WarSclerotic

In the last few days, Yedioth Ahronoth, until recently the country’s highest-circulation daily newspaper, has disclosed that officials in the administration of U.S. President Barack Obama reached out to the government of Iran through two European countries to communicate that the U.S. had no intention of participating in any attack on Iran that might be launched by Israel. Washington’s message also indicated that as a result of the U.S. staying on the sidelines, Iran had no reason to respond militarily against U.S. assets in the region following an attack by Israel, and that the U.S. did not want to be drawn into a conflict between the two countries.

This news story followed an extraordinary comment by the U.S. Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. Martin Dempsey, that the U.S. would not be “complicit” in any attack by Israel against Iran. Complicit is a word that suggests participation in a crime of some sort, and for the Obama administration, an Israeli strike against Iran’s nuclear facilities, especially one that took place before Election Day, November 6, would very likely be viewed as a serious crime against the Obama re-election campaign’s carefully crafted narrative of Obama the peacemaker, the president who brought the troops home. Hence the two-step narrative: Tell Israel to do nothing about Iran, but for insurance, tell Iran we will have no part in anything Israel might attempt — that Israel is on its own.

So much for the oft-repeated narrative that Obama has Israel’s back. Only a fool (or an Obama supporter reading from talking points) could argue at this point that sanctions, with all the waivers already granted by the administration, will bring the Iranians to their knees and force them to give up or suspend their nuclear program. Even less persuasive is the argument that diplomacy still needs more time to run its course.

The president’s foreign policy story in the campaign is a simple one: He ended the Iraq war, killed Bin Laden (and please give the president all or most of the credit for this), and he is beginning the disengagement from Afghanistan. Israel is an inconvenient subtext to this story.

Jews gave a large majority of their votes to Obama in 2008 (78 percent according to exit polls), believing (despite plenty of evidence to the contrary) that Obama was a longtime strong supporter of Israel. Most Jews did not vote for Obama in 2008 because of his alleged love for Israel, but because Jewish Americans above all are committed liberals, and Obama was the most liberal of the candidates — both in the primary against Hillary Clinton and in the general election against John McCain. Israel is an issue in the voting decision for most American Jews only to the extent that the Democratic candidate can climb over a very low bar that has been established to demonstrate a candidate’s support for the U.S.-Israel relationship. That bar includes voting for foreign aid, publicly vowing one’s support for Israel and its security, committing oneself to working for peace and a two-state solution, and revealing a list of prominent (meaning wealthy) Jewish supporters (proving lack of guilt of being hostile to Israel by positive association).

For several years, Obama has been criticized by many on the Right, including the Republican Jewish Coalition, for having abandoned the traditional strong ties between the two countries. Obama’s personal relationship with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has been chilly on the warmest days. Obama has argued at meetings with leaders of major Jewish organizations that he has deliberately created space between the U.S. and Israel, since the close ties during the Bush years did not bring peace with the Palestinians. Many fear that in a second term, with no need to raise any more money for his campaign in the Jewish community, and no need to secure Jewish votes, Obama would show his true colors with regard to Israel. As Daniel Pipes summarizes in this situation:

“When one puts this in the context of what Obama said off-mic to then Russian President Dmitry Medvedev in March 2012 (‘This is my last election. And after my election, I have more flexibility’), and in the context of Obama’s publicly displayed dislike for Netanyahu (as in this photo from 2008, in which he points a finger at the prime minister), it would be wise to assume that, if Obama wins on November 6, things will ‘calm down’ for him and he finally can ‘be more up-front’ about so-called Palestine. Then Israel’s troubles will really begin.”

On Tuesday, the Democratic National Convention began in Charlotte, North Carolina, with a tutorial for Jewish advocates on how to make the case that Obama is still a great friend of Israel, and has worked “tirelessly” to protect Israel’s security. Clearly, there is concern that some of that Jewish support from 2008 is ebbing away, as it has among almost every other group in America, mainly due to the very weak economic recovery and high unemployment levels. But Israel is a specific additional concern, since it could enable Mitt Romney to peel off some traditional liberal Jewish voters, threatening the president’s chances in some key battleground states, starting with Florida. Not surprisingly, after going through the checklist of all the good things Obama has done for Israel, the Jewish Obama advocates were encouraged on Tuesday to change the subject when making the case for the president’s re-election to things that really resonate with liberal Jews — abortion rights, separation of church and state, Obamacare, gay rights, taxing the rich, helping the poor, and perhaps a second helping of abortion rights.

The task of the Obama Jewish advocates did not become any easier due to two late developments. At the tutorial, Congresswoman Debbie Wasserman Schultz, the head of the Democratic National Committee, stated that Israel’s Ambassador to the United States, Michael Oren, had told her that Republican criticism of Obama was dangerous to Israel. It did not take long for Oren to make a categorical denial of the claim, suggesting that Wasserman Schultz had invented the story, as she has many other things this election season. “I categorically deny that I ever characterized Republican policies as harmful to Israel. Bipartisan support is a paramount national interest for Israel, and we have great friends on both sides of the aisle.”

Even worse, the Democratic National Committee’s platform on Israel was released, and even the staunch liberal Harvard Law Professor Alan Dershowitz was taken aback with all the changes and retreats from positions the party had adopted at previous conventions, calling them deeply troubling. The platform seemed to read more like one that could have been written by J Street, rather than supporters of the U.S.-Israel relationship.

“I think one shouldn’t give too much weight to platform pronouncements, but in this case, I think the omissions are troubling — particularly the omission about the Palestinian refugee issue and Hamas are, I think, deeply troubling,” Dershowitz told The Daily Caller, responding to a report in the Washington Free Beacon demonstrating how this year’s Democratic Party platform is not as pro-Israel as in years past.”

So too, on the issue of Jerusalem, this year’s Democratic platform does not explicitly state that the city is the capital of Israel, while in past platforms it was explicitly stated. Since administration officials have now refused to acknowledge that any part of Jerusalem is Israel’s capital, the retreat on this issue is not surprising.

With the administration’s top officials running to Iran, and distancing themselves from Israel, and with a platform that will be hard to defend to pro-Israel supporters, Jewish voters should expect to hear a lot about abortion, contraception and women’s rights in the next two months.