Democrats' Arab Appeasement Lays An Egg

The Democratic Party and its Jewish Constituency Ignore Islamic Bigotry

by James A. Bridge

From ad-Dustur, Jordan, July 22, 2008 (from ADL's website), July

Blogger Ted Belman of Israpundit in his recent post points out that American Jews are likely to vote along party lines in the coming 2008 Presidential election. He says, "(t)hus, for them, party loyalty is preferable to Israel loyalty."

The numbers say that roughly 60+ percent of America's 8 million Jews will vote Democrat, while 30+ percent will vote Republican. This breakdown is hard to believe, given the historical facts of two things:

1. the Democratic Party has been the party of unilateral Arab/Muslim appeasement and inclusion;

2. the Arab/Muslim world is so thoroughly anti-Semitic, that any meaningful peace between Israel and its almost 6 million Jews and the billion or so Muslims in their extended neighborhood between Africa and Indonesia cannot reasonably be seen as a possibility without confronting it.

The facts and history here are troubling. The Council for American Islamic Relations (CAIR) has been linked to terror funding. The FBI named CAIR in the Texas Holy Land Funding mistrial as as "unindicted co-conspirator". CAIR's very leadership founded Hamas, yet this clearly suspicious organization has been embraced and lauded by Democratic Pennsylvania Governor Ed Rendell and Congressman Joe Sestak (D-7th, PA) at a April, 2007 CAIR fundraiser (<=click for Washington Times article), by Democratic Ohio Governor at yet another CAIR fundraiser in June of 2007, reported by NewsBusters but ignored by Ohio's newspapers. CAIR not only ran Keith Ellison's (D-5th, MN) successful Congressional campaign through strategic marketing CAIR-PA staffer Adeeba al-Zaman (reported in an American's Against Hate 2007 blog), but CAIR foot-soldiers are constantly used by Congressman Joe Sestak (D-7th, PA) to hand out his literature throughout his district, by his own admission.

How deep is CAIR's penetration of the Democratic Party? CAIR scores big with Democrats. On CAIR's own comments page , 36 of 39 Federal elected officials and governors listed are Democrats.

Given former President Jimmy Carter's antipathy toward Jews and the state of Israel vis-a-vis Arab/Muslim interest, the fact that Islamic focus groups like CAIR, with its lineage of terror and anti-Semitic hate and violence run to Democrats is no surprise.

(Cartoon right: al-Watan, June 11, 2008, Saudi Arabia)

But why do Democrats abide them in their midst? And why are the Jews of the Democratic Party not directly confronting the anti-Semitic/anti-Israeli sentiments of these Muslim/Arab groups that curry their support?

CAIR's own webite calls the state of Israel "a brutal occupation" of Palestine, and urges Israel's removal--but not with violence. "Illegitimate and counterproductive tactics must not be used in the legitimate struggle to end Israel’s brutal occupation.” How you remove Israel without violence is the conundrum within the statement, but not important. Getting rid of Israel is their declared intent, and is the declared intent of the entire Islamic world, save for Egypt and Jordan, both of whom have recognized Israel.

Arab/Muslim media run regular political cartoons of Jew-hating and Jew-bashing. From al-Quds, Palestinian Authority, titled, "Obama's View":

Thanks for these images to the Anti-Defamation League. But their work to protect the world's Jews from another Holocaust goes on as if in the vacuum of outer space. This image of Barack Obama coming out of the back of Israel's pants is clearly what many "educated" Arabs and Muslims believe. This political expression of religious hatred from what is a Palestinian Intelligencia should ring alarm bells in every Democrat's head, let alone in every Jewish Democrat's heart.

But these alarm bells, if heard, are ignored.

These are disturbing yet revealing images of today's Arab and Muslim world. For as Arab vie for the full attention of a America's great Democratic Party when it comes to the Middle East (read: Israel)--and they have accomplished this feat, clearly--Arabs and Muslims essentially, demonstrably, detest Jews and the idea of Israel. As stated above, the Democratic Party embraces CAIR, attends its fundraisers, uses its labor--all without questioning the clear anti-Semitism that permeates the Islamic Media and must even have expression on CAIR's own website in declaring as a legitimate aim the destruction of Israel.

The Democratic Party, and its constituent Jews, must confront this basic, frighteningly pervasion of Arab and Muslim hatred of Jews and Israel. Nearly half of all Democrats support Arabs over Israel, according to a Daniel Pipes 2006 study, while nearly 75% of Republicans support Israel. Republicans seem willing to hold Arabs and Muslims accountable for their Holocaust talk and anti-Semitic diatribe. It is time for the Democratic Party to do the same. Democrats must recognize their folly in working for Arab and Muslim causes without at once demanding an end to this anti-Semitic rhetoric, and then actually stopping it. Tolerating it and ignoring it any longer is akin of itself to Holocaust denial.

(from www.amin.org, a purveyor of cartoons for Arab media)