Democrats may have put Jerusalem back into their party platform, but the Republican Jewish Coalition is still hammering away at its original omission, the convention hall tumult over its reinsertion and the absence of some other pro-Israel passages that had been in the 2008 platform. On Friday the RJC issued a new print ad highlighting these points.
Meanwhile, Democratic elected officials were annoyed at what they saw as a political gift that their party clumsily handed to Republicans looking to attack the president on Israel.
"We gave them an opening we shouldn’t have given them on the capital of Israel, and I’m glad that’s been corrected in our platform," said Sen. Ben Cardin (D-Md.) said at an event in Charlotte last week sponsored by the National Jewish Democratic Council, speaking immediately after news broke of the affirmation of Jerusalem as Israel’s caital being restored.
But how did Democrats end up with these platform alterations in the first place? Foreign Policy’s Josh Rogin reported late last week that there was some finger-pointing going on, and that names were being named.
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One of those at whom fingers were being pointed, former congressman Robert Wexler, previously spoke with JTA about the drafting of the section.
UPDATE: My JTA colleague Suzanne Pollak caught up with Wexler today at a B’nai B’rith International conference in Arlington, Va.
"It’s not my role to do the blame," he said, asked about the finger-pointing. He said: "To me what’s important on the subject is the president intervening immediately and strongly to set the record straight.”
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