In the grand tradition of the early-bird special,
Florida voters are already taking to the polls. And, in the grand tradition of
the 2000 presidential election, Floridian elections officials are already
encountering problems, both technical and political. And with Pat Buchanan is no
longer running for President, many Florida Jews are having a difficult time
deciding which candidate best represents their views. As election day comes, the
spotlight on Florida will only grow brighter.
Bush and Kerry are both fighting for the votes of the 700,000 Jews in Florida,
votes that can have monumental impact in this hotly contested swing state.
Democrats have assembled a Jewish all-star team consisting of Chuck Schumer,
Alan Dershowitz, and Joe Lieberman to back Kerry in Florida. The Republicans,
however, have dropped James Baker’s slogan of “Fuck the Jews, they don’t vote
for us anyway,” and are aggressively campaigning in the state, deploying the
Cult of Giuliani and the more nebbishy Cult of Koch in a bid for elderly Jewish
voters.
Though Bush received less than 20% of the Jewish vote in 2000, many are
predicting that he will win more Jewish support this time around due to his
close relationship with Ariel Sharon and the perception that he is a better
“friend of Israel” than Kerry. Bush has managed to hold onto this reputation
despite Kerry’s consistent record of supporting Israel in the Senate, not to
mention the interesting fact that his brother, Cameron, is a Jewish convert.
If Kerry has a perfect pro-Israel record, what does it mean that Bush is a
“better friend of Israel”? Maybe it means that he is more eager to spread
empire, more eager to invade Arab nations and force Americanization. But Bush
has united the Arab world in hatred of America. According to the Institute for
Strategic Studies in London, over 18,000 potential terrorists are at large and
recruitment has skyrocketed because of American policy. And Bush is a better
friend of Israel? Many thousands of Iraqi civilians have been killed by this
administration with an untold number of child victims. UNICEF’s mid-October
report cites that Iraq’s mortality rate for children under five, which increased
more than any country in the world since 1990, continues to increase, despite
toppled Saddam statues, the import of miniature American flags, and tales of
progress from our leaders. Maybe these lives don’t matter because they are not
American or Israeli. In that case, one might consider the more than 1,100
Americans killed in battle, sent to Iraq because of phantom weapons of mass
destruction, mobile chemical labs, and nuclear facilities - sent to Iraq and
endangered because of massive intelligence failures that foresaw our servicemen
being greeted as liberators, but said nothing of a brutal insurgency.
Let’s be honest. Bush is not a “better friend of Israel,” he is a better friend
of corporations, of neoconservative hawkish ideology, and of international
hegemony. This is a war of propaganda, doublespeak, and lies. Only on rare
occasions does a bit of truth escape, either in the form of whistleblowers like
Richard Clarke and Paul O’Neill, or in the verbal slips of those within the Bush
administration. Such is the case of Lieutenant General William Boykin, who was
just reprimanded by the Army for giving speeches in which he described the war
as a “Christian war” against “Satan.” This is reminiscent of when Bush first
described the military action in Afghanistan as a “crusade.” Does this eagerness
to engage in a clash of civilizations make Israel feel safer?
If we found out that a group of people was responsible for originally training
and arming the Taliban, for uniting the Arab world and much of the non-Arab
world in anti-American and anti-Israeli sentiment, for allowing Osama bin Laden
to escape, and for allowing the recruitment of barbaric terrorist organizations
– there are many things that I’m sure we’d like to do to that group. One of
those things should not be voting for their re-election.