If this is true wherever the Bush administration intervened, from its refusal to sign the Kyoto Protocol to its radical curtailment of domestic civil liberties, it is particularly obvious in the Middle East. Even if Barack Obama were to make good on his campaign pledge to pull American troops out of Iraq as rapidly as possible, the long-term effects of their presence will last for decades. Simply put, the presidency that so many people are practically willing themselves to forget is one that we must force ourselves to remember. For my part, the insight that Bush was not really the unequivocal friend of Israel that he claimed to be, but rather an enemy of its best interests, is one that I worked hard to sustain in the heady first days of the Obama administration. In this regard, it is important to think critically about the way that the 2008 presidential campaign was received in Israel, for the perceptions formed then, while the Bush administration still held sway, are bound to condition the relationship between the United States and Israel in the years to come.
OBAMA MEANS MUSLIM IN HEBREW
By the time Barack Obama locked up the Democratic nomination to run for president in June 2008, the relationship between the United States and Israel was shaping up to be of unprecedented significance in the American political process. Despite Obama’s effort to cultivate the impression that he was as pro-Israel as the next Democrat, the suspicion that he might bend where previous American leaders had stood firm still permeated the Jewish community. All manner of rumors circulated about him: He was a Muslim. He was part of Chicago’s large Palestinian community. He was a leftist bent on punishing Israel. He was beholden to an African American community notorious for its anti-Semitism. He was a foreigner who wanted to undermine the United States from within.
Not coincidentally, these were the same rumors being spread on the Right. The fears articulated by Jewish voters, particularly among senior citizens, mirrored the sort of comments being floated by conservative talk-show hosts like Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity, and Laura Ingraham. To an unprecedented degree, their brand of hyperbolic conjecture was being targeted at a community that had long been a pillar of the Democratic Party. And, in the weeks during which she refused to concede the nomination to Obama, Hillary Clinton seemed to have no qualms about letting the attention being paid to Jewish voters work to her advantage. For a good while, it seemed as if the resistance they expressed toward Obama’s candidacy might help derail his campaign for president.
Because Barack Obama ended up winning 78 percent of the Jewish vote, outperforming John Kerry’s 2004 results in many places, and won the crucial swing state of Florida with surprising ease, liberal political analysts breathed a huge sigh of relief. Many made arguments about how the loyalty of traditionally Democratic Jewish voters was far more steadfast than Republican strategists had realized. What these optimistic assessments overlooked, however, was the highly unusual combination of circumstances that helped propel Obama into the White House. Had the price of petroleum products not skyrocketed and then collapsed, had the stock market not plunged precipitously, had the housing crisis been contained, had terrorism loomed larger in the autumn news, Republican nominee John McCain might well have prevailed. As a number of conservative commentators noted, Republicans had faced a “perfect storm” in the campaign and still managed to avoid the sort of landslide defeats experienced by Democrats like Walter Mondale and George McGovern. From this perspective, Karl Rove’s contention that the United States remains an essentially conservative nation may not be mere wishful thinking.
Similarly, in the aftermath of the election, many of Obama’s cabinet nominations and the comments he made about international affairs in general (and the Middle East in particular) suggested that he remained acutely aware of how close he came to being defeated by wild rumors about his identity and motives. It was telling that upon taking the oath of office on the same Bible that Abraham Lincoln had used, right-wing conspiracy mongers immediately claimed that the massive book was a Koran. Even if Obama had wanted to reprimand Israel for its incursion into Gaza, political prudence demanded that he move forward without paying the assault too much attention. Just as the nation’s financial crisis had limited his freedom of movement on domestic policy, Obama’s political autonomy had been sharply restricted by both the Israeli offensive and the Bush administration policies that had, in effect, inspired it.
It is important to be mindful of the fact that this quandary was not only the product of the Bush administration’s previous policies, but of a specific effort to put Obama on the spot. In his May 15, 2008, address to the Knesset in celebration of Israel’s sixtieth anniversary, Bush went out his way to develop the Republican Party line that the McCain-Palin ticket would later deploy in the fall:
Some seem to believe that we should negotiate with the terrorists and radicals, as if some ingenious argument will persuade them they have been wrong all along. We have heard this foolish delusion before. As Nazi tanks crossed into Poland in 1939, an American senator declared: “Lord, if only I could have talked to Hitler, all this might have been avoided.” We have an obligation to call this what it is—the false comfort of appeasement, which has been repeatedly discredited by history.
Although careful not to name Obama directly, Bush’s clear allusion to statements the candidate had made early in the Democratic primary season about being willing to talk with the leaders of countries like Iran and North Korea was powerfully reinforced by the example of that “American senator” who had so laughably underestimated Hitler. Obama responded accordingly, calling out the president for his veiled attack, only to have the Republican nominee, Senator John McCain, pick up Bush’s lead in response.
The problem was magnified by the fact that even after it had become clear that she couldn’t secure the Democratic nomination, Hillary Clinton kept reminding people about the demographics where she had polled far better than her opponent, including within the Jewish community. Thus, Obama had his work cut out for him when he addressed the annual meeting of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC), the most influential pro-Israel organization in the United States. Predictably, he went through the same motions as so many candidates before him, indicating that he was firmly committed to maintaining the special relationship between the United States and Israel, and would use military action to do so when necessary.
The speech was by most accounts very well received, despite the earlier skepticism circulating in the audience. But that didn’t prevent formerly Democratic Senator Joseph Lieberman—according to some accounts John McCain’s first pick for a running mate—from trying to steer anxious Jewish voters in the direction of the presumptive Republican presidential nominee. The point of contention was Obama’s forceful assertion that Bush administration policy in the Middle East had actually weakened Israel’s security:
I don’t think any of us can be satisfied that America’s recent foreign policy has made Israel more secure. Hamas now controls Gaza. Hezbollah has tightened its grip on southern Lebanon and is flexing its muscles in Beirut. Because of the war in Iraq, Iran—which always posed a greater threat to Israel than Iraq—is emboldened, and poses the greatest strategic challenge to the United States and Israel in the Middle East in a generation.
Rather than explore the possibility that Obama was sincerely articulating a new way for the United States to support Israel, Lieberman was content to echo the charge of appeasement that Bush had made to the Knesset. “Iran is a terrorist, expansionist state,” the Jewish Telegraphic Agency quoted Lieberman as saying, confirming that the political shorthand of the Republican Party line was still in sync with its Israeli counterpart. Interestingly, although the Jewish Telegraphic Agency’s story gave Lieberman’s point of view, it also provided enough content to refute it: