|
|
September 19, 2003/Elul 22 5763, Vol. 55, No. 56
Israel a factor for candidates
RON KAMPEAS
Jewish Telegraphic Agency
WASHINGTON - Political bloodletting in the lead-up to the Democratic presidential primaries was inevitable with so many candidates vying for attention.
And the Middle East - a minefield of sensitivity and scrutiny - was a likely forum for it to start.
The Howard Dean-Joseph Lieberman dustup may have died down since last week, but expect more of the same, say veteran Democrats and political analysts.
"You're seeing the beginnings of the gloves coming off on the Democratic side - nine people are vying for a majority of 4,600 delegates," said Mark Wrighton, an expert on Democratic Party politics at the University of New Hampshire.
"They will be competing on the edges for those delegates and will have to distinguish each other on a number of topics - the Mideast is one."
Lieberman seized his opportunity when a reporter overheard Dean's comment to a supporter at a Santa Fe, N.M., rally. "I don't find it convenient to blame people. Nobody should have violence, ever. But they do, and it's not our place to take sides," Dean said.
Lieberman was soon chiding Dean at a debate.
"Howard Dean's statements break a 50-year record in which presidents, Republican and Democratic, members of Congress of both parties, have supported our relationship with Israel, based on shared values," he said.
Attacking Dean on Israel made sense for Lieberman, Wrighton said, because it's an issue with which the Jewish senator from Connecticut is comfortable.
Another factor was Dean's front-runner status: Any perceived slip becomes irre-sistible fodder for the other candidates.
Other candidates also weighed in on the debate, while some in Congress criticized Dean's calls for an "even-handed" approach to the Middle East.
"If the President were to make a remark such as this it would throw an already volatile region into even more turmoil," said Sen. John Kerry (D-Mass.)
Supporters in Congress of another candidate, Rep. Richard Gephardt of Missouri wrote Dean a letter, saying: "We believe it is wrong to say the U.S. should 'not take sides' in the Israeli-Palestinian dis-pute."
Speaking to a CNN interviewer last week, Dean accused his political rivals of "demagoguery" and said, "What Joe and others are doing on Israel is despicable," singling out Lieberman.
"The mistakes that the governor made last week were only mistakes of words, not of conscience," Dean's spokesman, Eric Schmelzer, told JTA.
|
