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June 2007

Opinion
Gershom Gorenberg

Bush: The Failed Illusionist

There’s no reason for American Jews to feel a conflict between liberalism and support for Israel.

Once George W. Bush was the great illusionist, able to fool enough of the people enough of the time to get his way and even get reelected. Now the illusions have shattered—WMD, Iraq and Al Qaeda, you name it. Perhaps the only illusion left is that Bush is good for Israel—that his administration’s Mideast policy is precisely what anyone pro-Israel would ask for, that invading Iraq helped Israel, that Republicans can be presumed to love Israel while Democrats must prove they do.

Observing from Jerusalem, I admit that I find the acceptance of this illusion in anecdotal evidence. It is assumed in the questions that American journalists and lecture audiences ask me. And it provides the subtext in the heavily reported debate over American Israel Public Affairs Committee’s influence on U.S. policy: both critics and supporters presume that AIPAC is the pro-Israel voice, and that Bush policy fits its canonical position.

The myth is also promoted by Ehud Olmert—still Israeli prime minister as I write—a less popular leader than even Bush himself, but nonetheless the official face of Israel. Olmert has praised “the great friend of Israel…in the White House” and insists that the Iraq war has improved Israeli security.

Curiously, though, the illusion has had little effect on how American Jews vote. Before the 2004 election, Republican spinmeisters were predicting the Great Shift: The Jewish alliance with the Democratic Party, dating back to the 1920s, was about to end. But the tidal wave turned out to be a ripple. Exit polls showed Bush getting 25 percent of the Jewish vote. That was an increase over 2000, but only because Bush’s showing among Jews then (around 18 percent) had been so poor. Bush won less support from Jews in 2004 than Richard Nixon had in 1972, or Ronald Reagan in 1980 or 1984—less even than Gerald Ford in the post-Watergate election of 1976.

Not only that, but in the latest mid-term vote, CNN’s exit poll showed that 87 percent of Jews voted Democratic in House races. According to Gallup, more than three-fourths of U.S. Jews believe the war in Iraq was a mistake. It’s worth comparing those numbers with one more statistic: The American Jewish Committee’s annual survey last year revealed that 74 percent of American Jews regard “caring about Israel” as important to their Jewish identity.

So what’s happening? One explanation is dissonance: Jews believe Bush is best for Israel, but that belief loses the fight with their liberal distaste for Bush’s war in Iraq, his tax cuts for the rich, his—OK, the list is too long to give here. The other explanation is dissidence: Many Jews disagree with AIPAC and other vocal organizations on what’s best for Israel. They may lack a communal voice but they still express their views at the polls. While dissidence does play a role, dissonance is even more important. But it’s unnecessary: There’s no reason for Jews to feel a conflict between liberalism and support for Israel.

Start with the standard claim that invading Iraq made Israel safer. Prominent Israelis challenged the wisdom of the war even before it began. Dr. Ofra Bengio of Tel Aviv University, one of Israel’s top experts on Iraq, argued that Saddam Hussein’s regime was collapsing, and that he would make concessions to hold on to power. She presented her views to the C.I.A. and the U.S. Department of Defense, both of which ignored her.

Other challenges to Bush emanated from even higher echelons. According to strategic analyst Yossi Alpher, there’s reliable testimony that then-prime minister Ariel Sharon himself warned Bush against occupying Iraq.

In the war’s early days an Israeli colonel involved in strategic planning, Danny Tirza, told me that the United States had failed to plan for an insurgency. Tirza, who designed the route for Israel’s security fence in the West Bank, knew very well that a war doesn’t end when an occupation begins.

The Iraq war is a nightmare for Israel. Instead of a weakened dictator, chaos rules Iraq, making the country a breeding ground for Islamic extremism. Meanwhile, Israel’s enemy, Iran, has lost an adversary and gained influence. The wave of Iraqi refugees could destabilize Jordan, bringing either turmoil or a hostile regime to Israel’s border. And Turkey, Israel’s strategic ally, is also threatened by the Iraqi breakdown. Olmert’s sycophancy cannot hide the fact that Bush has made the Middle East more dangerous.

That’s not all. The Bush Administration has reportedly vetoed any exploration of Syria’s offers to negotiate peace with Israel. Syrian leader Bashar al-Assad may be bluffing, but why not find out? A peace deal could eliminate Syrian support for Hezbollah, Hamas and Iran.

The Bush allergy to negotiations, of course, extends to the Israeli-Palestinian arena. In reality, nothing is more important for Israel’s future than ending, or at least curbing, that conflict. But since 2001, every announced U.S. initiative has fizzled immediately, including the much ballyhooed 2003 “road map” for peace. As former U.S. Ambassador to Israel Martin Indyk once told me, “Bush gives great Mideast speeches. The problem isn’t in the vision. It’s in the implementation.” The obvious reason is that the president himself is uninterested. The greatest opportunity for diplomacy, after Yasir Arafat’s death in 2004, was simply ignored.

So strike the last bluff from the list. Bush’s “support” for Israel is one more failed effort at sleight-of-hand. As the campaign for president heats up, the burden is on Republicans to distance themselves from Bush. Democrats should stress that after eight wasted years, they’ll get back to work on peace. What Israel needs from its great ally is not an illusionist.

Gershom Gorenberg is a Jerusalem-based journalist and the author of The Accidental Empire: Israel and the Birth of the Settlements, 1967-1977.

 

 

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