Jewish Republican activists were lavish with their praise for the pro-Israel Middle East plank of the platform adopted at the Republican convention Monday.
But many said they are uncomfortable with the platform’s conservative tone on social issues, from an unequivocal rejection of abortion rights to an endorsement of prayer in the public schools.
“This appears to be the strongest plank on the U.S.-Israel relationship ever written by a major political party,” said Fred Zeidman of Houston.
“It makes this a tremendously exciting convention and gives us the ammunition to try to overcome any (negative) perceptions of the Bush administration with the reality of its accomplishments” that have benefited Israel.
Zeidman conceded that the conservative social agenda “troubles us a lot.” But he said the platform, over which the White House has little control, should be separated from the administration’s record.
Indeed, moderate Republican leaders have played down the significance of the platform, seen as a necessary political concession to the party’s conservative wing. They say the platform will play a peripheral role in the effort to re-elect President Bush.
But some, like Rep. Bill Green (R-N.Y.), a convention delegate and a leading sponsor of abortion rights legislation in the House of Representatives, are worried about the impact of the conservatives’ victory.
“The Republican National Committee reached the conclusion that a far-right platform worked in 1980, so why not try it again? But times have changed, and this is a mistake,” said Green.
‘MOST FAR-RIGHT-WING PLATFORM’ IN YEARS
Like the Democratic plank on the Middle East, the Republican plank is a declaration of support for a strong U.S.-Israel relationship.
But, in keeping with the rest of the Republican platform, its Middle East plank is far longer and more detailed than the Democratic one, pledging continued U.S. aid to Israel, support for freedom of emigration to Israel and opposition to the establishment of an independent Palestinian state.
Republicans say there is more than length and detail that separates the two parties’ statements. They claim their specifics attest to the strength of their commitment to Israel and the willingness to spell it out in plain language for all to see.
In their platform, “the Democrats are almost totally silent on every issue we care about,” said George Klein, a prominent Jewish Republican leader who addressed a luncheon Tuesday sponsored by the National Jewish Coalition, a Republican group.
He called the GOP Middle East plank the strongest ever written.
But Democratic presidential nominee Bill Clinton dismissed the lengthy, pro-Israel language in the platform as irrelevant given what the administration has actually done, and said, over the past four years.
“They can put all the words they want in their platform, and anybody who forgets their record deserves what they get,” he said Monday afternoon in a conference call with reporters from Jewish newspapers.
Pointing to its support for constitutional amendments banning abortion and encouraging school prayer, the Arkansas governor called it “the most far-right-wing platform any party has offered in years.”
While the Democrats made a point in their brief pro-Israel plank of painting the Bush administration as having a pro-Arab tilt in its brokerage of the Arab-Israel peace talks, the GOP plank pays extensive tribute to the policies of the Bush administration that it claims have enhanced Israel’s security and well-being.
The Republican document lauds the “determined statesmanship” of Bush for transforming the prospects of peace in the region. It also congratulates him and outgoing Secretary of State James Baker for securing the recent agreement on loan guarantees to aid Israel’s effort to absorb immigrants from the former Soviet Union.
‘LARGE-SCALE SECURITY ASSISTANCE’
The platform also says that “without the leadership of President Bush, Iraq would today threaten world peace, the peace and security of the Middle East, and the very survival of Israel with a huge conventional army and nuclear weapons.”
“Direct peace talks, on terms Israel rightly had sought for more than four decades, would not be a reality,” it continues. “Soviet Jewish emigration likely would have been interrupted. The rescue of Ethiopian Jewry might not have happened, and the equation of Zionism to racism still would be a grotesque stain on the United Nations.”
The plank calls the strategic importance of Israel to the United States “more important than ever” in the current volatile climate of the region, saying Israel is “our most reliable and capable ally in this part of the world.”
It pledges continued “large-scale security assistance to Israel” and the maintenance of Israel’s qualitative military advantage over any adversary.
Despite the strong document, party leaders, from the president on down, know it will be a challenge to win over a Jewish electorate still stung by the rigid posture the administration adopted on the loan guarantee package recently secured in principle by Israel.
A Jewish demonstration against Bush’s Israel policies was staged Sunday outside the Astrodome, where the convention is taking place. And some Jewish Republicans gathered here expressed their deep sense of betrayal by the president on the loan guarantees.
The platform itself seems to acknowledge the need to mend fences with the Jewish community. There appears to be a veiled reference to the episode last September when Bush criticized the pro-Israel lobby on behalf of the loan guarantees.
The remarks aroused a furor in the Jewish community that in some cases continues today, despite apologies and explanations offered by the president as recently as last week.
“This strategic (U.S.-Israeli) relationship, with its unique moral dimension, explains the understandable support Israel receives from millions of Americans who participate in our political process,” the platform says.
PRAISE FROM AIPAC
Matthew Brooks, executive director of the National Jewish Coalition, says the Middle East plank reflects a “restatement of the administration’s and this party’s fundamental commitment to the U.S.-Israel relationship.”
He said it is “far stronger than any statement the Democrats have made or can make because of the constituency problems they have in their party.”
Tom Dine, executive director of the nonpartisan American Israel Public Affairs Committee, which is as highly visible in Houston as it was at the Democratic convention in New York last month, also praised the plank.
In a prepared statement he called it a detailed, highly supportive document that “reflects the long-time support of the Republican Party toward the special U.S.-Israel relationship.”
But some Republicans said they had to rationalize their support for the platform in light of its conservative social agenda, especially when it came to abortion rights, prayer in the schools and public funding for private and parochial education.
“On an individual basis, I don’t like to see some of these things in the platform,” said Nettie Becker, vice chair of the delegation from California and an AIPAC activist.
“But we made a decision that we couldn’t have divisiveness over the social issues because we wouldn’t be able to elect Bush.”
“If we had a floor fight on abortion, we wouldn’t win and it would be destructive,” she said. “After the election, we can work within the party structure.”
Brooks of the National Jewish Coalition acknowledged that some Jews may be troubled by the conservative postures adopted on the social issues, but he said it is important to note Jews are not monolithic in their views.
“Clearly there are members of the community that are pro-life and that do support educational vouchers to make private schools more affordable. And certainly there are those who would not be opposed to the concept of a moment of silence” in public schools.
(Contributing to this report was JTA staff writer Larry Yudelson in New York.)
The Archive of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency includes articles published from 1923 to 2008. Archive stories reflect the journalistic standards and practices of the time they were published.
