The Jewish Press, America’s largest independent Jewish weekly newspaper, endorses George W. Bush:
When it comes . . . to the war on terror — the issue of our time — the choice of Mr. Bush over Mr. Kerry is clear from the public record. And for those with a special interest in Israel, the choice is even clearer. . .
President Bush said in his State of the Union address less than five months after 9/11 that
“In a single instant, we realized that this will be a decisive decade in the history of liberty, that we’ve been called to a unique role in human events. Rarely has the world faced a choice more clear or consequential. . . . [S]ome governments will be timid in the face of terror. And make no mistake about it: If they do not act, America will.”
[A]s the [New York] Times Magazine interviewer said of Mr. Kerry’s statement that he is committed to destroying terrorists “effectively”:
This was a word that Kerry came back to repeatedly in our discussions; he told me he would wage a more “effective” war on terror no less than 18 times in two hours of conversations. The question, of course, was how.
It should be noted that in the second presidential debate Mr. Kerry stated 23 times, without adding anything more, that he “has a plan.”
Is there any question that President Bush can be relied upon to more forcefully prosecute the war on terror?
James Rappoport, a Jewish Republican who was John Kerry’s opponent in his 1990 re-election campaign, writes that many Jews who never voted Republican before will vote for Bush, because of the relative treatment of Israel at the two conventions. At the Democratic convention, Kerry did not mention Israel at all:
Of the major convention speakers, only John Edwards mentioned “a safe and secure Israel,” and when he did, he did not pause for applause.
Democratic Congressman Henry Waxman speculated to the Jerusalem Post, “I think they rushed over it because they did not want to show divisiveness in the audience. There may have been some people there who are not receptive.”
What does it say when the Democratic leadership has to tiptoe past the issue of Israel when speaking to its most loyal party members?
Jonathan Sarna notes in “The Battle for the Jewish Vote” that:
[A]t the annual meeting of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee last May . . . Bush explicitly linked “the freedom and prosperity and security of Israel,” to “serving the cause of America.”
Privately, Israel’s representatives tell Jewish audiences that Bush has been the “best president ever” as far as Israel is concerned. They worry aloud that a US withdrawal from Iraq, under John Kerry, would embolden terrorists and pose a danger to Israel’s very existence.
It is hard to imagine John Kerry leading the Not Primarily a War on Terror.
It is impossible to imagine him mobilizing anyone behind the Wrong War Wrong Place Wrong Time. His election would be the Spanish election writ large.
And it is easy to imagine Kerry appeasing Old Europe’s views on Israel, as he seeks to pass the global test.
There is a lot of chatter on the Internet about Jews coming out of the closet for Bush. Go here and here just for starters, and follow the links. Read the comments too, where you’ll find statements like this one:
As a gentile, married to a Jewish woman, I cannot understand the propensity of the Jewish population to vote Democratic. I was once a strong and vocal Democrat. Then, as I watched the party disintegrate into so many factions, and many of them radical and ridiculous, I began to look at it in a different way. . .
Republicans aren’t perfect, lord knows. But, what could be more in line with old line liberal thinking than freeing the lives of close to 50 million people who had ZERO hope, until President Bush took enormous political risk and embarked on this noble adventure.
Thank you Anne, for highlighting this.