1. Democratic Leadership Assures the Security of
the Jewish State without Sacrificing Jewish
Values in the United States
By: Howard Veisz February 16, 2012
Republicans are cynically attempting to peel Jewish voters away from the
Democratic Party by contending that President Obama has not supported Israel.
The Republican pitch not only seeks to mislead Jewish voters about the
administration‟s support for Israel, but seeks to distract voters from a Republican
domestic agenda that undermines principles that are fundamental to the American
Jewish community.
The Republican Party has sought to claw its way back into power by aligning
itself with the most extreme elements of the religious right – groups that seek to
demolish the separation of church and state and conform American law to the
religious right‟s notions of “biblical truth.” In so doing, the Republican Party has
come to advance a different kind of two state solution – one that that ends with a
Jewish state in the Middle East and a fundamentalist Christian state at home.
Fortunately, Americans do not have to sacrifice the separation of church and
state in America to safeguard Israel. President Obama has provided more military
aid to Israel than any prior president, provided Israel with more sophisticated
weapons than any prior president and, as Secretary of Defense Gates testified to
Congress, has taken more “concrete steps to improve the security” of Israel than
any prior president. And he has done so while reminding Americans of the
“critical role that separation of church and state has played in preserving not only
our democracy, but the robustness of our religious practice.” [fn.1]
Strengthening Our Military Alliance With Israel
President Obama‟s support for the State of Israel has been extolled by people
far more credible than the Republican candidates.
One assessment that merits particular respect was delivered by Secretary of
Defense Robert Gates on March 2, 2011. Secretary Gates served both Republican
and Democratic administrations for 45 years, and gave his assessment not in a
campaign speech but in testimony to the United States Congress. Secretary Gates
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2. testified, slightly more than two years into President Obama‟s administration, that
“in terms of concrete steps to improve the security relationship between the two
countries, more has been done in the last two years than in any comparable period
in my entire career.”
Dennis Ross, a career diplomat, a staunch supporter of Israel, a leading member
of the American Jewish community, and President Obama‟s hand-picked Middle
East envoy, similarly stated in an April 4, 2011 speech to the Anti Defamation
League Leadership Conference:
In all the time that I‟ve served, in all the different administrations
I‟ve been in, I have never seen the kind of strategic cooperation that
exists today between the United States and Israel, and that‟s a fact.
Ehud Barak, Israel‟s Defense Minister and former Prime Minister, echoed
these conclusions when he stated in a recent interview that the U.S. helps “preserve
the military advantage of Israel more than ever before.” President Obama‟s
administration, in his words, “contributes to the security of Israel in an
extraordinary way,” including its efforts “to prevent a nuclear Iran.” [fn.2]
These assessments are consistent with reporting by the Wall Street Journal. In
an August 14, 2010 article, “U.S., Israel Build Military Cooperation” the Journal
reported that increases in U.S. military aid to Israel, and a series of “joint military
exercises in Israel over the past month” stem from “policy directives that the White
House gave the Pentagon early in Mr. Obama‟s presidency to „deepen and expand
the quality and intensity of cooperation to the fullest extent‟….” The Journal
further noted that “U.S. military aid to Israel has increased markedly this year” to
“a high of $2.78 billion” and “is slated to jump to $3 billion in 2011.”
The increased quality as well as quantity of U.S. military aid to Israel is
demonstrated by President Obama‟s shipment to Israel of deep penetrating bombs
– potentially useful in any strike against Iranian nuclear sites – that Israel sought
since 2005. Israel‟s requests were rebuffed by the Bush administration, but fast
tracked by the Obama administration.
As President Obama himself put it, in a speech before the American Israel
Public Affairs Committee:
The bonds between the United States and Israel are unbreakable and
the commitment of the United States to the security of Israel is
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3. ironclad …. It‟s why we have increased cooperation between our militaries
to unprecedented levels. It‟s why we are making our most advanced
technology available to our Israeli allies. It‟s why, despite tough economic
times, we have increased foreign military financing to record levels.
Beyond supporting Israel‟s military, President Obama has exercised his power
as commander in chief to destroy our common enemies – Islamic terrorist leaders
and networks – wherever they exist. President Obama ordered the raid that killed
Osama bin Laden in May 2010. During the same month a U.S. drone strike in
Pakistan killed Al Qaeda‟s third ranking leader. [fn.3] In August 2011, another
drone strike in Pakistan killed Mustafa Abu al-Yazid, who had become Al Qaeda‟s
top operational planner, and its second in command, after bin Laden was killed.
[id.] And in December 2011, President Obama ordered a drone strike in Yemen
that killed Anwar al-Awlaki, whose jihadist rhetoric inspired plots against U.S.
airliners and the shooting of 13 people at Fort Hood. [id.] By the end of 2011, the
Obama administration eliminated 22 of Al Qaeda‟s top 30 leaders.
At the United Nations, President Obama blocked the Palestinians‟ attempts to
obtain statehood while they refuse to recognize Israel‟s statehood. Abroad, he
persuaded the international community to impose tough sanctions on Iran –
including a European boycott of Iranian oil – to deter it from pursuing its nuclear
ambitions.
By strengthening our military alliance with Israel, destroying terrorist networks
that threaten both of our countries, and standing up for Israel on the world stage,
President Obama has met or exceeded the level of support provided by every past
president. His actions abroad have been matched by his defense of principles that
are important to the Jewish community in this country.
Preserving Religious Freedom and the Separation of Church and State at Home
This country‟s defense of Israel‟s right to exist, not merely in name but as a
Jewish State, is firmly rooted in history. In the aftermath of World War I the
League of Nations explicitly recognized “the historical connection of the Jewish
people with Palestine” and “the grounds for reconstituting their national home in
that country.” [fn.4] The League gave Britain a mandate to “secure the
establishment of the Jewish national home” and empowered a “Jewish Agency” to
work with Britain to “effect the establishment of the Jewish National Home and the
interests of the Jewish population in Palestine….” After the extermination of six
million Jews during World War II, the United Nations belatedly turned to the
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4. League‟s unfinished business, and adopted a Resolution that explicitly created the
“Jewish State” of Israel. [fn.5]
What is in question is not Israel‟s character but the character of this country –
whether separation of church and state will prevail or whether this country will be
transformed into a theocracy whose laws and policies are dictated by the religious
right. In 2005, the National Director of the Anti-Defamation League warned that
the religious right‟s agenda “goes well beyond legitimate engagement in
controversial social and political issues” and that it is “attempt[ing] to restore what
it perceives as the ruins of a Christian nation by more closely seeking to unite its
version of Christianity with state power.” [fn.6] He further cautioned that while
“the Jewish Community is not the prime target of this movement . . . we may
become its major victim” [id.] The religious right‟s effort to use the power of the
state to impose its version of Christianity on all Americans is incompatible with
American ideals that are enshrined in the Constitution and that, not long ago, were
embraced by religious leaders of all denominations.
In 1960, John F. Kennedy, then seeking to become the country‟s first Catholic
president, felt compelled to assure a gathering of Protestant leaders that he believed
in the separation of church and state and would not “accept instructions on public
policy from the Pope” or other leaders of his church. In his words:
I believe in an America where the separation of church and state is absolute,
where no Catholic prelate would tell the president (should he be
Catholic) how to act, and no Protestant minister would tell his parishioners
for whom to vote . . . .
I believe in an America that is officially neither Catholic, Protestant nor
Jewish; where no public official either requests or accepts instructions on
public policy from the Pope, the National Council of Churches or any other
ecclesiastical source; where no religious body seeks to impose its will
directly or indirectly upon the general population or the public acts of its
officials; and where religious liberty is so indivisible that an act against one
church is treated as an act against all. . . .
This is the kind of America in which I believe. And it represents the kind of
presidency in which I believe – a great office that must neither be humbled
by making it the instrument of any one religious group, nor tarnished by
arbitrarily withholding its occupancy from members of any one religious
group. I believe in a president whose religious views are his own private
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5. affair, neither imposed by him upon the nation, nor imposed by the nation
upon him as a condition to holding that office.
Today, the religious right is using its grip on the Republican Party to create a
different kind of America and a different kind of presidency. The groups that
dominate the religious right seek to conform U.S. law to their interpretation of
biblical law – or at least to policies that they seek to portray as biblical imperatives.
To these groups, it is no longer enough to outlaw abortion; we must also legislate
birth control services out of existence, drive science from the classroom, deny
climate change, eliminate the minimum wage, abolish Social Security and
Medicare, and make the tax code even more favorable to the rich – all in the name
of “biblical truth.” Forbes columnist John Zogby, writing about the GOP‟s “tight
alliance with the Christian right” in April 2009, noted that “the national Republican
Party remains closely tied to the Christian right and the narrowest issue positions it
has represented.” The Party, he continued, no longer has room for any elected
official “who deviates from the tightest orthodoxy on these issues.” [fn.7] The
2010 midterm election and its aftermath certainly bear that out.
The dangerous alliance between the between the Republican Party and the
religious right can best be illustrated by examining one of the religious right‟s
leading organizations, the American Family Association (“AFA”).
In this election cycle the AFA sponsored, or co-sponsored, a series of events that
provided a platform for Republican candidates and gave them an opportunity to
demonstrate their allegiance to the AFA‟s cause. In March 2011, the AFA
sponsored the Rediscover God in America Conference, at which Newt Gingrich
was a featured speaker. In August 2011, the AFA financed and organized a
“national day of prayer” event that was the springboard for Rick Perry‟s
presidential campaign – an event, in the words of AFA founder and chairman
Donald Wildmon, at which “anyone who wants to pray to Jesus to save our country
is welcome.” And in October 2011, the AFA and a few other likeminded groups
sponsored the Values Voter Summit at which every Republican presidential
aspirant (Gingrich, Romney, Santorum, Paul, etc.) dutifully appeared to seek the
sponsors‟ support by pledging to use the presidency to advance their objectives.
The AFA‟s website describes its vision for America in a “philosophical
statement.” It asserts that “God has communicated absolute truth to mankind and .
. . all people are subject to the authority of God. Therefore, AFA believes that a
culture based on biblical truth best serves the well-being of our nation . . . .”
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6. The AFA has translated its call for a “culture based on biblical truth” into a
detailed legislative agenda. Part of the agenda was spelled out at the AFA‟s
Rediscovering God in America Conference. David Barton, a speaker at the
conference and a leading light of the religious right, laid out a vision for America
that is a strange amalgam of God and greed. With respect to minimum wage laws,
for example, Barton instructed the faithful that
Jesus has an entire teaching on the minimum wage. . . . He has
an entire teaching against it.
On the subject of taxes, Barton laid out what “God has commanded” with respect
to capital gains taxes, estate taxes, and the progressive income tax. He asserted
that “the Bible is so good on economic issues and specifically on taxation” that
there is no need to look further “to know what kinds of taxes are good and what
kinds of taxes are bad.” Among other things, according to Barton, “the Bible is
very clear on what Jesus teaches about capital gains taxes” (he opposes them) and
“condemns estate taxes as one of the most immoral taxes out there.” Jesus,
according to Barton, also prefers a flat tax to a graduated income tax.
The AFA reaches a broad audience through radio talk shows that are broadcast
over its 192 stations. [fn.8] Bryan Fischer, the AFA‟s director of “issues analysis”
and the host of a daily two hour talk show, is the AFA‟s voice. Fischer described
the “campaign platform” that the AFA and likeminded groups demand from the
GOP in a November 20, 2011 web posting. In his words, the “ideal GOP
candidate” will denounce Social Security and Medicare as “wealth transfer
programs” and will make clear that “there is no such thing as an entitlement
program” because “no one is „entitled‟ to somebody else‟s money.” The “ideal
GOP candidate” will “veto any budget or appropriations bill that funds Planned
Parenthood” or “embryonic stem cell research.” The “ideal GOP candidate will
“veto any increase in the national debt ceiling” and will “eliminate the departments
of Education, Commerce, Energy, Health and Human Services, Housing and
Urban Development and the EPA by the end of the decade.”
It is not only the substance of these positions that is alien and dangerous; it is
the attempt to transform them from a political ideology to a theology. To advance
that theology, moreover, the religious right has sought to denigrate the place of
other religions in American society. In a Speech that he gave at the Values Voter
Summit, the AFA‟s Fischer declared that the next president must be a “man of
sincere, authentic, genuine Christian faith” – no Jews or other persons who do not
satisfy his definition of a “genuine Christian” need apply. In a July 21, 2011web
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7. posting [fn.9] Fischer explained why he sees no conflict between a religious test
for public office and the First Amendment:
The First Amendment . . . was written for one specific purpose:
to protect the free exercise of the Christian religion.
. . . „The real purpose of the amendment was, not to countenance,
much less to advance Mahometanism, or Judaism, or infidelity,
by prostrating Christianity; but to exclude all rivalry among Christian
sects and to prevent any national ecclesiastical establishment, which should
give to a hierarchy the exclusive patronage of the national government.‟. . .
When the founders used the word „religion‟ they used it much as we did
on the playground when I was growing up in America a generation ago. . .
By the term „religion we meant some variety or brand of the Christian
religion, since that was all that was represented among us. . . .Such was the
case at the time of the Founding.
Fisher‟s assumption that the Founding Fathers‟ experience was as limited as his
childhood playground experience, and his assertion that the First Amendment
protects only “the free exercise of the Christian religion” – assertions he has
repeated on the AFA radio network – are sheer nonsense. So it might be imagined
that the GOP‟s presidential candidates would condemn such remarks, and distance
themselves both from the speaker and the organization that sponsors him. But the
opposite is true. Gingrich, after speaking at the Rediscovering God in America
Conference, joined Fischer in his broadcast booth and commended his work. He
then joined Fischer in railing against what Gingrich derided as the “secular
intellectuals and secular news media and secular judges [who are] trying to reshape
America.” Gingrich warned AFA listeners that unless they take a stand “the
people who want to reshape America into a secular model are going to win.” In
January 2012 Gingrich went a step further and made the AFA‟s Don Widmon a
national co-chair of his Faith Leaders‟ Coalition – a group that Gingrich
assembled, according to his website, to promote his candidacy among “Christians
throughout the country.”
Gingrich‟s courtship of the religious right, like that of many of his GOP rivals,
has followed an alarming arc. He stirs their passions by telling them that their
religion is under attack. He focuses their anger at “New York elites” and at “Saul
Alinsky radicals” – turning a Jewish community organizer who has been dead for
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8. more than 30 years into a boogeyman and a focal point for the religious right‟s
anger. Such tactics have never ended well, and have often ended disastrously.
Romney is in a somewhat different position, since his Mormon religion has
been specifically assailed by some members of the religious right. Yet, like every
other Republican contender, he has had to conform his positions to the religious
right‟s agenda. The religious right‟s influence over the Republican Party is well
demonstrated by Romney‟s forced conversion on virtually every issue, including at
least one issue on which he had spoken forcefully for the other side.
In 1994, when he ran against Ted Kennedy for the Senate, Romney fervently
defended freedom of choice. In so doing, he recognized that the battle over
freedom of choice was largely a battle over freedom of religion – a battle over
whether one religious group could use the state to impose its teachings on others.
In keeping with President Kennedy‟s remarks 34 years earlier, Romney asserted:
One of the great things about our nation . . . is that we‟re entitled
to have strong personal beliefs, and we encourage other people to
to do the same. But as a nation, we recognize the right of all people to
believe as they want and not to impose our beliefs on other people. I believe
that abortion should be safe and legal in this country. . . . I believe
that since Roe v. Wade has been the law for 20 years, that we should
sustain and support it, and I sustain the right of a woman to make that
choice, and my personal beliefs, like the personal beliefs of other people,
should not be brought into a political campaign.
On a personal level, he emphasized that he and his family were committed to
upholding freedom of choice ever since “a dear close family relative that was very
close to me . . .passed away from an illegal abortion.” When he campaigned for
governor of Massachusetts in 2002 Romney reiterated that position.
In his quest for the Republican presidential nomination, however, Romney
renounced his prior beliefs and hopped on the religious right bandwagon.
Demonstrating the completeness of his submission to the new Republican
theocracy, Romney assured the audience at the Value Voters Summit that he will
not only “nominate judges who” will “overturn Roe v. Wade,” but will “end federal
funding for abortion advocates like Planned Parenthood” – a group he previously
supported. He has since pledged to “eliminate Title X family planning programs”
that were created under the Nixon administration to provide family planning and
women‟s health services to women who could not afford them.
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9. What is most significant is not that Romney changed his opinion about abortion
or Planned Parenthood, but that he changed his opinion about America. Gone is
his belief in an America where no religious group can impose its will upon the
general public and in which the presidency cannot be the instrument of any one
religious group. Abandoning those beliefs and replacing them with subservience
to the religious right can have only two results. First, making the religious right‟s
position on abortion and family planning the law of the land will inevitably be
followed by the rest of its agenda, for all of it is presented as the will of God.
Second, placing the religious right‟s view of “biblical truth” over competing views
will effectively make it a state religion, diminishing the status of every religion and
every citizen with a different body of ethical and moral beliefs.
President Obama has taken a different path – a path rooted in the Constitution
and in the American tradition that President Kennedy so eloquently addressed. In
a speech on religion and politics that he gave in June 2006, then Senator Obama
stated that progressive leaders would be wrong to “ask believers to leave their
religion at the door before entering into the public sphere” and that we would do
well to “recognize some overlapping values that both religious and secular people
share when it comes to the moral and material direction of our country.” But,
contrary to the views espoused by the AFA and its allies, Obama plainly stated that
we are not “just a Christian nation” but “are also a Jewish nation,” as well as a
nation of other religions and nonbelievers. Democracy, Obama concluded,
demands that the religiously motivated translate their
concerns into universal rather than religion-specific values. It requires
that their proposals be subject to argument, and amenable to reason . . . .
Politics depends on our ability to persuade each other of common aims,
based on a common reality . . . .
Those on the other side of the debate, he stated, “need to understand the critical
role that the separation of church and state has played in preserving not only our
democracy, but the robustness of our religious practice” and need to remember that
some of the denominations active in today‟s religious right were once “prosecuted
minorities” that “championed the First Amendment.” Obama‟s view of the proper
relationship between religion and politics is one that we can believe in, and that we
have to support if we are to preserve religious equality and freedom in America.
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10. Notes
1. June 2006 speech by then Senator Obama.
2. Will Israel Attack Iran, New York Times, January 25, 2012.
3. Killing of Awlaki is Latest in Campaign Against Qaada Leaders, New York
Times, December 10, 2011.
4. League of Nations Palestine Mandate.
5. United Nations Resolution 181, adopted November 29, 1947.
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11. 6. Address by Abraham Foxman, National Director of the Anti-Defamation
League, ADL National Commission Meeting, November 3, 2005.
7. GOP‟s Christian Right Pact Costs Votes, Forbes, April 9, 2009.
8. With Rally, Christian Group Asserts its Presence in ‟12 Race, New York
Times, August 4, 2011.
9. Bryan Fischer: No Longer Alone: Herman Cain Agrees on Banning Mosques.
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