Jewish Americans for Sarah Palin – this is not a joke
An e-mail from J Street tipped me off this morning to a horrifyingly genuine thing: Jewish Americans for Sarah Palin.
And yes, the above picture is actually featured on their website.
There’s really nothing I can add to their own words, so I’ll just reproduce their launch op-ed here:
Op-Ed: Palin’s policies reflect Americans’ spirit on Israel
By Benyamin Korn · April 18, 2010
PHILADELPHIA (JTA) — The Obama administration’s tilt against Israel, its tacit acceptance of a nuclear-armed Iran and its weak approach to combating Islamic terrorism all pose a direct challenge to Jewish Americans.
Former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin has described the “Obama doctrine” in U.S. foreign policy as “coddling our enemies while alienating allies.” Palin has emerged as the leading public voice in opposition to President Obama’s dangerous new direction.
For these reasons, my colleagues and I are launching a national organization of Jewish Americans for Sarah Palin, supported by the new Web site JewsforSarah.com — Home Page for Jewish Independents.
JASP is comprised of academic, religious and community leaders who are dedicated to promoting consideration of Palin’s policy positions in the wider American Jewish community. We are unconnected to any political campaign or fund-raising organization.
We find Palin’s positions on Israel, Iran, national security, fiscal responsibility, energy and social policy — as well as her record on these issues as governor of Alaska and candidate for vice president of the United States — to be serious, substantive and politically mainstream.
Though not at present a candidate for any office, Palin’s track record in public office has been exemplary and has withstood the test of the most demanding scrutiny of investigative news media.
In her time, Margaret Thatcher was first dismissed as unintelligent, unsophisticated, the wrong gender and incapable of taking her place among the world’s statesmen. In the end she proved her detractors wrong and restored Britain’s economic, political and national security institutions to their former greatness. Today and for posterity, she is reckoned among the handful of pivotal world leaders of the late 20th century.
Likewise, Ronald Reagan was looked upon initially with scorn both by American Jews and even by many conservatives. Commentary magazine editor Norman Podhoretz wrote recently that his early support of Reagan’s 1980 presidential candidacy was greeted by his friends with derisive remarks about “this B-movie star.” In the end, conservatives came to respect and then revere Reagan. In the 1980 election, 60 percent of American Jews deserted President Jimmy Carter, with most of them voting for Reagan. Podhoretz sees a parallel to Sarah Palin. So do we.
In recent days, prominent Jewish leaders and other Jewish political figures have publicly challenged President Obama’s foreign policy in terms that were unimaginable only a few weeks ago. Former New York City Mayor Ed Koch, a lifelong Democrat, has excoriated the president for “demeaning and slandering” Israel.
“There is a foul whiff of Munich and appeasement in the air,” Koch has written.
Anti-Defamation League leader Abraham Foxman has raised the prospect of a Jewish march on Washington to protest Obama’s tilt against Israel. World Jewish Congress President Ronald Lauder has taken out full-page ads in major American newspapers to criticize Obama for pressuring Israel to retreat to the “indefensible borders” of 1967. U.S. Sen. Joseph Lieberman (I-Conn.), chairman of the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee, has characterized the president’s refusal to include militant Islam in his list of terror promoters as “offensive,” and said it “contradicts thousands of years of accepted military and intelligence doctrine to ‘know your enemy.’ ”
President Obama’s disgraceful personal treatment of Israel’s prime minister on his official visits to Washington and the ugly personal tone that the president has injected into U.S.-Israel relations has angered even many of his supporters and driven Obama’s popularity to an all-time low among the Israeli public. The suddenness of the president’s change in his policies toward Israel, after having campaigned vociferously in 2008 as a friend of the Jewish state, has caught many in the American Jewish community off guard. No longer.
We believe it is time for American Jews to declare independence from President Barack Obama, and we believe that Gov. Sarah Palin’s heartfelt and unflinching support for America-Israel friendship reflects the true spirit of the American people, among whom love and respect for the Jewish state has never faltered.
(Benyamin Korn is the former executive editor of the Jewish Exponent of Philadelphia and a veteran Jewish community organizer.)
(disclaimer: i didn’t actually read the op-ed above)
i’ve heard from a few people that Obama’s policies relating to Israel and Jews are very problematic. I’m not really interested in researching it myself (I’m Canadian, eh?) but would definitely read about that if you posted about it.
i’ve heard from a few people that Obama’s policies relating to Israel and Jews are very problematic.
Whoever told you that is obviously a racist.
“In the 1980 election, 60 percent of American Jews deserted President Jimmy Carter, with most of them voting for Reagan.”
Is that true?
I’m Canadian too and I support much of Obama’s policies regarding Israel and the Middle-East. In fact he’s far more even-handed than our own Canadian Prime Minister, the insufferable and sanctimonious Stephen Harper. I think that Obama’s position makes him and his administration a far better friend of Israel than Bush (and Harper’s) unquestioning support for all those Israeli self-destructive policies anda ctions.
@r-
I don’t know fact or not, but as far as I know, Jewish Americans have voted overwhelmingly Democratic in every election since the mid-1920s… And from a simple google search I found this (http://www.jcpa.org/jl/vp509.htm)
the key part is that it says Reagan got 38%, but if you look close at what they said of Reagan, it was not that 60% voted for Reagan, just that most of the 60% who didn’t vote for Carter voted for Reagan. It’s a slightly misleading way of presenting the stats.
“Jewish voting patterns after World War II reflected sustained engagement with the Democratic Party. In summarizing voting studies of the past forty years, 50 percent of American Jews identify with the Democratic Party. Another 30-35 percent are Independents, while some 13-17 percent define themselves as Republicans.
Where once the Democratic Party could count on a 90 percent Jewish turnout for its candidates, these numbers are now generally 60-75 percent, depending upon particular elections and specific candidates. Historically, Jews have voted overwhelmingly Democratic in congressional races. Over the last several decades, Jewish support for Democratic congressional candidates peaked at 82 percent in 1982, according to the New York Times. By contrast, the high point for Republicans was 32 percent of the Jewish vote garnered in House races in 1988. During the 1990s, Democrats secured at least 73 percent of the Jewish vote in House of Representatives races.
Only Ronald Reagan among Republican presidential candidates was able to break this pattern when he received nearly 38 percent of the Jewish vote in 1980. Traditionally, Republican candidates for the White House receive around 18 percent of the national Jewish vote.”
spice — Ron Kampeas recently did a great analysis of this for JTA, showing that the panicmongers are really just that. Obama is not treating Israel as pariah, and Bush wasn’t as hot as his rhetoric.
Justin writes:
the key part is that it says Reagan got 38%, but if you look close at what they said of Reagan, it was not that 60% voted for Reagan, just that most of the 60% who didn’t vote for Carter voted for Reagan. It’s a slightly misleading way of presenting the stats.
According to this site, the 1980 Jewish vote went 39% to Reagan, 45% to Carter, and 14% to independent candidate John Anderson. So while it’s true that a majority of Jews (55%, not 60%) voted against Carter, an even larger majority voted against Reagan.
So I see. Almost 60% of American Jews rejected Reagan, with most of them voting for President Jimmy Carter.
Thanks for the link, KFJ. I agree the Obama bashing on Israel is overblown. I’m surprised, however, that a president as intelligent as he, with a staff that has gone to incredible lengths to understand and address the sensitivities of the Arab world, has failed miserably with Israel on rhetoric.
If Obama truly wanted to deliver a peace agreement in his first term, then his second stop after Cairo last year should have been Jerusalem.
The Administration is just tone deaf on Israel. They’re outraged at Israel one day and trying to hush it up to prevent more Arab intransigence the next day. I don’t think they have a plan for a breakthrough, but they’ve forced themselves and Israel up pole from which it’s difficult for either to climb down. The Palestinians are pushing their advantage, pretending they don’t even need to negotiate anymore to get everything they want.
If only the Israeli right had anything resembling a plan, but they don’t. It’s sick.
i’ve heard from a few people that Obama’s policies relating to Israel and Jews are very problematic. I’m not really interested in researching it myself (I’m Canadian, eh?) but would definitely read about that if you posted about it.
@spice.
Here’s a column about the matter from today’s Jerusalem Post, written by the racist David Horowitz:
http://www.jpost.com/Opinion/Columnists/Article.aspx?id=173767
Jonathan1, you’re such a tragic figure, or you play one on Jewschool. Tell me, what brings you joy.
Having people call me a tragic figure.
Tragic and adorable. *sigh
If Obama has been seen as having friction with Israel, it’s been as a consequence of terrible public relations. If anything, the friction is between Obama and Netanyahu. Clearly, Obama would have had a stronger working relationship had either Livni or Barak taken the PM role.
American Jews may be somewhat divided as to whether Obama is pursuing the wisest policy regarding Israel, but the perception that Obama is hostile to Israel is more prevalent amongst white (often conservative) Christians who often have a very different concept of “pro-Israel” than Jews generally do.