Picking a President

When it comes to picking a president, it's not easy for Americans to cast their ballots solely on Middle East issues. Let's look at the problems faced by Jewish "pro-Israel" voters.

In Michael Dukakis they see a man who's now promised to move the US Embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem, a promise he will have to break if anyone is going to take seriously US support for an international conference on Middle East peace which is supposed to settle the final status of Jerusalem. Dukakis indicated disapproval of a Palestinian state, but in somewhat vaguer terms than those used by George Bush. Michael Dukakis' wife, Kitty, is a religiously observant Jew, has visited Israel at least six times, and was an active member of the US Holocaust Memorial Commission to which she was appointed by President Carter. If she becomes America's first Jewish first lady, she promises a Sedar in the White House.

From there on, however, the picture for the "pro-Israel" voter blurs. Politically conservative Jews see Dukakis as soft on defense, which, if true, is probably more menacing to Israeli than to US security. They wring their hands publicly over the possibility that Jesse Jackson would have a role in US foreign policy, and worry that the many Jewish friends and advisers dose to the candidate and his wife aren't the familiar Jewish faces from the US pro-Israel establishment. Religiously Orthodox Jews worry vocally about a first Jewish first lady who has married outside her religion and who doesn't satisfy all of their litmus tests about the religious orientation of her children.

When the same "pro-Israel" voters look at George Bush, however, they are uneasy at his enthusiastic support from the "religious right" and his excoriation of Dukakis as a "card-carrying member of the ACLU," an institution which most US Jews regard as a strong bulwark for the separation of church and state.

Sophisticated members of the pro-Israel establishment know also that Bush's years of government service must haveGoldman for The Exponent provided him insights not only on how Israel's potent US support network works on the Hill, in the executive branch, and in the media, but also on its vulnerabilities. Anyone who's been burned by the pro-Israel lobby, and that's virtually everyone in the US government who has ever dealt with Middle East affairs, has some ideas on how its iron grip on US Mideast policies could be neutralized by a strong president. The fact that Bush has ritualistically described Israel as a US security asset, and promised that there will be no Palestinian state, does not overcome all of those doubts. Nor, and this is important, can pro-Israel campaign donations ever completely dominate Republican Party Middle East policy, since the Republicans have enough non-Jewish fat cats of their own.

By contrast, generous individual Jewish political donations, combined with funding from organized labor (which is under seemingly unshakable pro-Israel influence), are two indispensable bulwarks of all Democratic Party campaign financing. This is one explanation for relentless efforts by Michael Dukakis' advisers to keep not only Jesse Jackson, but even his supporters, out of television camera range as the Dukakis entourage tours America. Democratic "spin doctors" privately attribute Dukakis' distancing of himself from Jackson as an effort to capture conservative southern votes. However, since Dukakis already knows he won't receive many of those, his rejection of Jackson looks more like a conscious bid for more Jewish political donations. In fact, Dukakis seems to have decided that he has to work for Jewish support but will get black support by default. With blacks making up more than 10 percent of the US population, numbers as other segments of the pop Pre-election polls indicate that between 70 and 80 percent of the "Jewish vote," which is assumed to be pro-Israel as well as anti-religious right, will go to Dukakis. That's about the same percentage that goes to a Democratic candidate in any election. It's possible the Democratic candidate wooed the wrong group and took the wrong group for granted.

Coming at the issue of Middle East policy from an even handed point of view, as this magazine seeks to do, is also confusing. Which candidate is most likely to judge each Middle East solutions that are not pro-Arab or pro-Israeli, but just pro-peace and stabilityin the Middle East? Four years ago the Washington Report commissioned a free-lance journalist to evaluate the presidential candidates. Judged solely on their public statements, her conclusion was that Ronald Reagan would pursue a more even-handed policy vis-a-vis the Israeli-Palestinian dispute than would Walter Mondale. Today it's clear, however, that history will rank Ronald Reagan, along with Lyndon Johnson, as one of America's two most pro-Israel presidents.

This year, neither of the two candid Israel bias. In their campaigns, however, Middle Eastern realities. Dukakis, who identifies strongly with human rights at home and abroad, has remained appallingly silent on Israeli violations of the human rights of Palestinians in Israeli-occupied areas. Bush, who emphasizes his experience in defense and foreign policy, ignores the reality that for whatever "strategic value" the US enjoys from dose US Israeli military and intelligence ties, the US pays an enormous price in lost friendship, political influence, military cooperation, trade, and jobs. The Arab and Islamic nations consistently alienated by knee-jerk US support of Israeli policies constitute one-fifth of humanity and hold 80 percent of the non-communist world's oil reserves.

In short, what the candidates say publicly is discouraging, and neither at this point shows signs of the political courage that will be required when, as president, one of them has to face down !the Israel lobby and its extraordinary influence in the Congress and the media. Americans who support an even-handed US Middle East policy, but whose concerns revolve around shrinking US commercial, military, and political influence in the Middle East, probably will vote for Bush. Americans whose interest in an even-handed Middle East policy is based upon support abroad for the human rights they support at home may vote for Dukakis. Few people will arrive at their decision based solely upon the Middle East issue. Some who do may choose a third-party candidate, such as Libertarian Party candidate Ron Paul, who has a balanced Middle East policy. Though poles apart from Jesse Jackson on some issues, Paul's Middle East policy, like Jackson's in the primaries, supports self-determination for the Palestinians and security guarantees for Israel.

Perhaps whichever candidate Americans elect will have the wisdom to determine what's best for the US in the Middle East, and the courage to act on his convictions. If so, by the end of his presidency the US will again enjoy good relations with the Arab and Islamic one-fifth of humankind, the Palestinians and Israelis will have broken a half-century cycle of bloodshed, and America's 41st president will have won the Nobel Prize that eluded Ronald Reagan.

—Richard H. Curtiss