Sheba Medical Centre
Melanie Phillips
Shariah Finance Watch
Australian Islamist Monitor - MultiFaith
West Australian Friends of Israel
Why Israel is at war
Lozowick Blog
NeoZionoid The NeoZionoiZeoN blog
Blank pages of the age
Silent Runnings
Jewish Issues watchdog
Discover more about Israel advocacy
Zionists the creation of Israel
Dissecting the Left
Paula says
Perspectives on Israel - Zionists
Zionism & Israel Information Center
Zionism educational seminars
Christian dhimmitude
Forum on Mideast
Israel Blog - documents terror war against Israelis
Zionism on the web
RECOMMENDED: newsback News discussion community
RSS Feed software from CarP
International law, Arab-Israeli conflict
Think-Israel
The Big Lies
Shmloozing with terrorists
IDF ON YOUTUBE
Israel's contributions to the world
MEMRI
Mark Durie Blog
The latest good news from Israel...new inventions, cures, advances.
support defenders of Israel
The Gaza War 2014
The 2014 Gaza Conflict Factual and Legal Aspects
The Democratic platform once again acknowledges Jerusalem as the capital of Israel, but the reinstitution of the language in question (and the reinstituted reference to God) was more alarming than the initial change. When Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa called for Yeas and Nays on the decision he found a roughly even split among delegates. After repeating the process two more times, a befuddled Villaraigosa was visited on stage by a party official who seemingly advised him to declare the needed two-thirds in favor of the change regardless of what the delegates actually conveyed. This he promptly did, eliciting a wave of boos.
Let the paranoia begin. For the professional alarmists who see an all-powerful Israel lobby lurking behind every bush, rock, and cloud, today’s debacle is a goldmine. What could be a greater demonstration of the Israel Lobby’s dangerous subversion of American democracy than the sham vote at the Democratic National Convention that saw pro-Israel language shoved into the party platform over the heads of party delegates?
The reality of the situation, however, is both more interesting and more frightening than intrepid Zionist-spotters would have you believe. Today, America got an unvarnished look at the Democratic Party’s internal conflict on Israel. Half of the Party represents the pro-Israel consensus in America. The other half? Not so much. For all the talk about the unrecognizably extreme new Republican Party, it’s the Democrats whose fringe has quietly made deep inroads into the center—especially when it concerns Israel—and fundamentally altered the nature of the Party.
When Villaraigosa heard the split vote he looked like a performer suddenly forced to work off-script—because that’s exactly what he was. The Democratic script is composed of declarations about America’s special relationship with Israel, the continued U.S. commitment to Israeli security, and the unbreakable bonds that unite Israelis and Americans against common foes. Democratic politicians can rattle off those proclamations in their sleep. What the Israel-Lobby paranoids ignore is that it’s all meant to satisfy the majority American opinion of support for Israel, not appease some shifty cabal of wealthy bigots.
Today’s fiasco might do tremendous damage to Jewish support for Democrats but it will certainly open a new chapter in anti-Israel paranoia. The Democrats, including Barack Obama, will take hits coming and going: from Israel supporters whose eyes have been opened to the nature of the Democratic Party and from Israel bashers who see the Zionist hand behind the convention chaos. Such is the price paid for a party divided.
Original piece is http://www.commentarymagazine.com/2012/09/05/re-democratic-delegates-boo-jerusalem/
It is nonsense to claim that the Dems reinstituted a pro-Israeli stance because of the Israeli lobby; it was pure opportunism to not lose the Jewish vote and Jewish dollars. There was no lobby at work. The problem bemoaned by Greenwald is not that the Dems are divided, but that the Pres is a national divider and the Dems have lost their way. The big problem is that too many US Jews will continue to worship in the Dem Church blinding themselves that only their votes and dollars are wanted, but they will have to leave their identity - Jewish - outside that narrowing church.
Posted
by paul2 on 2012-09-09 13:11:28 GMT