The Israel Factor

The Israeli newspaper Haaretz has been running a feature called the Israel Factor for about a year where it ranks the various US presidential candidates according to how friendly they are towards Israel. Every month a panel of eight experts from across the political spectrum answers a few questions and then ranks each of the candidates out of 10. My issue with this exercise isn't that Israelis are assuming that Americans care about how Israelis feel about American politics. Given the relationship between the two countries it is only natural that Israel has a vested interest in the American election. Furthermore, the feature has additional relevance for the 100,000 American voters living in Israel. While I would hope they base their votes on a number of issues, I'm sure the vast majority base it almost entirely on the candidates’ policies towards Israel. This is only natural given the environment in which they live.

My issue is that "friendly towards Israel" is basically narrowly defined as being in favour of Israel's unambiguous and unconditional right to military action. Despite explanations for how they balance their panel and questions it is clear that the poll is basically a referendum on who unilaterally supports Israel's right to defend itself from perceived threats and who wants to limit it or place conditions on it. One only needs to read through the surveys, or even just look at the final rankings, to see how that plays out. This narrow definition of "friendly towards Israel" is what I take issue with. That’s one way to define the term, but others might consider committing more effort and resources to diplomatic talks between key actors in the Middle East; limiting Israeli defence tactics in an effort to avoid further angering Palestinian factions; further engaging the political wing on Hamas due to its popular support among the electorate; trying to improve the socioeconomic standing of Arabs in Israel or any number of different scenarios that one feels might eventually lead to peace in the Middle East as being policies that are “friendly towards Israel.”

Those who are Israel's strongest supporters, among some of the more notable names, include Rudy Giuliani (the clearly favoured candidate), Mike Bloomberg, Hillary Clinton and Fred Thompson. Those faring less well, but still with strong support for Israel, include Mitt Romney, John Edwards, Barak Obama and, the winner of the big second place finish in the otherwise meaningless Iowa Republican straw poll, Mike Huckabee.

My only question, not asked in jest, is where's Dennis Kucinich and where would he rank?