettte and Arthur Davis, has put two highly visible, very pro-Israel African Americans into the Congress.
In the Senate, you have a different situation. Senators run statewide — which tends to move them towards the center in competitive states. Add to this the fact that many Senators have national political ambitions, and almost all Senators wind up having mainstream views on the Middle East. The mainstream view in Congress is to be a supporter of Israel. This is due in part, as I said already, to effective lobbying, but also to the widely held view that Israel is an embattled democracy, living in a neighborhood full of authoritarian, thuggish anti-American regimes, that Israel shares the western values this country holds dear, and is engaged in the same fight against Islamic terrorists as this country.
These views are also mainstream for most Americans, which is why support for Israel routinely runs three to five times the support level for the Palestinians in every public opinion survey that is taken. In the House, the tendency to use the redistricting process after every census for incumbent protection, has led to the creation of a very large number of safe seats, and very few competitive ones (perhaps 10-15% of the total). This has given incumbents the ability to be less mainstream in their views on this issue and others. The growth in the Arab and Muslim population in America, and the creation of more districts with high percentages of African American voters, are both elements that could create more House members sympathetic to the Palestinian cause, since both African Americans, as a group, and Arabs and Muslims, to a much larger extent, are less sympathetic to Israel than the general population. In any case, it would be hard to point to any individual member of Congress today and say that he or she hates Israel.
-snip-
(Excerpt) Read more at americanthinker.com ...
The fellowing letter is posted with the permission of the author: Mr. Baer — It is really a lot simpler than you make it. The key is point #6 “Jews Who Hate Israel.” Since Jews have been the driving force in the Left for over a century, and still are, that is not an insignificant “one of eight” point. In the United States today secular Jews disproportionately influence fields like the law, academia, and the press — that are heavily Jewish. Those, in Lenin’s terms, are the “commanding heights” of modern society.
Look at the Democratic party. Largely funded by Jews, its presidential candidates are falling all over themselves to find Jewish relatives, and isn’t it interesting that almost all the ones without them… are already eliminated.?
Add to that the astonishing almost organic effort by secular Western Jews to disappear as a culture and a religion by intermarriage and fragmentation into cults from “Kabbalah” and Moonies, to the “Buddhists” (who do you think all those Hollywood “Buddhists” were who were giving money to Clinton?) … as noted in Eliott Abrams’ brilliant and troubling book … as well as any frisson in the culture from alien abduction to veganism. Forget Jerusalem. Secular Jews are now obsessed with “trivial pursuits.” Hitler would be so pleased.
As Chesterton put it, “If you won’t believe in God, you will believe in anything.” And it isn’t just a problem of secular Jews. As you point out the mainline Christian institutions are aligned with the anti-Israeli Left. Of course please note these churches are emptying faster than they can find signatures for petitions supporting the “oppressed Palestinians.” Ironically as these two remnant fragments of great cultural traditions ally on the Left … they join in their irrelevance to the future.
What we are facing is a degenerative branch of a great culture that is actually and tragically committing suicide. It favors politics that would destroy the true heart of its own culture and religion — Israel — as well as harbors of traditional culture and political realities like the United States that reflect traditional Judaeo-Christian values. The existence of both appear pretentious to these post-modern “black riders” — as if there was any point in epistemological questions of truth and reality as opposed to something “real” like winning a specious tort case, or pushing the latest environmental fad, or cheating an artist out of his royalties.
-snip-
(Thomas Lipscomb in The American Thinker, January 22, 2004)
To Read This Article Click Here
The left hates everything. Their minds are fogged with emotional drivel and their appetite is for blood. They do not think, they respond in a skinner-like tradition.
America has been chosen by God to project and promote goodness in the world.
The left hates both aspects.
What is puzzling is why so many Jews in this contry lean so far to the left. There are Jews in entertainment and in labor unions (New York City teachers' unions) who lead the "Blame America First" efforts and this is puzzling.
I don't know. Maybe the question should be asked to the legion of jews that voted for Hitlery Klintoon in NY.
Because Many buy into the victimology mindset.
BTW It should be noted that liberal Jews often hate Israel and view Palestinians as "victims".
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.