Is the American Right too Right for Israel?
I had blogged on the positive aspects of the alteration in the political semantics and he continues, although I disagree:
This election cycle has officially ended the decades-long debate over whether Israel should be an American campaign issue. For better or worse, it is...It’s always great to be the center of attention. But in truth, Israel has nothing to gain from this debate. Republican claims and Democratic counter-claims both put Israel and its leaders in awkward positions.
...GOP candidates fighting for the title of most pro-Israel candidate are becoming more pro-Israel than, well, Israel itself...Recently Newt Gingrich has been upping the ante...Rick Santorum has also joined the chorus...Gingrich has stated that the Palestinians are an “invented” people. Santorum likens the West Bank to the states of Texas and New Mexico, suggesting that Israel is not required to return any part of it to the Palestinians, just as the United States did not.
Such statements are not only outside the mainstream of American opinion, they are also far beyond the views of Israel’s right-wing coalition government.
Whether or not they are, and that is a matter of which Ha-Ha-Haaretz is not convinced, a robust and honest agenda talk about Jewish national rights can do Israel no harm.
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