The Israel divide in the 2016 Presidential race

by Richard Baehr, ISRAEL HAYOM

Bill Clinton in his two successful races for the White House in 1992 and 1996 won overwhelming majorities among Jewish voters, with margins not seen since the election of Lyndon B. Johnson over Barry Goldwater in 1964 or of Franklin Delano Roosevelt to his third and fourth terms in 1940 and 1944. Since 1992, the Jewish vote has slowly become more competitive between the two major parties, approaching a 2/3 versus 1/3 split between Democrats and Republicans. The 2016 presidential race is likely to offer a choice between Hillary Clinton, who does not appear to have the same tight hold over Jewish voters that her husband did, and a Republican with far stronger pro-Israel credentials.

The early debates and campaigns for the nomination in both parties have been revealing for the issues that seem to matter to partisans on each side, and those that do not. With regard to United States relations with Israel, the topic has been almost entirely absent from discussion on the Democratic side. Democrats, and especially those on the Left who increasingly dominate the Democratic Party, are far less supportive of Israel or strong American-Israel ties than previous generations of Democratic presidents or leaders — such as Harry Truman, Lyndon B. Johnson, Senator Henry “Scoop” Jackson, Hubert Humphrey, Bill Clinton and Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan.

The modern Democratic Party showed its real colors in the vote on the Iran nuclear deal in Congress, with overwhelming majorities of Democrats in both the Senate and the House of Representatives supporting President Barack Obama’s deal and rejecting the opposition of almost the entire established Jewish community — the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, many Jewish federations, the American Jewish Committee, the Anti-Defamation League, Zionist Organization of America and other mainstream groups, and large majorities of the American people.

In essence, opposing a president of their own party was a far tougher hurdle than taking on the Jewish community. Not surprisingly, it does not appear that Democrats who voted for the deal will suffer any penalty from pro-Israel groups such as AIPAC, in coming election cycles. Operating as if nothing has changed, and as if Israel still retains real bipartisan support in Congress, the pro-Israel groups are looking to make peace with Democrats who slammed the door in their faces as if somehow it was the pro-Israel groups who were in the wrong on the Iran deal.

In her 2008 run for the Democratic nomination, Hillary Clinton’s supporters were happy to challenge the pro-Israel bona fides of her opponent, then-Illinois Senator Barack Obama. Some supporters were eager to pass around articles examining Obama’s history and close ties with vicious critics of Israel — Reverend Jeremiah Wright, Ali Abunimah, Rashid Khalidi, Edward Said and others. Clinton was comfortable riding the wave of support the Jewish community held for her husband. In the end, Clinton fell short in a very close contest for the nomination, and predictably she is back again to seek the prize, which her camp undoubtedly believes was mistakenly denied her earlier.

But the Israel issue is now far more complicated for Clinton than it was eight years ago, and she seems to be happy not talking about it at all. In the current campaign for the Democratic nomination, Clinton has one principal challenger, Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders, who has run to Clinton’s left. Though she has always been an overwhelming favorite for the nomination, Clinton has moved left on many issues in the past few months — opposing the Keystone Pipeline, and the Trans-Pacific Partnership (the Pacific free trade deal), both of which she appeared to support when she was secretary of state during Obama’s first term. With Sanders picking off mostly white leftists, Clinton’s path to the nomination requires overwhelming victories among black voters, who are half or more of the Democratic primary voters in many southern states. As a result, Clinton has been loath to criticize Obama on either foreign or domestic policy, for fear of alienating black voters, and not getting the turnout she wants from this constituency in the primaries or the general election. Instead Clinton has tried to play the same breaking-the-glass-ceiling game that Obama did more effortlessly in 2008 as the first black president — this time as the first female president.

Obama’s problems with Israel and its prime minister are legion and clearly have damaged Obama’s support among both American supporters of Israel, and within Israel, where he is regarded as hands down the worst American president ever toward the Jewish state. Obama’s foreign policy failures have of course been far wider than merely Israeli issues.

Clinton’s service as secretary of state involved a lot of flying around for photo opportunities, but little substance, other than her cheerleading for the disastrous Libya invasion. That effort led to the end of the Moammar Gadhafi regime, and the establishment of a failed state racked by civil war. On September 11, 2012, terrorists attacked the U.S. consulate in Benghazi, resulting in the deaths of four Americans including the ambassador. Clinton waved off responsibility for ignoring the many calls for greater security at the Consulate in the months prior to the attack and then was a willing participant in the lies repeatedly offered up by every prominent Obama administration official in the days after the attack — that the assault was not a result of terrorism but anger at an anti-Muslim video, never seen by anyone in the country. Clinton shamelessly repeated these lies to the families of the victims. Nothing was to be allowed to damage Obama’s re-election effort Clinton’s future electoral prospects. These types of cold, self-serving political calculations should worry any Israel supporter when they get the next assurance from Clinton of how much she loves the Jewish state, as she collects campaign contributions.

The Republican campaign has been far different, so much so that one conservative pundit, Ann Coulter, watching the second GOP debate, and the frequent discussion on policy toward Israel, scornfully tweeted about how many Jews there must be in America to merit such attention. Coulter, one of the most attention-seeking journalists of her era, of course missed the point that support for Israel is widespread among Americans, and not merely among American Jews. In fact, there are almost 100 non-Jewish Americans in every public opinion survey who express support for Israel as every Jewish American who does so, and support for Israel has routinely run at five to six times the support level for the Palestinians, even with America’s rapid demographic changes and the sharp leftist tilt among some Democrats.

The GOP debate has focused on opposition to the Iran deal, what a new president can do to get rid of the agreement or improve it, and on messaging renewed American support for Israel — in its conflict with the Palestinians, in opposing the BDS movement and in ensuring Israel’s military advantage over its enemies. Rather than shy away from foreign policy, as the Democrats have as they compete for who can promise more new domestic spending and taxes on the rich, and who can create greater hysteria over global warming, the Republicans seem to understand that many American voters are uncomfortable with a shrinking American military, our seeming withdrawal from the world, and our diminished ability to protect American interests and project American power.

Where the Republicans are different from the Democrats at this point is not only in their emphasis on the foreign policy failures of the Obama administration — a very easy and juicy target of course — but in the unpredictability of their nominating process. Two outsiders who have never run for or held elective office are currently far ahead in every poll of Republican voters — businessman Donald Trump and neurosurgeon Dr. Ben Carson. As political analysts have confidently predicted their collapse and the eventual victory by a more establishment-friendly candidate (someone who had held or currently holds elective office — e.g., Jeb Bush, Marco Rubio, Ted Cruz), there is no evidence yet that the outsiders are soon to be replaced at the top of the field. Those who are willing to place wagers on who the eventual nominee will be have continued to make their bests on the current or former elected officials, rather than Trump or Carson. For months, Bush, the former Florida governor and brother and son of former presidents, was the betting favorite. Now it is Florida Senator Rubio. In any case, with the possible exception of Kentucky Senator Rand Paul, a libertarian who is languishing at around 10th place in the polls, all of the Republican contenders promise to rebuild the U.S.-Israel relationship and challenge the Iran nuclear deal. Two senators, Rubio and Cruz have been particularly focused on these issues, and both have realistic paths to the nomination.

It remains to be seen of course whether Republicans will nominate one of their strongest general election contenders. In head-to-head match-ups so far, some Republicans run far better against Clinton than others. It is possible for the first time in a while that the Republicans will have a far younger candidate than the Democrats, and a new face, rather than the fifth decade of some Clinton somewhere running for something. In any case, much as the Democrats may try to change the subject, foreign policy, Benghazi, the Iran deal and relations with Israel will get an airing next year.