To Jewish Democrats

This blog is inspired by the four letters discussing the 2004 presidential elections (“The Reader’s Soapbox”, Twin Cities Jewish Life November/December 2004).
Here is a quick summary of the letters for those who do not have access to the publication: Bush is bad, but not just bad, he is just absolutely terrible, and a tyrant comparable to Stalin and Hitler. If we let him steal the elections again he will limit our civil right so severely that it our life will become reminiscent of one in a police state.
It really disturbs me to see how some Jewish Democrats are whipping themselves into an anti-Bush frenzy instead of trying to work together with other Jews and non-Jews, regardless of their party affiliation. I strongly believe that there are enough real problems that we, as Jews, have to deal with – our continuity as a people, rampant anti-Semitism (especially in Europe), lack of freedom and economic opportunities for many people in other countries, and security of the State of Israel, just to name a few. It seems to me that the authors’ party affiliation is so important to them, that it may prevent them from working with other Jews for the common good.
I am asking these authors to follow the lead of senator Lieberman, who just recently has said:
“After a divisive Presidential campaign, it is critical that Americans reunite across party lines to fight terrorism, restore fiscal discipline and meet the other great security, economic, and social challenges before us…”
I also hope that my response will help them see these important issues in a slightly different perspective, and perhaps will help move them towards accepting Jewish Republicans as equal partners in a dialog for the common good. Instead of responding to each letter separately, I will try to address some topics that are not only common to these four letters, but also common to the articles and letters published by other sources.
But before I start addressing the issues raised in the letters, I would like to share a few facts about myself since I am – like most of the people are – viewing any issue through a prism of my personal experience.
My wife, our three sons, and I are originally from the former Soviet Union, where we spent 10 years fighting the Soviet Government for the right to leave the “Great Motherland of all the working people” from 1980 until 1990. During those years, we were active in many aspects of the human rights movement and were blessed by meeting and working with many outstanding people, Jews and Gentiles alike. For the last 15 years we’ve lived in MN, belong to a conservative temple, and consider ourselves to be a typical middle class Jewish family. I have voted for Al Gore in 2000 and for Tim Penny in 2002. As you can guess I am neither a Rapture Christian nor an ultra-Orthodox Jew. I am a “new American” – I know what a police state means because I have lived in one. I also do not have luggage of legacy loyalty to one of the two main political parties. I vote for a candidate who appeals to my sense of fairness and, from my point of view, will do a better job than his or her opponent.

One of the main common themes being brought up in the letters against the Bush administration is its unilateralism. Allegedly, it is this unilateralism that caused the world opinion to shift against the US. Surely, it is better to have France, Russia, China, and Germany along with other countries as our allies. However, facts show that we had very little chance with France, Russia, and China from the very beginning. All these countries, because of a variety of internal and external factors, had decided long ago that it is in their interest to undermine the US leadership role in the world in general and in the oil-rich areas specifically. In addition, as most of us have suspected all along, and as it has been proven during the recent hearings in the Senate Foreign Relations committee chaired by Senator Coleman, Saddam Hussein was skimming from the “oil for food” program a very significant amount of money. One of the main goals for these illegal funds was the bribing off the UN officials as well as other powerful officials in the governments that have a permanent seat at the UN Security Council. With the amount of money changing hands, a firm policy towards the Saddam Hussein regime never had a chance in the UN. We should also remember that the United Nations, after initially sending their representatives to Iraq, had abandoned the program due to the security concerns after the bombing of the UN HQ in Baghdad on August 19, 2003. And as the recent kidnapping and murder of Margaret Hassan demonstrated, the terrorists would go after anybody regardless of this person’s affiliation with the US (or lack there-of).
Yes, as we now know, there was no immediate threat of the WMDs in Iraq, but taking into account that Saddam Hussein made a very significant progress in his attempts to have the UN sanctions lifted and that Iraq is one of the most highly developed and wealthy countries in the Muslim world, it won’t have taken too long for Saddam to restart all the WMD programs with the friendly help from French, Russian and German companies. The entrepreneurial Pakistani nuclear marketer Dr. Abdul Qadeer Khan most definitely would also pitch in to help.
While not popular with many people in US as well as abroad, Bush’s firm, almost unilateral (not counting for UK support) position on this issue led to the removal of the totalitarian regime in Iraq, as well as the “sudden” abandonment of its nuclear program by Libya. Historically, it is quite common for democratic powers to find plenty of reasons not to confront a totalitarian dictator when they can remedy the situation at a relatively minor price, compare to a significantly higher one that would have to be paid a short time later when the unchecked dictator decides to raise the bets. This determination to stand his own ground, regardless of what “well-oiled” world opinion expects him to do, this “unilateralism”, is a plus in the Bush administration column. Yes, there were mistakes made in Iraq, yes things could have been done better, but that’s always the case.
Again I would like to quote Democratic Senator Lieberman on the event of capturing Saddam Hussein: “This man was a homicidal maniac, killed hundreds of thousands of people, did have weapons of mass destruction in the '90s, used them against the Kurdish Iraqis and the Iranians, admitted to the United Nations he had enough chemical and biological to kill millions of people, supported terrorism, tried to assassinate former President Bush. I repeat: We are safer with Saddam Hussein in prison than in power.”
I understand that I may not be able to convince my counterparts that “unilateralism” is a good thing, but at least I would like them to agree that being a minority is not a sign of being wrong, especially as far as the UN is concerned.
Another point frequently made on shows and discussion boards is that although we were attacked by Al-Qaeda, we in turn targeted Iraq, Afghanistan is usually forgotten, and the omission of Afghanistan points that the participants are not really concerned about the country’s relevance in the global war with terrorism. However the most common topic is the toll that the operations in this particular country took of American soldiers and thus American psychology.
Somebody in Bush administration has insight to realize that we are not fighting just Al-Qaeda, Afghanistan, Iran or Syria. This is the 4th world war where the democratic world fights against the new flavor of totalitarian ideology, now the one of the Islamic extremists. From this point of view it does not really matter what area sees the action first, what matters is if the regime in a particular Muslim country is willing to modernize itself to become more open and thus pluralistic form of Islam or it becomes the green permutation of Nazism. Saddam Hussein had demonstrated, beyond any doubt that he is not going to yield to pressure and modernize by releasing his grip to power. He also has demonstrated that he is extremely dangerous and cruel, cruel to the point of being sadistic. His cooperation with Al-Qaeda was a question “of when and not if”. Sooner or later he would use Al-Qaeda or any other terrorist organization such as Hezbollah, Jihad, etc as an expedient party to execute an action that he himself was not going to assume responsibility for.

Another common theme being brought up in the letters is Bush administration’s support of Israel.
There are multiple topics that are usually grouped under this theme: accusations that Republicans just want the Jewish vote and funds, and otherwise do not care about Israel, that Bush is controlled by the born-again Rapture Christians who are not sincere in their support for Israel, and finally that siding with Israel in the Arab-Israeli conflict is not a plus for the US President in general.
It is true that in the Republican Party, the block of Evangelical Christians – steadfast supporters of Israel, plays a very important role, while in the Democratic Party the villainization of Israel has become a pretty common phenomenon, almost as frequent as Israel-bashing by our “European allies”, the very same governments that were supposed to OK the UN policy towards Saddam Hussein.
Let’s look at the Evangelical Christians support for Israel first. It is a common knowledge that Bible occupies a central place in evangelical Christianity, much more so than in mainline Catholicism or Protestantism. Evangelical Christians take the Torah (Bible) verse from Genesis: “I'll bless them that bless Israel and curse them that curse thee" very seriously and that is the reason why most evangelical Christians support the Jewish state. Maybe some of them have a hidden agenda regarding Israel and Jewish people. Nobody can guarantee that this is not the case, but, let’s walk before we run – we are facing openly hostile Radical Muslims-Leftist Liberals block at the international arena. From Hezbollah to Communists, these groups do not have any hidden agenda regarding Israel and the Jewish people – their position is very open – the elimination the state of Israel first, and later when time permits, all the Jewish people, regardless of where they reside. So, before I obsess myself with the concern about the beliefs and intentions of the Rapture Christians, my brethren and I need to survive the assault of the Muslim-Communist alliance.
Many democrats are concerned about Bush’s connections with the Saudis.
Please, don’t get me wrong, I am also very concerned about the degree that the radical Arab money found its way into the American economy and thus politics. But this dubious honor does not exclusively belong to the Republican Party. If we look at the endorsements of the political candidates by the various Arab groups and committees, including those that support various violent methods – we would probably discover that more funds from these organizations have found its way into the Democratic Party than into the Republican one. That is why it does not surprise me at all when some democratic activists are upset about Bush’s steadfast support for the Government of Israel. They even have accused the Bush administration of “listening to Israel too much”. It is hard for me to reconcile these statements with the Democrats’ claims of their love of the Jewish people and their commitment to Israel.
In one of the letters a question, which sounded very much like an accusation, was asked about what has happened to the “Road Map” (of the Middle East Peace process). I think that we all know what has happened to it: it was blown up to pieces in Jerusalem, Tel Aviv, Beer-Sheva, Haifa, and other countless places by the homicide bombers funded and inspired by the Nobel Peace prize winner Chairman Arafat. Again, Bush’s firm position – refusal to deal with the glorified terrorist Chairman Arafat can only be applauded. This position not only shows to the future Arab leaders that they are not going to gain anything by playing the terrorism card, but most importantly, lays out a foundation for the successful peace process in the future. This is such a refreshing contrast to the position of the UN majority.

Another “grave” accusation quite commonly found in the letters, is that Republicans in general and President Bush in particular, want to “turn America into plutocratic theocracy”. This is as serious (or absurd if you want), as comparing President Bush to Hitler, Senator Coleman to “the devil”, and the USA to the Nazi Germany. These metaphors, so frequently thrown around by the “Moore-onic” fraction of Democrats, are really troubling to me: having spent a significant part of my life in the real “plutocratic theocracy“, the communist one, I am absolutely convinced that any of the above comparison cannot remotely come close to reality: seriously considering this possibility is just outright ridiculous. What really disturbs me is that by making these comparisons, those who use them are trivializing the horrors of the real totalitarian (a.k.a. fascists) states – brown ones (Germany), red ones (Soviet Union, China, North Korea, Cambodia, etc), as well as green ones (Saddam’s Iraq, Saudi Arabia, etc).
As long as Extreme Democrats prefer phantom enemies to real ones, they will become increasingly irrelevant for the majority of the American voters. Instead of fighting Don Quixote’s wind mills, moderate democrats should see that the real danger to the Democratic Party, as well as to all of us, comes as much from the “Paranoid Left” as from the “Redneck Right”. To prove this point, I’ll allow myself a brief excurse into Russian history. While the pogroms of 1881 came as a rude shock to all the Jews in Russia and around the world, the Jewish revolutionaries particularly were shocked by the recognition of the fact that Jewish pogroms, with innocent children, women, and men murdered by the mad mob, were considered by the part of their Russian contemporaries as a progressive revolutionary tendency. The official organ of the movement stated that "we have no right to be negative or even indifferent to a pure folk movement," and that it was impossible to avoid the fact that the revolution would begin with the beating up of the Jews.
We have to be vigilant against any fringe movement that demonstrates anti-Semitic (anti-Israel) prejudice regardless of where it is coming from, extreme Left or extreme Right.