Welcome to Political Points, where sanity and fear are mutually compatible.
**Last night, I outlined why a J Street poll in Illinois’ 9th congressional district reinforced the group’s argument that its donations and campaigning do not harm a candidate.
Joel Pollak, the challenger in the district hoping to unseat Rep. Jan Schakowsky (D-Ill.), hopes her J Street associations will harm her; so, it is safe to say, do the donors who have allowed him to spend more then $500,000 on his campaign.
The point, as I argued yesterday, is to make it dangerous to take J Street’s money.
By examining two Republican Jewish Coalition video ads, we can see how this is playing out.
Here’s the first ad, targeting Rep. Joe Sestak (D-Pa.) in the race for Pennsylvania’s open U.S. Senate seat:
Now, this ad is a major buy — it’s appeared during prime time on major area Philly area TV stations. And it targets a J Street endorsee.
But it doesn’t mention J Street — or Israel — at all. It scores Sestak for backing civilian court trials for terrorists.
Here’s the second ad, targeting J Street and its endorsees:
Now this ad, which is all about Israel and J Street, cost as much as it took to make it (and the production values are superb, so not a little, one would presume) — but there is no buy. It’s strictly internet-based, coming soon to an email near you.
Now money, especially lots of it, speaks louder than just about anything — you don’t buy a car unless you plan to use it. So what does the RJC tell us by spending a little money on J Street and a lot of money not on J Street?
Not that it sees J Street as unimportant — then why spend at all? But that it understands that in the broader market place, Israel and J Street simply are not issues. These arguments will not resonate even in a Philadelphia-area market heavy with Jewish voters.
So why run the internet ad at all?
The U.S. Congress is one of the largest parliaments in the world, and certainly the most powerful, with the farthest reaching influence. Its members cannot under any circumstance absorb the details of every single issue they consider, so they seek the advice of a diverse array of communities.
The United States also has a history of confessional and ethnic politics (see the fabulous HBO series, Boardwalk Empire, to grasp the extent of Irish political influence in America), and it is pro-forma to consult first with the community that cares most about an issue. Organized Jews have cared much more about Israel-Palestine than any other constituency, including Arab Americans.
I once sat down next to a chief of staff for a prominent Pa. member at a congressional luncheon. He asked me about a bill on the floor that day — he wanted to know what the pro-Israel take was. I answered his question directly, and we lunched, and then he got up, and said "Thanks for the advice, I’ll tell my congressman to vote for." My coffee cup froze half way up to my mouth — I had inadvertently lobbied for AIPAC. (If he only had asked me the case against as well.)
So here’s the upshot: The RJC, and the larger community that would limit J Street’s influence, want to keep that Jewish voice unanimous. Why? A combination of discomfiture with dissent, of discomfiture with J Street’s attack culture (lumping Alan Dershowitz in with Rush Limbaugh, for instance), of discomfiture with the problematics of how busy lawmakers deal with diffuse voices (by ignoring all of them in many cases), and of course with J Street’s aggressive pressure-both-sides posture on Middle East peace-making.
And so they seek to undercut J Street’s Jewish legitimacy — by appealing to the Jewish and pro-Israel activists who are involved enough that they would click on the link when they open the email. J Street and AIPAC share major donors, as Allison Hoffman of Tablet reports in this superb overview of the group. The idea is to scare those donors and backers away, leaving J Street a rump of "suspect" donors that can be used to marginalize the group.
J Street is less important to the general election, than the general election is important to J Street. To achieve a reputation as a must-consult actor when it comes to policy, it needs to be seen as a legitimate player when it comes to politics. That only happens if it is untainted.
Now — and back to the RJC ad — there may be much with which to taint J Street; I’m thinking about its misrepresentation of its relationship with George Soros, in a cover-up is worse than the crime kind of way.
That comes up in the RJC ad, but so does a lot of other stuff. Let’s examine:
How can the left wing group J Street call itself pro-Israel when it attacks Israel for defending itself against terrorists?
Within the partisan spectrum of "fair," this is a fair enough characterization of J Street’s condemnation of both sides during the 2009 Gaza War.
How can J Street claim it is pro-Israel and pro-peace when it consistently backs candidates who don’t support Israel?
Five of the candidates pictured at this juncture signed a letter calling on the Obama administration to pressure Israel into easing its blockade of Gaza. The letter made clear its support for Israel’s security, but again, viewers can be trusted enough to infer that what the RJC is referring to actions that it — the RJC — would deem as not supportive of Israel, so it is fair.
Except for that sixth photo. It’s of Rep. Charles Rangel (D-N.Y.), whose support for Israel dates back to the 1973 Yom Kippur war, and whose outspokenness on Israel’s behalf has been unstinting — and who did not sign the letter. Here are two recent examples of his pro-Israel posture, one of which earned Rangel a snide rebuke in Salon.
I asked RJC director Matt Brooks to explain. Here’s what he said:
He has received endorsement and support from J Street, even after all of his ethics issues.
You know, that’s not a bad standalone point about J Street and integrity, conjoined especially with the Soros deception — but however ethically challenged Rangel may be proved to be, it is unfair to lump him in with "candidates who don’t support Israel."
Tom Delay also had ethics issues — would RJC be silent if a Jewish Democrat used that to make the case that Delay was anti-Israel?
How can J Street say it accepts Jewish values when it lies about accepting donations from George Soros?
Fair point. The attack here is on the lie and not on Soros (that comes later).
When Hamas rained rockets on Israel day after day, targeting schools and hospitals 54 members of Congress sent a letter demanding that President Obama pressure Israel (here the onscreen text adds: Not the terrorists) to weaken its defenses.
The letter was sent a full year after the Gaza war, in January of this year. There was no daily barrage of rockets at the time.
This is what the letter called for: "We recognize that the Israeli government has imposed restrictions on Gaza out of a legitimate and keenly felt fear of continued terrorist action by Hamas and other militant groups. This concern must be addressed without resulting in the de facto collective punishment of the Palestinian residents of the Gaza Strip. " It lists supplies that Gazans need for humanitarian reasons. Some of these might have dual military/humanitarian use — building supplies, particularly. Israel ultimately increased the allowance of other supplies, including food and medicine, after international pressure.
The letter argues that easing the flow would indeed increase pressure on Hamas: "Easing the blockade on Gaza will not only improve the conditions on the ground for Gaza’s civilian population, but will also undermine the tunnel economy which has strengthened Hamas. "
Their actions were so anti-Israel these members of Congress are now known as the notorious Gaza 54.
Umm, yes, "known as", by RJC and its like thinkers.
Incredibly, J Street’s PAC has endorsed and is actively raising money for many of the Gaza 54 — politicians hostile to Israel, like Joe Sestak, Mary Jo Kilroy, Joe Garcia, Jim Himes, Jim McDermott and Betty McCollum.
Again, a five out of six proposition: Five of these are signatories of the letter. Joe Garcia isn’t a member of Congress — he’s a candidate in a tough race for an open seat in south Florida — and he signed bupkiss Israel-related, except for his Israel policy paper (PDF) which might have been written by AIPAC.
I asked Matt Brooks about this one:
One of the largest recipients of JStreet $$$
Umm, kind of circular, no? "Why am I here?" "Because you are guilty." "Why am I guilty?" "Because you are here."
J Street for years said it wasn’t receiving funding from George Soros. They knew his anti-Israel views would destroy its credibility. Soros said, "European anti-Semitism is the result of the policies of Israel and the United States." But J Street was caught lying. It has received hundreds of thousands of dollars from George Soros.
I think this mostly gets a pass — Soros is misquoted (I explain why here); and there’s plenty of ammuniton for those who insist that he’s not anti-Israel (I explain in the same post). But there’s no doubt that there was a consensus that he was anti-Israel, however wrong-footed the consensus was — and that J Street hid the donations because of the consensus.
Now comes the news that J Street’s co-founder Daniel Levy called Israel’s creation an "act that was wrong."
Ripped from context, but not in a Shirley Sherrod kind of way — Levy said it, it was clumsy, he meant something different — and this is what happens when you’re clumsy in politics.
The ad is, at least, fun, which is a nice break this season. I like the Halloween theme and the Mystery Theatre look. But that silhouette, and that magnifying glass at the end … umm, what’s up (so to speak) with that?
