Jews have created the cornerstone of Western civilization.
Through intelligence, commitment, and force of will they have
profoundly affected the world wildly in disproportion to their
numbers. Jews constitute less than three percent of the world’s
population, and have been awarded more than 60 percent of the Nobel
prizes for science. It can credibly be argued that three Jews —
Freud, Einstein and Marx — determined 20th-century thought and
achievement. If Jews are known as people of the Book, where
politics is concerned — especially American politics — they must
be reading the wrong book.
American Jews’ devotion to the Democratic Party is imprinted on
their genes. If one were to go into any traditional Jewish
neighborhood, you would have as much chance of meeting a Republican
as you would of bumping into bin Laden at a policeman’s ball.
This love affair dates back to when Franklin Roosevelt was
president. He was treated by Jews as a mythic figure, responsible
for their deliverance. The truth is that a logical argument could
be made that he is responsible for the deaths of more Jews than few
other people in world history. Of course he did not order
or direct that any Jews be killed, but the word
“responsible” is one that could be used in an active or passive
sense.
If I am in a position to pull someone out of the way speeding
train and I do nothing, in any moral scheme of things, whatever may
be my degree of lack of culpability as a strictly legal
proposition, I must bear greater or lesser responsibility for that
person’s death. From 1939, when Roosevelt denied the passengers of
the steamship St. Louis entry to the U.S. — and thereby
condemned them to a return to Hitler’s Europe — to refusing,
notwithstanding Churchill’s plea, to order the bombing of the rail
lines bringing inmates to the concentration camps and certain
death, Roosevelt was responsible in a moral sense for the death of
Jews.
Just as in any other form of committed, irrational love, when
the symptoms — heart pounding, flushing of skin, dizziness, and
knees going weak — would confuse any doctor, the Jews’ love
relationship with the Democratic Party on both the national and
local level defies sensible analysis. As opposed to a human being’s
love for another person, which begins and ends with one person,
this Jewish passion for the Democratic Party is passed on from one
generation to the next, on every separate level of government.
Notwithstanding never capturing the Jewish vote, Republican
president after Republican president has kept Israel alive as a
viable state, a fact which, under any other circumstance, would be
the dispositive element in Jews voting for, and supporting, a
candidate. The policies of Republican presidents — Nixon saving
Israel in the 1973 war by insisting the resupply of destroyed tanks
and airplanes be “in the air” on the way to Israel (over the
drag-our-feet attitude of his State Department); President Reagan
upon being awakened in 1981 with the report of the Israeli
destruction of the Iraqi nuclear facilities, remarking, “boys will
be boys”; and President George W. Bush’s lock-step support of
Israel (the strongest of any American president ever) — had little
effect on the Jewish vote.
Worse yet, quite aside from Israel, their slavish embrace of the
Democratic Party, has proven to be contagion that has spread to
local politics and policies and the Democratic national agenda —
contrary to their own self-interests.
THERE WAS NO GREATER SUPPORTER of Israel in the United States
Senate than Al D’Amato. He was one of the only two voices raised in
the Senate in support of Israel when it destroyed the Iraqi nuclear
facilities — an act incidentally that ultimately probably saved
many American lives in the Gulf War, and prevented Iraq from
becoming another North Korea. He was called sarcastically, in many
quarters, “The Senator from Israel.” He was defeated for reelection
when he ran against Charles Schumer and lost the Jewish vote.
Schumer’s major advantage over D’Amato was that he was Jewish.
Barring major surgery late in life, D’Amato could not compete with
his biological identity —notwithstanding his perfect record on
Israel.
David Dinkins was a disaster waiting to happen. In 1989 he ran
for New York City mayor surrounded by stories of tax irregularities
(that would have forced any white candidate to withdraw from the
election) and the distinction of being the only person who was able
to screw up the marriage license bureau when, as a political hack,
he ran the operation. His opponent was Rudy Giuliani. Giuliani had
been the No. 3 man in the Reagan Justice Department, and later U.S.
attorney for New York. As U.S. attorney he had done what was
previously thought impossible: he put the Mafia, for all intents
and purposes, out of business. His approach to the
Arab-Israeli-Palestinian ongoing conflict was formed while he was
in the Department of Justice. There, he headed the Achille
Lauro investigation. An elderly dentist, Dr. Klinghoffer and
his wife had been murdered aboard the cruise ship Achille
Lauro. Giuliani formulated a simple approach to the problem:
the terrorist were just thugs — no different from the Mafia
gangsters he prosecuted, and should be treated as such. Coming from
this simple direction he was probably more to the right wing in
Israeli politics than any other American political figure. Come the
election, Jews voted in droves for Dinkins, the Democratic
candidate; because of this and some questionable vote counting he
won in a close election.
Dinkins as mayor fulfilled the prophecy of disaster. If he spent
as much time in governance as he did changing suits and ties,
things might have been different. Riots began in Crown Heights,
Brooklyn. The city was aflame in racial polarization, Dinkins was
unaware of the riots, since he apparently didn’t have his
television on those days, and then acted (even as reflected in the
post-mortem report ordered by Democratic Governor Cuomo) in a
fashion of too little and too late. Finally, Jewish voters, when
faced with the very survival of their neighborhoods, backed
Giuliani as mayor.
IF THE CHOICE OF ONE PARTY’S CANDIDATE for leader over another’s
were limited to personalities, it would really cause little harm.
But political leaders bring with them entire programs, like the
tugs in New York Harbor that bring garbage in their wakes. It is in
this respect that they can do real damage, both insidious and
long-lasting.
Jews invariably fall into line behind the Democratic position in
a major issue of our time — affirmative action. Jews, because they
understand that they are minority in this country, support
affirmative action in all its varied forms. But Jews do, and have
done very well without it. Today, in Ivy League colleges including
Harvard, they comprise 20 percent of the student body, whereas they
are less than 2 percent of America’s population. Affirmative action
has been carried to an absurd point and, in the last analysis, is
insulting and demeaning to its recipients. It is a clear message
that society does not believe that a person of a particular race,
national or ethnic background can achieve success on his or her own
ability and intelligence.
In the Michigan case presently before United States Supreme
Court, the University of Michigan requires an accumulation of 150
points for admission. If a student gets a perfect SAT score (an
almost never-heard-of achievement) they receive 12 points, but just
being a black or Hispanic gets them 20 points. Democrats ought to
think about that the next time they are wheeled into an emergency
room and the person holding scalpel is black, Hispanic, native
American or from the subcontinent. Maybe he or she is a great
surgeon, or maybe he or she has been pushed along by affirmative
action. The answer is, of course, not to lower the bars, but rather
to give students the proper incentive preparation for college in
home and school to get over the bar without society pushing them
over it.
The other domestic priority Republican program that has
attracted controversy is Bush’s tax cutting proposals. The Media
Research Center says that the news media reporting on the proposal
is “at least 4 to 1” against it. Translation: that this is a
reflection of media bent toward the Democratic Party. American Jews
will undoubtedly also fall in lock-step in opposition to these tax
relief measures, or for that matter virtually any Republican
proposition, even at the cost of their own self-interest.
The Bush tax proposals are based on simple logic and fairness.
For taxpayers to have to pay tax on dividends, after the
company issuing the dividends has already paid tax on its profits
from which the dividends are paid, is palpably unfair to 34 million
(representing 71 million citizens) who report dividends on their
tax returns. Surely many of these taxpayers are Jewish. The tax
cuts are not only for the rich — although logically if you pay
more taxes, you should receive a larger benefit —in fact, under
the Bush proposals, the rich receive smaller tax cuts than
middle-class citizens.
Estate tax relief also represents an exercise in simple
fairness. President Reagan called it the most unfair of all taxes.
You pay tax on the money when you earn it, and then the money that
is left, if you want it to go to a person of your choice, is taxed
again—to the tune of as much as 50 percent. Although our guess is
that percentage-wise among other national groups, Jews stack up
very favorably as having enough money to leave an estate, since it
is at Republican proposal, the Jews will undoubtedly turn their
“thumbs down”.
THIS BRINGS US TO THE candidacy of Joseph Lieberman. Lieberman,
after Gore put him on his ticket, changed his positions more times
than a contortionist on his honeymoon. Lieberman, if nominated,
says Jews, given their present mindset, will probably do the Al
D’Amato number on Bush, and in answer to some ancient genetic call,
cast their vote for Joe Lieberman. This will give them a double
whammy: a vote for a Jew for President, and a vote for a Democrat
for President. But in the unlikely possibility that he is actually
elected, they well may be the victims of their own 1-2 punch.
A Jewish President will undergo a transformation the like of
which has not been seen since Paul was on the road to Damascus and
saw a transforming vision. On the major questions of concern to
Jews, Lieberman would have to bend over backwards to show he is not
partial to Israel, and in short order the support and nurturing
Israel has enjoyed in a succession of Republican presidents would
be eroded. Added to this would be Democratic Party policies that
would be particularly harmful to the present socioeconomic status
of Jews in America. The realization of a Jew achieving national
office may prove to be the undoing of both foreign and domestic
issues of particular concerns to Jews. They should heed Truman
Capote’s observation that there may be only one thing worse than
unanswered prayers, and that is answered prayers.
