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January 21, 2000/7 Shevat 5760, Vol. 52, No.20
The Ides of March: Buchanan's voice bodes ill for Israel
DAVID TWERSKY
New Jersey Jewish News
If Pat Buchanan is right, the media will start paying attention to his presidential campaign in mid-March. As Buchanan laid it out at a New Jersey rally in support of his presidential bid recently, the two big parties should be effectively finished nominating their presidential candidates by the beginning of March, with California and the "Solid South" putting the leading contenders, Al Gore and George W. Bush, over the top.
With Bill Bradley and John McCain, the two candidates the media has found most attractive, out of the race, the media will "look out the window and see that old troll is still on the bridge." Guess who's the troll? You don't have to agree with Buchanan on anything to agree with him on this. Neither Bush nor Gore is a particularly compelling campaigner. The assumptions they hold in common about foreign policy, globalization and free trade dwarf their differences.
So far, the Reform Party is being kept out of the televised presidential debates. Of one thing we are sure - if Buchanan gets the Reform Party nomination (supporters were carrying "Dump Trump" signs at a recent rally), he'll find a way to be heard next fall.
That should worry voters lulled by a seemingly endless prosperity into thinking there's no one left who wants to shake things up. Buchanan was at the Battle of Seattle, railing against the World Trade Organization. Anti-WTO sentiment forged an unusual red-green-brown coalition including economic nationalists like Buchanan, trade union social democrats and the Luddite environmentalists. Buchanan wants to ride - and define - the wave of discontent that rose up and befuddled leaders of the two large parties, including the American president and vice president and the governor of Texas.
The AFL-CIO is backing Gore, but a whiff of the brown-red coalition can be seen in the alliance between Buchanan and Lenora Fulani, a leader of radical left cults who has resurfaced as a Reform Party power broker.
Anti-globalism - "America First trade policy" - is one part of Buchanan's new nationalist agenda. He's also for a Fortress America foreign policy that neatly dovetails with what remains of the left's opposition to the dispatch of American troops abroad. (Buchanan said the Kosovo war was "an illegal, unconstitutional" war to stop a genocide no one has been able to prove, victimizing the Serbs, "who never did anything against this country.")
Buchanan has said he "wants to see a deal" between Syria and Israel but at the same time opposes any United States financial support as part of the final package. "I've seen figures showing they want $18 billion to pay for moving 17,000 settlers off the Golan Heights ... I oppose it flatly," he says. Israel is seeking U.S. assistance to acquire a significant military and technological edge to offset the loss of the Heights, not to pay settlers $1 million a head. But don't bother Pat with details.
Buchanan is also for a complete moratorium on immigration and an aggressive halt to illegal immigration. Now, it's hard to argue for illegal immigration, but it's what Buchanan didn't say that got us worried. When Buchanan was asked by one of his supporters last week whether, as president, he would repeal the 1965 immigration act threatening the "European character" of this country, he simply co-opted the wave. He called for a "time out" on immigration and a vigorous "defense of our borders."
Immigration threatening America's "European character" is code for white Christians who feel threatened by the diverse, multicultural society America has become. Those feeling threatened include (but are not limited to) the white racist right. Buchanan is too smart not to understand the significance of how the question was phrased. What he should have said was, "I'm for a moratorium on immigration, but I want to emphasize that all Americans, regardless of their racial, ethnic or religious backgrounds, are part of the American family and the American future."
Remember Barry Goldwater's 1964 speech accepting the GOP nomination for president at San Francisco's Cow Palace? After some of his more passionate (and intolerant) supporters booed Nelson Rockefeller off the stage, Goldwater opened his campaign up to the farthest reaches of the political right.
"Extremism in the defense of liberty is no vice," Goldwater famously said. "And ... moderation in the pursuit of justice is no virtue."
Pat Buchanan won't win the 2000 presidential election, but in a three-way race with Bush and Gore, he'll get to air his views. President Clinton already faces serious problems as candidates get bolder, taking potshots at his policies. Pro-Israel conservatives in the GOP primary field are going after the Golan deal with Syria on the grounds that they love Israel and hate Syria. Buchanan is going after it on the grounds that he doesn't want to give any more support to Israel. Because we think his views will poison the political atmosphere, we're wary of the Ides of March.
David Twersky is editor-in-chief of the New Jersey Jewish News.
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