by Andrea Widburg
What the debate reflects, says Keinon, is a profound change in the Democrat Party as a whole. The candidates have determined that supporting Israel is no longer an advantage to a candidate
A Jerusalem Post article points out something interesting about the Democrat Party debates to date: they are loudly silent about Israel. While each of the six candidates who made it to the January 2020 debate had a great deal to say about Iran, and especially how wonderful Obama's Iran deal was and how all would handle Iran so much better than President Trump ever could, none even whispered the word "Israel."
Things would have been different, says Herb Keinon, at a Republican debate:
After all, Israel's friends haven't forgotten the cavalier way Obama treated Netanyahu when the latter visited the White House; they haven't forgotten Hillary Clinton's lifetime of hostility to Israel, including her role as "designated screamer" (no matter how cutely she tried to dress up that role); they haven't forgotten Obama's extortionate weapons deal with Israel; and, of course, they haven't forgotten the Iran deal itself, which fast-tracks Iran to nuclear weapons, a number of which will be aimed directly at Israel.
Nor have Israel's friends missed the rising anti-Semitism on America's colleges and universities, which are bastions of progressivism and the Democrat Party. They've also noticed that the Democrat primary candidate who is currently most popular is Bernie Sanders, who's besties with the openly anti-Semitic Linda Sarsour.
Currently, when pressed, the Democrat candidates will pay a little lip service to Israel and fairness before immediately reverting to Warren's favorite trope of "putting everything on the table" in the service of protecting the Palestinians from Israel's alleged depredations. Moreover, Warren, just like Bernie, proudly supports open anti-Semites, such as Palestinian-American Maysoon Zayid.
Despite the Democrat Party's growing hostility to Israel, American Jews still relentlessly side with Democrats. There are #Jexit and #Jexodus movements, but sadly, Jews are blind to something that American blacks have already begun to realize: the Democrat Party is the enemy. Just as with black interests, its policies are hostile to Jewish interests. Democrats take both black and Jewish votes for granted without giving them a thing in return.
Things would have been different, says Herb Keinon, at a Republican debate:
Were the tables reversed, were this a debate among Republican contenders, Israel would most likely have been a major part of the conversation, even if the thrust of the discussion was Iran and not the Palestinian issue. Republican candidates — in talking about Iran or the nuclear deal — would surely have inserted lines about "the need to keep Israel safe" or "working strongly with our close ally Israel."What the debate reflects, says Keinon, is a profound change in the Democrat Party as a whole. The candidates have determined that supporting Israel is no longer an advantage to a candidate:
As former Mideast negotiator Aaron David Miller told the Jewish Insider after the debate, "Had it been a Republican debate, with Iran as focus, they would have been stumbling over one another with pro-Israeli references."
The current candidates — those on the debate stage and former New York mayor Michael Bloomberg, who was not there — apparently feel they have little to gain politically right now by speaking on Israel.Keinon's halfway there, but he sells short the fact that the Democrat Party's break from Israel happened long before Trump. Trump's close relationship with Netanyahu only exacerbated it.
Israel, because of the very tight and highly visible relationship between Trump and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, has turned into a partisan issue in the US. For the Likud, the close Netanyahu-Trump relationship is an electoral asset, the reason that — in this year's election campaigns in Israel — large posters of a smiling Trump shaking the hand of a beaming Netanyahu have draped the country's major cities.
After all, Israel's friends haven't forgotten the cavalier way Obama treated Netanyahu when the latter visited the White House; they haven't forgotten Hillary Clinton's lifetime of hostility to Israel, including her role as "designated screamer" (no matter how cutely she tried to dress up that role); they haven't forgotten Obama's extortionate weapons deal with Israel; and, of course, they haven't forgotten the Iran deal itself, which fast-tracks Iran to nuclear weapons, a number of which will be aimed directly at Israel.
Nor have Israel's friends missed the rising anti-Semitism on America's colleges and universities, which are bastions of progressivism and the Democrat Party. They've also noticed that the Democrat primary candidate who is currently most popular is Bernie Sanders, who's besties with the openly anti-Semitic Linda Sarsour.
Currently, when pressed, the Democrat candidates will pay a little lip service to Israel and fairness before immediately reverting to Warren's favorite trope of "putting everything on the table" in the service of protecting the Palestinians from Israel's alleged depredations. Moreover, Warren, just like Bernie, proudly supports open anti-Semites, such as Palestinian-American Maysoon Zayid.
Despite the Democrat Party's growing hostility to Israel, American Jews still relentlessly side with Democrats. There are #Jexit and #Jexodus movements, but sadly, Jews are blind to something that American blacks have already begun to realize: the Democrat Party is the enemy. Just as with black interests, its policies are hostile to Jewish interests. Democrats take both black and Jewish votes for granted without giving them a thing in return.
Andrea Widburg
Source: https://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2020/01/the_democrat_candidates_have_consistently_ignored_israel_in_their_debates.html
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