Vignettes on the 1996 Election From the Jewish Weekly Press

By Lucille Barnes

Assessing Jewish participation in the 1996 election cycle, Matthew Dorf of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency reported that “Jews gave more than $25 million to fund this year’s election, and there is concern about diminished influence under a changed system.” Dorf doesn’t explain it but the money presumably was spent in direct donations to candidates, donations to the more than 60 pro-Israel political action committees (PACs) that were active in the 1996 election cycle, and in “soft money” donations to the political parties earmarked for specific activities in states or contests where a favored candidate needed support.

The changes causing concern are not just in the field of campaign finance reform, although friends of Israel would have much to fear there from any legislation limiting the amount candidates could raise from outside their district or state, and legislation limiting the percentage of their campaign funds that could be raised from PACs. Such measures could put two spikes in the wheels of the political steamroller operated by the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC), Israel’s powerful Washington, DC lobby.

Dorf reports, however, that the concerns of national Jewish leaders are a mix of pro-Israel and non-related issues. In Dorf’s words, “Jewish charities fear that the recently enacted welfare legislation will force them to step in to fill the void for the needy kicked off the rolls.” He noted also that for Jews “the larger questions loom over the direction of Congress, where the Jewish community appears ready to cooperate on some issues, such as welfare and immigration reform. But on other issues, such as school prayer, a balanced budget amendment and the foreign-aid program, Jews are preparing to dig in their heels.”

Translated from Dorf’s careful language, which is meant to be intelligible to the readership of American’s Jewish weeklies, which take much of their foreign and national news from the Jewish Telegraphic Agency, but murky to everyone else, this means that Jewish leaders are prepared to cave on welfare reform and immigration reform, which might force more Russian Jews to go to Israel rather than to the United States, but that the Israel lobby is going to fight to the death against a balanced budget amendment, or any cuts at all in aid to Israel. This is despite the fact that while America’s foreign affairs budget has declined 20 percent during Bill Clinton’s first term, aid to tiny Israel, which now consumes more than a third of the U.S. foreign aid budget worldwide, has remained steady.

Dorf also reported that exit polls conducted by the American Jewish Congress last November “found that 83 percent of the Jewish vote went to Clinton, 13 percent to Dole and 2 percent each to Perot and Green Party candidate Ralph Nader.” Dorf noted that “the level of support for Clinton roughly matches his showing in the 1992 election, reaffirming a long-standing pattern that American Jews vote overwhelmingly—and disproportionately—Democratic.”

Dorf also provides a preview of the next two years for Jewish voters that may be equally interesting to Washington Report readers, but in terms we couldn’t use ourselves without being accused of anti-Semitism by America’s pro-Israel thought police. Dorf writes:

“When voters swept Republican majorities into the House and Senate two years ago, the political upheaval turned Jewish Washington on its head. Jewish groups, which tend to have a more liberal bent, largely went from proposing initiatives to playing defense against legislation they opposed, such as welfare and immigration reform…Most Jewish groups oppose a balanced budget amendment, believing that it would lead to immediate cuts in federal programs to serve the poor and disadvantaged.”

Yeah, yeah yeah. And in what country do you suppose those “poor and disadvantaged” might be living? Surely not Israel, America’s biggest foreign aid recipient, where the per capita gross national product of $16,900 puts it just behind England and Italy and comfortably ahead of Spain and Ireland, none of which have received U.S. foreign aid for decades.

Another Lookback

Old clippings from the Washington Jewish Week by political columnist Douglas Bloomfield also make interesting post-election reading. In his Oct. 17 column, which gave instruction to WJW readers as to which pro-Israel candidates in which states needed help, Bloomfield noted, almost wistfully: “The good news and bad news facing pro-Israel forces this year is that there really aren’t any villains who must be defeated or endangered heroes to be rescued. Israel is popular across the spectrum. Opponents are either lying low or trying to sound like friends.”

Our own take on this is that Israel really isn’t popular across the spectrum at all. But Bloomfield is right that opponents are “lying low.” They’re scared to death of the 700-pound gorilla called AIPAC that can mobilize, illegally in our opinion, a whole armada of deceptively named political action committees to put into any candidate’s campaign more than half a million dollars to defeat any opponent who seems to be wondering why U.S. aid to the well-off Israelis is so outrageously out of line not only with U.S. aid to any other country, rich or poor, but even with aid to down-and-out American citizens. How many American families of five get $7,500 annually from the U.S. government? That’s what every Israeli family of five gets—not from its own government, but from ours.

In the same column Bloomfield sounded nostalgic when he wrote: “‘The trouble is there’s no Chuck Percy or Paul Findley this year,’ sighed a major pro-Israel political player. He was referring to the former Republican senator and congressman from Illinois, respectively, who were considered the major anti-Israel figures in the Congress during the 1970s and 1980s…The Jewish community mobilized its resources nationally to help defeat them, providing vivid symbols of Jewish political power that helped persuade many others of the virtues of a pro-Israel voting record.”

It’s funny, when we remind readers of these events, people ask, “Who’s paying you to say these things?” But it’s politically correct when a Washington Jewish Week political columnist boasts about the “vivid symbols of Jewish political power that helped persuade many others of the virtues of a pro-Israel voting record.” So much for what, in Bloomfield’s words, “makes Israel popular across the political spectrum.”

What to Do About Swamp Creatures

Still riffling through pre-election columns, we can’t resist quoting Bloomfield on two candidates who are supported by the Israel lobby because of what the columnist calls the “loyalty rule,” which means AIPAC’s stealth PACs support incumbents who support aid for Israel, no matter that AIPAC’s Jewish supporters may personally think of them as dangerous reptiles emerging from the swamp.

In his pre-election recommendations, Bloomfield wrote on Oct. 17 in the WJW of Sen. Jesse Helms, who was up for re-election: “Helms, the current Foreign Relations Committee chairman, today gets campaign contributions from officers of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC), which once worked so hard for his retirement. His opponent, Harvey Gantt, the same man Helms defeated six years ago, has built ties to the nationwide Jewish community, but the race is no longer rated a priority by AIPAC and others.” Translated, that means AIPAC officers have to support Helms because of the loyalty rule, but the Jewish rank-and-file voter is welcome to contribute to or vote for Gantt, who will be just as good for Israel and probably better for the United States, if anyone cares.

Speaking of Newt Gingrich, Bloomfield wrote: “Israel has not had a better friend in the Speaker’s chair. He works closely with pro-Israel lobbyists and has been the largest recipient of pro-Israel political contributions in the House this election cycle, according to published reports. But cross to the domestic side and many Jewish organizations will tell you he is the politician they would most like to get rid of this year.

“On critical domestic issues, ranging from school prayer to Medicare and Medicaid to gun control, the schism between the Jewish community and the Gingrich crowd in the House is enormous. Most say the gap is too wide to be bridged…but some pro-Israel lobbyists contend it is worth trying.” Translated from WJW-speak, this means if you think Newt Gingrich is bad for America but good for Israel, vote with your heart—for Newt.