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February 10, 2012
Lisa M. Krieger: Man with defibrillator demands access to his own heart's information
David G. Savage: Why activists may not be in a hurry to have High Court rule on alternative marriage
February 9, 2012
Laura McMullen: 10 Least Expensive Public Schools for Out-of-State Students
Kimberly Palmer: How to actually enjoy -- relaxing, financially -- your vacation
February 8, 2012
Warren Richey: Why momentous Prop. 8 ruling might not satisfy gay-rights groups
Menachem Wecker: Though Controversial, LL.M.'s Can Lead to Specialized Legal Jobs
The Kosher Gourmet byDana Velden: Going to the bother of making soup? You know it better be good. This CREAM OF TOMATO SOUP certainly is! And it's a cinch to make, too (Includes techinques and serving secrets)
February 7, 2012
Frank J. Gaffney, Jr.: Caught off-guard? President's Super Bowl interview with Matt Lauer gives those who need a reason not to vote for him, a darn good one
Suzanne Bohan: Leaping lizards! Tiny reptiles advancing robot design
February 6, 2012
Jonathan Tobin: Iran Threatens Israel With Destruction, But the New York Times Doesn't Hear It
Jeffrey Fleishman: In newly democratic Egypt, tens of democracy activists jailed, to stand trial; their groups are 'threatening the stability of the homeland'
Julie Deardorff : Researchers say antioxidants may not be that effective and could do more harm than good
Mark Clayton: How did Anonymous hackers eavesdrop on FBI and Scotland Yard?
February 3, 2012
Edmund Sanders : Israeli official says Iran is creating missile that could reach East Coast of US
Victoria Kim: Immigrant-smuggling ring used black drivers to avoid racial profiling
February 2, 2012
Jim Carney: Wrong number call may have saved her life
Reza Kahlili : Ex-CIA spy in Iran's Revolutionary Guard: What Obama doesn't grasp about striking deals with Tehran
Tina Susman: For woodchuck rescuer, every day is Groundhog Day
February 1, 2012
Brian Bennett: US officials see increasing threat of domestic attack from Iran
Emily Brandon: How to Take Advantage of New 401(k) Fee Disclosures
January 31, 2012
January 30, 2012
Paul Richter and Ramin Mostaghim: Misreading Teheran's limits -- deadly and economically devastating as they may be -- is a risk administration, Europe seem willing to take
Suzanne Bohan: Warning: Nap-deprived tots missing more than sleep, study finds
Meg Handley: Banks Revamping Rewards Programs to Woo Customers
January 27, 2012
Caroline B. Glick: Obama: Of course I intend to prevent a nuclear holocaust . . . in a few months
Yochonon Donn: In liberal New York City, fervently-Orthodox Jews may soon be getting a district to call their own
Jeannine Stein: An inflated ego and thinking you're 'all that' doesn't just make others sick of you, it can make you ill
Katy Hopkins: New budget rules may affect how much money you get for college
January 26, 2012
Ed Koch: To the New York Times, calling for the murder of Jews by those capable of having their incitement taken seriously isn't news
Jeannine Stein: Mental illness struck one in five U.S. adults in 2010: Report
January 25, 2012
Richard Simon: House passes two bills endorsing the use of religious symbols at military memorials
Fred Weir: Putin: Multiethnic Russia cannot survive as a US-style 'melting pot'; must find its own way
Susan Johnston: 5 Sneaky Coupon Strategies Consumers Should Watch Out For
January 24, 2012
Carol Clark: The price of your soul: How your brain decides whether to 'sell out'
Caroline B. Glick: America lost most in 'Arab Spring'. Sadly, many voters still don't grasp the extent
Warren Richey: Drug criminal scores win in GPS ruling from conservative-leaning high court
Erika Bolstad: Black conservatives gather to talk about gaining strength
January 23, 2012
Melissa Dribben: Jewish voters to play a key role in Florida's Republican primary
Jordan Rau: In quest to grow, Catholic hospital system will announce this morning its break from church
Ali Safi: U.S. envoy gives Taliban terms for peace talks
January 19, 2012
January 18, 2012
January 17, 2012
Frank J. Gaffney Jr.: No-kidding red lines: U.S. response to an Iranian nuke may be bluster, but Israel's won't be
David G. Savage: They sued their principals after slandering them online --- now the cases are headed to the Supreme Court
David Francis: Where to Invest in 2012: With stocks expected to rebound, opportunity abounds for investors
January 13, 2012
Ben Lynfield: Israeli lawmakers move to annex Jewish Judea, one museum at a time
Alexia Elejalde-Ruiz: Thriving through touch: Gentle massage helps older people with low mobility improve in mind and body
January 12, 2012
Warren Richey: Landmark Supreme Court ruling a 'resounding win' for religious groups
Warren Richey: Supreme Court says no to new rule on eyewitness testimony
John Fauber : Statins found to raise diabetes risk in postmenopausal women
Katy Hopkins : Consider This Before You Pay for an Online Degree
The Kosher Gourmet by Joseph Erdos: This mushroom and barley soup has an intense -- almost nutty -- flavor that mixes robust with Middle East. It has creaminess without cream
January 11, 2012
Shari Roan: Millions of atrial fibrillation sufferers at risk for devastating, but preventable, stroke
Tom Hussain: Pakistan -- recipient of more than $21 billion in civilian and military aid -- speeds pursuit of Iranian pipeline, defying US
David G. Savage: High court signals it won't be loosening TV's 'indecency' rules
Stephen Ceasar: Oklahoma's Islamic law amendment can't go into effect, court rules
January 10, 2012
Reza Kahlili: From an ex-CIA spy: US must exploit new split in Iran's Revolutionary Guard
Karen Kaplan: Study: Nicotine replacement products ineffective when used in real-life situations
January 9, 2012
Michael Doyle: Put through legal hell over dream home, couple fought back hard --- all the way to Supreme Court
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Jewish World Review
July 7, 2005
/ 30 Sivan, 5765
Jewish Dems: Last Chance to Save Your Party
By
Sam Schulman
Moderates must unite
http://www.JewishWorldReview.com |
The Democratic Party in the 1960s had two faces. One was the face of the idealistic liberal; the other the segregationist bosses who ran the "solid South." Woodrow Wilson, passionate idealist and vicious racist and segregationist, was the last leader to incarnate both aspects of the Party; it was up to FDR to forge an alliance between these groups which hard-faced men like Mayor Richard J. Daley kept together into the 1960s.
Not until the the tumultuous 1968 Democratic convention did the party finally and conclusively rise up against its own segregationists. Northern liberals and machine politicians alike supported the "freedom delegations" challenged the southern establishment seated them in their place. The Northern liberal wing of the party seized the moment and black voters have been solidly cemented to the Democratic Party ever since.
That party is now facing a similarly grave moment and the soul of the Democratic Party is once again at stake. This time the issue isn't desegregation and racism against blacks, but how the party perceives America's role in the world — and racism against Jews. Do Democrats support the President's efforts to bring democracy to the Middle East or will are they content to retreat from that region leaving it to tyranny and terrorism? At home, the Democratic constituency that is at stake is the party's other ethnic cornerstone, Jewish Americans.
The loyalty of Jewish Democrats becomes increasingly eccentric as the the left wing of the Democratic Party, following the lead of left-of-center parties in Europe, has become the natural home of political anti-Semitism. Opposition to Bush's strategic aims more often than not today goes hand in hand with accusations against Israel and its supporters.
Of course, I hasten to add, It is "ok" to be "against" Israel. But when you are against Israel for specific reasons, and those reasons are either fictitious, or apply to other countries that you do not denounce — because the inhabitants of those countries are not Jewish, and when your remedies for the evils you perceive involve the destruction not just of a regime but of a country — then your opposition is anti-Semitic. And this is the case with the Democratic left. There, opposition to the State of Israel — among House and Senate staffers, in the State Department, and in the mainstream Protestant churches — is based precisely on this kind of anti-Semitism.
The Democratic Party's left has fixed its litany, much of it borrowed from the universities and the voices of the European left-wing elite. It runs thus: Sharon is a bloodthirsty tyrant, the Jew lobby and the Jew-owned media have too much influence, Israel is the obstacle to peace in the Middle East. Blood libels, like Chris Hedges' assertion that the IDF kills Arab children for sport and that there was a massacre in Jenin, have become accepted truth, just as commonly believed as the blood libels of the European Middle Ages. The leftist consensus is that the U.S. must cease allowing Israel to dictate its foreign policy, and Israel — as a state — may need to be sacrificed. Both of these assertions are false, through and through — but they provide rallying points for the Democratic Party's foreign policy-in-waiting.
The leaders of the three key states in which success depends upon not losing the Jewish vote, New York, New Jersey and Connecticut, reacted with fury to remarks by the president's strategist Karl Rove last week. Poor Mr. Rove never compared any liberals to Nazi death camp guards or Hitler — he merely and accurately described the distinction between the president's reaction to 9/11 and the policies prescribed by many liberals. The senators' fury was not at Mr. Rove's mild rhetoric — but at his exposure of their morally precarious position within a Democratic Party whose vanguard despises them, Israel, and the U.S. war against terror.
The fact is that the Democratic Party is teetering on the brink of becoming an anti-Israel party — and from there it is a short step to becoming the anti-Jewish party. But thanks to the timidity of American Jews, the six senators from the tri-state area are desperately fighting the wrong enemy. They don't trouble to keep this from happening to their Party. They are concerned instead to obscure — not to confront — the ongoing takeover of their party by anti-Semitic anti-Israel forces. If the six tri-state senators wait too long to exert their influence inside their party, they will become political anachronisms unable to influence anything. And Jewish voters within the Democratic Party will be, perhaps after 2006, and certainly after 2008, unnecessary to the Party's plan.
There is still time though, for Jewish voters, in those three bluest of blue states, to force their elected representatives to put a spike in the far-left anti-Semitic takeover of their party, before it actually happens. They have the power to demand that politicians in the blue-state Northeast must show the courage of Hubert Humphrey in the 1940s and the Kennedys in the 1960s: they must confront the truth rather than denying it. The stakes are extremely grave — and not merely for the future of a political party that once welcomed free and democratic ideals.
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Sam Schulman Archives
JWR contributor Sam Schulman, a New York writer, is formerly publisher of Wigwag and a professor of English at Boston University. You may contact him by clicking here.
© 2005, Sam Schulman
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