On Thursday May 10 Siegal College hosted a series of
programs featuring Professor Robert Watson, a scholar of presidential history,
director of the American Studies program at Lynn University, political
commentator and columnist, and a frequent speaker at adult education venues
throughout South Florida. Watson capped
off a full day of adult learning activities with the Siegal-Schneider
Memorial Lecture discussing Harry
Truman’s tremendous courage and decisive personal role in the creation of the
state of Israel in 1948. As Watson put
it, Truman’s commitment to the Zionist cause was not politically motivated in
any way, indeed it almost destroyed his political career, but rather President
Truman acted on the basis of his own personal moral compass, ultimately
supporting Israeli statehood simply because, “it was the right thing to
do.” During the Question and Answer
session at each of his presentations during the day, Watson was frequently
asked to assess the current US relationship with Israel and to think about its
implications for the future. Watson was
adamant that support for Israel is and should remain strongly bi-partisan, with
the Jewish State having been well served by champions in the White House from
both parties and different ideological convictions – giving the examples of the
liberal Democrat Lyndon Johnson and conservative Republican Ronald Reagan
demonstrating strong backing for Israel.
Looking at recent presidents, Watson noted that Bill Clinton, George W.
Bush, and Barack Obama all score highly on the 10-point matrix he uses to
assess presidential support for Israel.
And while all of the presidents have made some mistakes in their Israel
policies, on balance only Jimmy Carter (largely in his post-Presidential
period) and George H.W. Bush could be characterized as having been in any way
bad for Israel – and even in those two administrations the United States still
served as Israel’s primary source of international support. What Watson fears as being tremendously
threatening to Israel are increasing attempts to politicize the notion of
support for Israel in partisan fashion, and the rhetoric and rancor of social
media and talk radio that seeks to turn support for Israel into a wedge issue,
even though it clearly has bi-partisan support as can be seen in congressional
voting records. A United States public
that is currently both politically divided in general and economically
challenged already weakens our country’s ability to be as strong an ally for
Israel as we could be – a situation that would grow much worse should support
for Israel somehow truly become a divisive issue. And even though historically the US supports
Israel in bi-partisan fashion, Watson, who is not Jewish, does value the
continued vigilance of the American Jewish community and its ability to lobby
Washington effectively in order to maintain the close bond between the two
countries, regardless of who occupies the White House or the Prime Minister’s
office.
Watson's comments allow for some extrapolation. This concept of de-politicizing U.S. support for Israel, or at least recognizing the broad bi-partisan support that already exists need not be limited to this specific issue - indeed with respect to most of the issues that populate the political landscape, most are at least conceptually non-partisan. Certain social issues notwithstanding - the gay marriage/marriage equality issue for example, typically divisions revolve around specific tactics and strategies, and not on the substance of the issues at hand. In truth history's lesson in this regard is not entirely clear, because as long as the country has maintained a two-party system (which is basically its entire history) the parties have need to demonstrate their disinction from one another, especially during presidential election cycles, by highlighting the differences rather than the similarities. So as much as one might like to harken back to a blissful era of non-partisanship, one could easily argue that the very notion is a fallacy. On the other hand, clearly one can identify a difference between the reality of ideological and strategic distinctiveness and the seeming unwillingness of the players to work in tandem to bridge the partisan divide. Certainly the defeat of Senator Dick Lugar in the recent Republican primary and Senatory Olympia Snowe's decision not to seek re-election suggest that the practical implications of the partisan divide are more divisive than they had once been.
Examining the very real bi-partisan support of Israel that exists on capitol hill may be instructive in demonstrating how our system attempts to create divisions, even where none really exist.
