Neocons Say Pennsylvania Race Must Be About Israel

The other night, I asked my wife to take a look at the attack ad being run in Pennsylvania against Democratic Senate nominee Joe Sestak.

She watched it and, with a horrified look on her face, she asked me not to post it anywhere. "It's anti-Semitic," she said. "The less people who see it the better."

I knew exactly what she meant.  I agree that the ad could very easily stir up anti-Semitism because it suggests, rather powerfully, that American Jews care not about America but only about Israel.

Just for the record, this isn't true.  America has been the safest place in the world for Jews to live since its establishment in 1776.  That is just one of the reasons American Jews feel such strong loyalty to this country.

Nonetheless, it is hard to imagine that anyone could watch the anti-Sestak ad and not come away with a queasy feeling about the loyalty of the people responsible for it.

Those people are, of course, neoconservatives, and this election season — in addition to promoting war with Iran — they have established an organization to defeat candidates for Congress who they have deemed insufficiently enthusiastic about Israel's blockade of Gaza and its attack on the Gaza relief flotilla.

The organization, established this week with the simultaneous launching of the anti-Sestak campaign, is called the "Emergency Committee For Israel."  Although its home page looks rather like an ad for ambulance services, it is hard to know what the emergency is, other than the possibility that a Democrat will win Arlen Specter's old seat.

The main figures behind the Emergency Committee are Weekly Standard editor Bill Kristol, Christian crusader Gary Bauer, and Rachel Abrams (wife of Elliott Abrams, convicted for his role in the Iran/contra scandal, and herself an outspoken homophobe and step-daughter of Norman Podhoretz). Its media adviser is Michael Goldfarb, formerly of the McCain campaign, who earned his reputation with this unforgettable 2008 encounter with CNN's Rick Sanchez.

Kristol describes the Emergency Committee as "the pro-Israel wing of the pro-Israel community."  By that, he means that unlike AIPAC, which at least invokes US security, the Emergency Committee is only about Israel.

But it is also about electing right-wingers because neocons understand that when it comes to unthinking, reflexive support for Binyamin Netanyahu and his self-destructive policies, extreme right-wingers are the best bet. 

Sure, Chuck Schumer, Jerry Nadler and Anthony Weiner may put out the same "Israel-is-always-right" rhetoric as Jon Kyl and Eric Cantor, but neoconservatives don't trust them because their jingoistic views on the Middle East are so utterly out of step with their progressive views on everything else.

They think that only right-wingers can really believe that Israel's current policies are good for Israel, let alone America.

Speaking of leaving America out of it, that certainly is what the Emergency Committee for Israel is doing.  

What are the Emergency Committee's charges against Joe Sestak that make him an unfit senator from Pennsylvania? The first is that Sestak in 2007 addressed a meeting of the Council on American Islamic Relations, a group that the Emergency Committee says is anti-Israel. (The Committee fears that Admiral Sestak, who served his country in uniform for 30 years, might be a terrorist sympathizer.)

Sestak's other alleged sins are that he did not sign an AIPAC-composed letter to rebuke President Obama for opposing Israeli settlement expansion, and he did sign a letter criticizing Israel's blockade of Gaza before Prime Minister Netanyahu admitted that it was unnecessary to Israel's security. And, horror of horrors, Sestak has the support of J Street. 

But these particulars don't really matter to the Israel Firsters. The only thing that matters is ensuring that House and Senate members are afraid to deviate from the line laid down by the "pro-Israel" lobby. 

The other day I posted a piece attacking the Emergency Committee for going after Sestak, based on his sometime reluctance to toe the line on Netanyahu.

One fellow responded by explaining, in forceful terms, how the lobby wins no matter what happens.  He has identified himself in the past as a big AIPAC donor and involved activist.

As a Democrat I hope Sestak wins, but I find it interesting that far from defending his position on the letter about the Gaza blockade, he will now bend over backward to make sure people in Pennsylvania know how much he disagrees with you, Mr. Rosenberg, on what needs to be done with Israel. For the next six years Joe Sestak will say everything and do everything that AIPAC wants and to that I say: AMEN!

That is certainly the strategy.  Make sure that no matter who wins in Pennsylvania, the lobby wins.

The strategy could work.  It often has in the past.

But it's dangerous. 

Pennsylvania has 9.1% unemployment, up 4.6% since December 2007.  The Republicans are refusing to extend jobless benefits and oppose investing in job creation.  Recently, in Homestead, PA, the former steel-making capital of America, I stood in front of a massive old Roman Catholic Church that was for sale.  For sale because the parishioners had left the area because there were no jobs.

Now that is an Emergency, although not the one the Emergency Committee cares about.

Instead, its ad, which will be run on television this weekend during baseball games throughout Pennsylvania, talks about a nonexistent emergency 6,000 miles away.

It ends: "Call Joe Sestak.  Ask him to stand with Israel."

Because, as all Pennsylvanians know, that is the only thing that matters!