Dean Flip-Flops Forward

by Jesse Bacon

Like other supporters of the Palestinian cause, I have long given up on getting much out of the United States' electoral process. So when the conflict actually became a flashpoint between the candidates seeking the Democratic nomination in 2004, I was surprised and intrigued. The spark for this blowup came from an unlikely source, the presumptive front-runner Howard Dean.

When Dean first burst on the scene, I made a foolish if understandable error of thinking his outspoken opposition to the Iraq war would translate into a more balanced policy towards Palestine and Israel. The folly of this reasoning became increasingly clear as he stated in an interview that his views were "closer to AIPAC's (Americans for Israel Public Affairs Committee)" than even those of the ineffective Peace Now. (See this article in the Forward).

AIPAC is a lobby group that advocates for Israeli policy in the US government, Peace Now argues for a negotiated settlement with the Palestinians. The two groups, respectively, are thought to represent the conservative and liberal wings of mainstream Jewish opinion in the United States. He then hired a former AIPAC staffer to his campaign. So Dean appeared to be firmly in the "conservative camp," if anything to the right of Bush on the issue.

On the eve of a major Democratic candidates' debate in New Mexico, Howard Dean, again confounded my now low expectations. Speaking to his supporters, Dean stated the obvious need for the US to be perceived as "even-handed" in its policy towards Israel and Palestine. He made the likewise obvious observation that there are an "enormous number" of settlements that must be removed from Israeli occupied territory. Joe Lieberman led the counter-assault, decrying Dean for jeopardizing the historic US-Israeli relationship. In response, Dean invoked the dubious legacy of recent president Bill Clinton, saying his policy would be identical to his, presumably working for an Oslo-style negotiated solution.

The comments by Dean paralleled earlier ones that had stoked my hope he represented something qualitatively different in a candidate. He once pointed out that the United States would one day cease to be the world's preeminent military power and should prepare for that eventuality. For this Dean was also pilloried by a rival, in this case John Kerry. Both incidents show the impoverishment of US political debate, in which obvious truths are grounds for nasty attacks by one's rivals. Kerry later outdid himself by saying that comments in Dean which supported the Israeli policy of assassinating Palestinians thought to belong to armed groups was offensive because he compared members of those groups to soldiers.

These moves also show the desperation of Dean's rivals to gain some traction in a race in which Kerry and Lieberman were at one point considered favorites. That Lieberman was the one to deliver the hit should be no surprise. It amounts to a gift to the generous pro-Israeli donors to Lieberman. It sheds more light on Lieberman's previous comments on a visit to Ramallah in the West Bank that the situation there was a "humanitarian disaster," which implied it was more akin to a flood than the consequences of Israeli government policy. It is also consistent with the reason he was such a disaster as a vice-presidential candidate: his obnoxious moralism. Lieberman interrupting Dean by droning "Not Right," shows me why voters preferred Bush's reformed sinner act to this sort of uptight preachiness. (See this article in Haaretz).

Will this have any actual effect on the race? Will Dean's prodigious fund-raising be affected by pro-Israeli donors (he has only one $5000 pro-Israeli donation by my count, see www.opensecrets.org) as the cited Ha'aretz article blithely assumes.. Will the crucial "Jewish vote" support him anyway, given his Jewish wife and children and general agreement with their still liberal views? And are American Jews as pro-Israel as we are usually assumed to be? A poll shows that many of us support what would probably be considered an "even-handed" solution. (See this AAIUSA press release.)

The difficulty I have run into from fellow Jews is that when I have advocated for positions that I believe would actually bring about a just outcome, such as cutting or ending US aid to Israel, my sense is that, though many in the American Jewish community do support an "even-handed" solution, they grow nervous if the United States actually behaves in an even-handed manner, just as many non-Jewish Americans grow nervous at the thought of the US losing it's world supremacy. Dean himself would probably find it difficult to actually implement such a policy of "even-handedness."

So I will be watching the election closely. Both to see what role the "Jewish vote" plays, as well as if Arab Americans, a majority of whom supported George Bush, in part of because of the perception that his father was "tough on Israel," will coalesce into an effective force in this election. I believe that pro-Israeli groups function more as a result of their bullying than their actual power.

Will Dean win and call their true influence into question? Or will he go the way of Jesse Jackson, the 1988 candidate who was targeted by Al Gore on behalf of the pro-Israel groups because of his modestly pro-Palestinian views and defeated in the key New York primary, and thus the nomination. Would a different outcome show that Dean is simply not as threatening to the Democratic party establishment as Jackson was? Or is the pro-Israel lobby basing its power on bullying more than real influence? Only four months to the first primary election to find out!