Political Points — Waxman waxes pro-Israel and partisan

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**Pro-Israel events are usually partisan free — everyone’s supposed to love Israel.

That’s the expectation, anyway. It was scrapped yesterday at the U.S. Chamber of Commerce’s event marking 25 years of a U.S.-Israel free trade agreement — the first such agreement for the United States.

It may have been an expectation too far, coming precisely two weeks before the most bitter midterm elections in memory, and inevitably starring two of the most partisan actors in washington.

One partisan was inevitable because it was hosting the event: The U.S. Chamber of Commerce has been at the forefront of opposition to the Obama administration’s refusal to extend Bush administration tax cuts, as well as to its climate change proposals and its health care reforms. It has poured money into negative ads around the country targeting incumbent Democrats.

Rep. Henry Waxman (D-Calif.), who heads the powerful U.S. House of Representatives Energy and Commerce committee, had to be there because a) of the "commerce" in his title and b) he is one of Israel’s best friends on the Hill (and is Jewish). He’s also one of the most proudly partisan Democrats on same Hill, leading investigations into the Bush administration from 2007-2009 when he chaired the House’s oversight committee.

Waxman wasn’t shy. His speech was partisan from the outset, but in the benign way that is typical of all such events: He lauded the Obama administration and the Democratic congress for removing trade barriers between the two countries.

Then he got to the down and dirty, but also in a pro-Israel context — and this has to be one of the most elegant segues from "love Israel" to "Hate yer guts" I’ve ever seen (and is that even a category? Should it be?).

In closing I want to draw on Israel’s great success, particularly in clean energy technology, to address some remarks to the U.S. Chamber of Commerce on energy and climate issues generally.

Nearly four decades after the first Arab oil embargo, it is time to end our involuntary financing of extremist forces, hostile to the United States, in the Middle East and elsewhere.

What israel has doen is make an affirmative choice for a clean energy future, which has spurred great innovation.

Americans can learn a lot from Israel about water and energy conservation, and the use of solar power and energy alternatives.

(More here on Israeli innovations, then …)

This has been a very difficult two years with respect to energy and climate legislation in the U.S. We passed far-reaching energy and climate legislation in the House, but it did not find favor in the Senate, even though our bill was supported by some of the most prominent CEOs in the country.

The energy and climate bill could have been a turning point. It would have provided certainty to industry, unlocked billions in private sector investment, and set the U.S. on a path to protect the environment from global warming. It would have set us on the course, at long last, towards energy independence. It would also have been a catalyst for a united international effort.

And it was a jobs bill.

(More here on how the U.S. economy purportedly loses because the bill did not pass, then …)

For too long, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce has been on the opposite side of this issue.

The Chamber pulled no punches in attacking my legislation.

Whoa! I believe that adds up to "You say you love Israel, but you are screwing it like a lightbulb in a sauna."

Waxman, living up to his bulldog rep, did not leave it there, and concluded by abandoning pro-Israel talk altogether behind and going for the jugular, stopping short of accusing the Chamber of breaking the law in how it uses its funds. 

On a final note, two weeks from now, this country will hold an election in which the Chamber has poured an unprecedented amount of money — tens of millions of dollars — into negative ads attacking candidates. I feel strongly about this issue. I think these practices raise important issues for our democracy and how election campaigns are run.

In particular, the Chamber has been unwilling to show accountability for the funds it has solicited for these ads. The donors have not been disclosed. Moreover, despite the Chamber’s strong assertions, it has been unwilling to show conclusive evidence that money collected from foreign corporations isn’t being used for political activities.

An event like this conference today is an appropriate use of contributions from Chamber members overseas. Spending such money on an election in any country would be inappropriate. In this country it would also be illegal.

I urge the Chamber to be transparent, to provide full disclosure on the contributions it is making in this election cycle.

Without proper transparency and disclosure it is hard for the Chamber to be a role model for corporate citizenship in America and around the world.

The program says Waxman was to be followed by Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen (R-Fla.) I stayed until the end of his remarks, and did not see her — I had to run because of time constraints. If she at all rebutted him, and if her speech is available, I will post it. Chamber officials, meanwhile, thanked Waxman for his "thought-provoking" remarks.

**Let me revise my assessment Monday of the smackdown between Rep. Howard Berman (D-Calif.), the chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee and Rep. Mark Kirk (R-Ill.), running for Illinois’ open U.S. Senate seat, is not a win for Kirk on points — it’s a knockout, for Kirk.

Folks intimately involved in preparing Kirk’s  bill sanctioning Iran’s energy sector have contacted me (and not Republicans) — and they say it indeed provided the template for Berman’s original sanctions bill. Berman says Kirk’s claims that he framed the bill are wrong, and that Kirk had nothing to do with the bill.

I gather some of the same folks reached out to Foreign Policy The Cable’s Josh Rogin, and he had the more thorough version up first, so I will give him the scoop and the link:

According to lawmakers, Congressional staffers, and outside groups who worked closely on the legislation, Kirk was in fact a key advocate for over four years of using gasoline and refined petroleum restrictions to pressure Iran to make concessions regarding its nuclear program.

In fact, Berman worked so closely with Kirk and others on the idea that media reports at the time acknowledged that Berman’s Iran Refined Petroleum Sanctions Act, introduced in April 2009, borrowed language from related legislation introduced earlier by Kirk and Rep. Brad Sherman.

Even Democratic Congressional staffers gave Kirk credit for leading on the idea of petroleum sanction for Iran. They said that Berman’s bill was clearly built off of Kirk’s work, and criticized Berman for politicizing such a sensitive foreign policy issue.

"On this particular issue, Kirk has been a leader, if not the leader. When you talk about Iran petroleum sanctions, you talk about Mark Kirk," said one Democratic Hill staffer who worked on the bill.

"I’m all for a Democrat winning that seat, but this is not the way to do it," the staffer said. "It hurts our standing as Democrats in the pro-Israel community, because when you go to the pro-Israel community and say to them that Kirk didn’t play a leading role, it just makes it hard to believe the next statement that comes out of our mouths."

Others who followed the progression of the Iran sanctions legislation closely also credited Kirk with a long history of leadership on this issue.

"There’s no question that Mark Kirk was one of the first, if not the first member of Congress to advocate restricting the flow of gasoline to Iran as a way of pressuring Iran on its nuclear program," said Josh Block, who was the chief spokesman for the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, which was intimately involved in the bill’s legislative journey. 

The media Josh cites is a JTA story — one written by myself, believe it or not. Call it early onset amnesia. 

**Rep. Joe Sestak (D-Pa.), competing for the open U.S. Senate seat in Pennsylvania, is for the first time edging out Pat Toomey in polls (albeit, within the margin of error.) That would help explain why the Republican Jewish Coalition and the Emergency Committee for Israel each launched major TV ad buys in the Philly area targeting Sestak.

The ECI ad — paid for by a new political action committee, so I should call it, more accurately, an ECIPAC ad — aired last night during a Phillies game and attacks Sestak for signing a letter urging the Obama administration to press Israel to ease its blockade of Gaza, and attacks him for appearing at a fundraiser for the Council on American-Islamic Relations. The RJC ad targets Sestak for calling for criminal court trials for accused terrorists. 

In the interests of fairness, I don’t want to embed these ads without pro-Sestak graphics (and I haven’t seen any such pro-Israel material in the last couple of days.) But here’s the link to the ECIPAC ad, and here’s the link to the RJC ad.

What’s interesting, though, is the different tone in the releases: ECI says its previous activity "helped elevate Joe Sestak’s record of hostility to Israel into a major factor in the Senate race in that state." The RJC’s Matt Brooks, by contrast, concludes in his release: "Joe Sestak is a decent man who sadly exhibits poor judgment and is out of touch on important issues."

Sestak is a consistent yes vote on pro-Israel legislation so "record of hostility" would seem to overstate it, even for a partisan release.

"A decent man" who is "out of touch," on the other hand, is the kind of civil partisanship that prevailed before the polity embraced whatever sticks. Let me take off my reporter/blogger hat for just a second, then, and express my gratitude — as a consumer — to Brooks.

Email those tips to rkampeas@jta.org