Results of Presidential Election on Jewish Interests Assessed

An American Jewish Committee official predicted today that next week’s election results were unlikely to have a critical effect on Jewish interests as long as the political center remained strong. But, he added, tensions could arise in the Jewish community if the elections ultimately led to an increase in power for either “anti-Semitic forces on the left or Christian fundamentalism on the right.” For Jewish voters, said Alfred Moses, chairman of the AJC’s national executive council, “what distinguishes the 1984 Presidential campaign from the campaign four years ago has been the shift in focus for Jews from Israel and Israel-related issues to domestic concerns. Outcroppings of anti-Semitism on the Democratic left and Christian fundamentalism on the Republican right have engaged the attention of Jews this fall far more than the familiar rhetorical question as to which candidate will be a better friend of Israel.”

Moses, who was special advisor and special counsel to President Carter, spoke at the opening dinner of the AJC’s national executive council meeting here, which continues through Sunday at the Hyatt Regency Hotel.

In the current campaign, Moses said, “unless one is a political partisan above all else, it is hard to find fault with either Ronald Reagan or Walter Mondale on the issue of support for Israel. It requires a full measure of cynicism to suggest that their avowals of support for Israel are not genuine, or to state with any certainly that these avowals would not be honored under the pressure of some future event. The support on the part of both standard bearers — in words and actual performance — has gone a long way toward reducing the Israel anxiety syndrome that regularly emerges in Presidential elections.”

ISSUE OF ARMS TO ARABS

Moses added, “whoever may head the next Administration, no one is yet ruling out a notification from that Administration to the Congress early next year of its intention to sell sophisticated military hardware to Saudi Arabia and Jordan — which is but an example of the kind of issue that is bound to arise in the months ahead and which will find the Administration and American Jewry on opposite sides.”

However, he observed “developments such as this are built into the nature of the relationship between our country and Israel and are less a reflection of the country’s political mood (or of the political party of the President) than they are of forces largely external to this country, such as stability in the Middle East, radical or fundamentalist sway in the Arab world, and the political makeup of the Israeli government.”

CONCERN ABOUT FUNDAMENTALISM

Turning to domestic issues, Moses voiced concern about “Christian fundamentalism on the Republican right,” saying: “Christian fundamentalism is not new to this country, but what is new is its ability to impact politically on such major national issues as spoken prayer in school, women’s rights, and abortion, and, at the state and local level, to impose its notion of morality in such sensitive areas as school curriculums, books available in public libraries, and media restraints.”

Because “the overwhelming number of American Jews, Democrats and Republicans alike, oppose the fundamentalist right on these issues, ” continued Moses, ” points of tension are bound to arise between the fundamentalist right and the Jewish community.”

Addressing the other side of the political spectrum, Moses said that “Jesse Jackson’s remarks about ‘Hymie’ and ‘Hymietown,’ and Louis Farrakhan’s anti-Semitic tirades, awakened in many Jews a fear that Black Americans might be won over by political leadership that is anti-Semitic at home and anti-Israel abroad.”