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**LoP Guest** lop guest User ID: 68210 12-16-2011 06:55 PM

This is seriously great coverage from Chemi Shalev at Haaretz. A complete no brainer but you won't hear this in the NYT. And that Ron Paul graphic? It's smack dab in the middle of the article when you click on the Haaretz link. Ha!

Israel has never been so prominent in any presidential race. It never served as such a "wedge issue." And it never received such sweeping and unequivocal support - especially for its right flank.

The statement made by the current front-runner, Newt Gingrich, about the Palestinians being "an invented nation" is only the most recent in a string of policy statements that, in Israeli terms, would position the Republican candidates - with the exception of Ron Paul - somewhere in the Knesset's radical right, between the Likud's Danny Danon and National Union's Aryeh Eldad. Michele Bachmann says Israel shouldn't give back one more inch of territory; Rick Perry says Israel can build settlements to its heart's content; Rick Santorum has already annexed the West Bank to Israel proper; Jon Huntsman claims that Israel is the only American interest in the Middle East; and Mitt Romney thinks the United States should keep its mouth shut on the peace process and surrender the floor to his good friend "Bibi" Netanyahu. Oh, and they all promise to move the American Embassy to Jerusalem, at once.

Ordinary Americans are bound to wonder about the sway this distant country holds over American politics and about the motives of the Jews that support it. The unusually prominent place given to Israel - often at the expense of pressing domestic issues such as education, crime and poverty, as well as significant foreign policy issues such as Russia, China, the Eurozone crisis and the Arab Spring - is, one must admit, often surreal.

http://mondoweiss.net/2011/12/haaretz-ha...n-u-s.html

**LoP Guest** lop guest User ID: 68210 12-16-2011 06:57 PM

LoP Guest Wrote:

This is seriously great coverage from Chemi Shalev at Haaretz.

U.S. love for Israel comes with a price

The Republican's unconditional support for Israel is undoubtedly gratifying for many Jewish voters, but in the long run, it could do more harm than good.

The race for the Republican presidential nomination will formally be launched in Iowa in three weeks. But from an Israeli point of view, it can already be described as a watershed event. Israel has never been so prominent in any presidential race. It never served as such a "wedge issue." And it never received such sweeping and unequivocal support - especially for its right flank.

The statement made by the current front-runner, Newt Gingrich, about the Palestinians being "an invented nation" is only the most recent in a string of policy statements that, in Israeli terms, would position the Republican candidates - with the exception of Ron Paul - somewhere in the Knesset's radical right, between the Likud's Danny Danon and National Union's Aryeh Eldad. Michele Bachmann says Israel shouldn't give back one more inch of territory; Rick Perry says Israel can build settlements to its heart's content; Rick Santorum has already annexed the West Bank to Israel proper; Jon Huntsman claims that Israel is the only American interest in the Middle East; and Mitt Romney thinks the United States should keep its mouth shut on the peace process and surrender the floor to his good friend "Bibi" Netanyahu. Oh, and they all promise to move the American Embassy to Jerusalem, at once.........

http://mondoweiss.net/2011/12/haaretz-ha...n-u-s.html