Rhetoric versus reality

Editorial

The U.S. Republican and Democratic conventions have ended and the parties have nominated their respective candidates for president. The campaign, which seems to have been continuing for four years, now begins in earnest. The conventions, tightly scripted though they were, nonetheless delivered some unexpected drama.

At the Republican convention, actor Clint Eastwood spoke to a chair set out for an imaginary Obama. At the Democratic convention, drama ensued around the elimination from that party’s 2008 platform of a statement recognizing Jerusalem as the capital of Israel. After public pressure, the convention was moved to reinstate the acknowledgment, resulting in a bizarre demonstration on the floor at which a large proportion expressed disapproval. Regardless, the Jerusalem clause was reinstated.

If the Republican convention was criticized for having a warmongering edge, the Democratic convention, and the Democratic President Barack Obama, have been criticized for being inadequately expressive of their support for the state of Israel.

Backers of the president point to tangible areas of bilateral support, such as financial aid for the Iron Dome anti-rocket defence system and additional military financial assistance to Israel. Obama has enlisted European powers in an American-led sanctions program again the Iranian regime and has directed the American military to develop plans for addressing Iranian nuclear potential militarily. Supporters of Obama also note that it was his administration that effectively prevented the Palestinian effort to skip negotiations and attain recognition as a United Nations member state.

Critics of the president cite such things as Obama’s failure to visit Israel as president. This is a significant symbolic oversight but does not probably represent a substantive break with American support for that country. And, the hawkish rhetoric from the Republican candidate is undermined by the reality that his Republican predecessor, George W. Bush, enlisted the United States in avoidable and almost interminable wars that have made that country’s ability to respond to existential threats like Iranian nuclear capability more difficult by far.

Obama’s apparent preference for diplomacy and sanctions over war has led Israel’s Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu to wonder aloud where the Americans will draw the “red line” on Iran’s march to nuclear power. War may seem like the short-range solution to a very real problem, but diplomacy has the potential to avert immediate violence that could devastate both Iran and Israel. A military, rather than a diplomatic resolution to the Iranian nuclear challenge – whatever its outcome – could also set off a regional arms race based on the perception that force of arms, not moral suasion, was the only thing that would determine a nation’s ability to advance to the nuclear club.

Obama has repeatedly insisted that his administration would not allow Iran to become a nuclear power. The concern of his critics has less to do with good intentions than with the unintended consequences of waiting. The very real – and very scary – aspect of the waiting game the United States is promoting is that, at a certain point, Israel’s military capability to deal with the threat – even the Americans’ ability to do so – will pass as the Iranian program progresses. Among the difficulties here is that no one seems to know exactly when that point will be reached. Even then, experts differ on whether a military action could definitively end the Iranian nuclear program.

This is not a pleasant matter. The outcome could be catastrophic for the Jewish people and the world. It is right that this should be a central issue in the election campaign in the world’s biggest superpower. This does not mean, though, that the approach taken by the campaigns on this issue, as on so many, represents the best in public discourse.

Jewish voters, who overwhelmingly supported Obama in 2008, appear, according to polls, only slightly less enthusiastic this year. Is this a symptom of American Jewish lack of support for Israel? Almost certainly not. It is probably more a recognition that elections are a time of enhanced rhetoric that does not always reflect reality.

The differences between the two 2012 contenders on this issue, it seems, are more related to talk than walk. Both parties, as represented by their congressional delegations and presidential nominees, express unequivocal support for Israel’s permanent security. American Jewish voters will need to make their choices based on the full smorgasbord of policy issues being raised in this campaign. Unlike the issue of American support for Israel, the range of other topics on which the candidates truly disagree reflects a genuine divergence in ideology.

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