Republican Candidates Flunk National Jewish Coalition Tests

By Richard H. Curtiss

Although it's an axiom that the American Jewish community votes overwhelmingly for liberal Democrats, there are a few well-heeled Jewish donors willing to provide campaign funds for Republican candidates, and there is an armada of pro-Israel political action committees ready to lay cash on the line for candidates of either party who say the right things about aid to Israel.

So seven of the eight Republican presidential candidates still in the running in the last week of November turned out to vie for support from 450 members of the National Jewish Coalition's "convention" in Washington, DC. Only Pat Buchanan, the candidate least popular with pro-Israel activists, passed up the beauty contest, pleading a prior engagement.

Senate Majority Leader Robert Dole is the Republican front-runner elsewhere but not with American Jews, despite his recent sponsorship of a successful congressional initiative to move the U.S. Embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem no later than 1999, unless the president cites a compelling national interest for delaying the move. Matthew Dorf of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency explained Dole's problem in an article on the NJC meeting:

"Dole has been working to overcome an anti-Israel reputation that has plagued the Republican presidential front runner for almost a decade. The reputation emerged in the 1980s when he opposed moving the U.S. embassy to Jerusalem, and he proposed a cut in Israel's foreign aid."

In an apparent effort to put this behind him, Dole proposed at the NJC forum a "full-fledged comprehensive alliance" with Israel. "It is time to go beyond the current level of cooperation between the United States and Israel," Dole said. Such a formal alliance would lead to "greater cooperation between the U.S. and Israel in Mideast defense planning," making the region safer for Israel, its Arab neighbors, and American interests.

What Dole's advisers may have forgotten to tell him is that Israel always has eschewed such an alliance, feeling it would tie its hands militarily, ruling out the kind of first or "pre-emptive" strikes with which it launched three of its five major wars in 1956, 1967 and 1982. Or maybe Dole did remember, since he once remarked after the death of an American hostage, U.S. Colonel Richard Higgins, at the hands of his Hezbollah captors following an Israeli strike into Lebanon that it would be nice if Israel would alert the U.S. to the "takeoffs" of its retaliatory attacks since the U.S. always is involved "in the crash landings."

Although all of the Republican candidates mentioned Israel in their 30-minute presentations, they focused mainly on dominant themes from their individual campaigns, and none addressed other issues of concern to Jewish voters such as school prayer and other church-state issues.

Tennessee Governor Lamar Alexander, who generally avoids Jewish issues in his talks to Jewish groups, criticized the Clinton administration's decision to send U.S. troops to Bosnia. Texas Sen. Phil Gramm pledged that "as a senator from Texas and a president of the United States, no one will be more committed to finding a [Middle East] peace than I will be.

Long-shot but always pro-Israel candidate Alan Keyes described values which he said underlie the U.S.-Israel relationship, but his strong anti-abortion message, which he did not soft-pedal for his AJC presentation, alienates most Jewish voters. California Rep. Robert Dornan devoted most of his speech to highly personal views about Israel. Indiana Sen. Richard Lugar emphasized foreign policy and warned against a growing American isolationism—a major danger in what he called an era of "loose nukes."

Others who addressed the forum included businessman candidate Steven Forbes and House Republican Speaker Newt Gingrich, who spoke at the closing session. Republican National Chairman Haley Barbour told the AJC forum that "It's not acceptable for me as the chairman of the Republican Party for our candidate for president to get 19 percent of the Jewish vote...We as a party must—and we as a party will—be more effective and more aggressive in advancing our message in the Jewish community." Barbour set a goal of 40 percent of Jewish support for the Republican presidential nominee in the 1996 election.

This is not likely, former Anti-Defamation League leader in Texas Gary Polland told James Besser, political columnist for a number of Jewish weeklies. "There are people who support each of the candidates, but I don't see any enthusiasm in the rank and file. None of the candidates out there is Ronald Reagan."

Jewish Republicans Mourn Powell Withdrawal from 1996 Campaign

In a column printed in the Detroit Jewish News of Nov. 24, syndicated columnist James Besser reported that the best hope of the Republican Party to capture Jewish votes died with the departure of Gen. Colin Powell from the race. Besser quoted an unnamed Jewish Republican as saying that "there was a lot of hope that a Powell candidacy would catch fire...He would have won strong support from Jews; none of the other candidates seems to be generating any enthusiasm in our community except among party diehards."

Sen. Robert Dole, whom Besser described as "the fading front runner," has won "the lion's share of contributions from Jewish Republicans," Besser reported. "But Mr. Dole... who has often been at odds with pro-Israel forces, seems unable to galvanize strong support from Jewish voters."

Besser reported "rumblings that businessman-turned-presidential candidate...Malcolm S. Forbes Jr. is beginning to attract the attention of Jewish politicos." He quoted executive director Charles Brooks of National PAC, "a pro-Israel funding organization," as saying that Forbes "has strong ties with the Jewish community and he's regarded as a social moderate...But it's still too early to say whether this candidacy is likely to go anywhere."

The fact that both California Governor Pete Wilson and Sen. Arlen Specter of Pennsylvania, the only Jewish candidate, now are out of the 1996 race is "good news for the National Jewish Democratic Council," Besser reported. The Council raised more than $600,000 at a recent Washington program at which President Clinton spoke and at which all eight Jewish Democratic senators were collectively awarded the group's Hubert H. Humphrey Humanitarian award.

Besser reported that Elizabeth Shrayer, a former official of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC), Israel's principal Washington, DC lobby, said that Jews are looking closely at what the Republicans are doing in Washington and "they don't like what they see." There may be a lesson in that for mainstream Americans who look at the pro-Israel agenda of major Jewish organizations and also "don't like what they see." Time and the November elections will tell.

Richard H. Curtiss is the executive editor of the Washington Report for Middle East Affairs.