THE PROGRESSIVE CONSERVATIVE, USA
An Online Journal of Political Commentary & Analysis
Volume X, Issue # 136, June 5, 2008
Dr. Almon Leroy Way, Jr., Editor
Government Committed to & Acting in Accord with Conservative Principles
Ensures a Nation's Strength, Progress, & Prosperity
OBAMA VERSUS MCCAIN ON THE MIDDLE EAST
By Dr. Daniel Pipes
THE 2008 PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION & ISSUES OF U.S. FOREIGN POLICY REGARDING THE STATE OF ISRAEL & THE MIDDLE
EASTERN CONFLICT: THE DIFFERING APPROACHES OF JOHN MCCAIN & BARAK OBAMA
FULL STORY:
With the Democratic Party primaries over, American voters can focus on issues of political substance. For instance: How
do the two leading candidates for U.S. President differ in their approach to Israel and related topics? Parallel interviews
with journalist Jeffrey Goldberg of The Atlantic, who spoke in early May with Democrat Barack Obama and in late
May with Republican John McCain, offer some important insights.
Asked roughly the same set of questions, they went off in opposite directions. Obama used the interview to convince
readers of his pro-Israel and pro-Jewish bona fides. He thrice reiterated his support for Israel: "the idea of a secure Jewish
state is a fundamentally just idea, and a necessary idea"; "the need to preserve a Jewish state that is secure is … a just
idea and one that should be supported here in the United States and around the world"; and "You will not see, under my
Presidency, any slackening in commitment to Israel's security."
Obama then detailed his support within four specifically Jewish contexts.
Personal Development: "when I think about the Zionist idea,
I think about how my feelings about Israel were shaped as a young
man — as a child, in fact. I had a camp counselor when I was in sixth
grade who was Jewish-American, but who had spent time in Israel."
Political Career: "When I started organizing, the two fellow
organizers in Chicago were Jews, and I was attacked for associating
with them. So I've been in the foxhole with my Jewish friends."
Ideas: "I always joke that my intellectual formation was
through Jewish scholars and writers, even though I didn't know it at
the time. Whether it was theologians or Philip Roth who helped
shape my sensibility, or some of the more popular writers like Leon
Uris."
Philosophy: "My staff teases me sometimes about anguishing
over moral questions. I think I learned that partly from Jewish thought,
that your actions have consequences and that they matter and that we
have moral imperatives."
In contrast, McCain felt no need to establish his Zionism nor his pro-Jewish credentials. Taking them as a given, he used
his interview to raise practical policy issues, particularly the threat from Iran. For example, asked about the justness of
Zionism, he replied that "it's remarkable that Zionism has been in the middle of wars and great trials and it has held fast to
the ideals of democracy and social justice and human rights," then went on: "I think that the State of Israel remains under
significant threat from terrorist organizations, as well as the continued advocacy of the Iranians to wipe Israel off the map."
Again referring to Iran, McCain committed himself "to never allowing another Holocaust." He referred to the threatened
destruction of Israel as having "profound national security consequences" for the United States and he stressed that
Tehran sponsors terrorist organizations intent "on the destruction of the United States of America."
A second difference concerns the importance of the Arab-Israeli conflict. Obama presented it as an "open wound" and an
"open sore" that infects "all of our foreign policy." In particular, he said, its lack of resolution "provides an excuse for
anti-American militant jihadists to engage in inexcusable actions." Asked about Obama's statement, McCain slammed the
idea that radical Islam results mainly from the Arab-Israeli confrontation: "I don't think the conflict is a sore. I think it's a
national security challenge." Were the Israeli-Palestinian issue resolved tomorrow, he pointedly continued, "we would
still face the enormous threat of radical Islamic extremism."
Finally, the two disagree on the import of Israelis continuing to live on the West Bank. Obama placed great emphasis on
the topic, commenting that, if their numbers continue to grow, "we're going to be stuck in the same status quo that we've
been stuck in for decades now." McCain acknowledged this as a major issue, but quickly changed the topic to the Hamas
campaign of shelling Sderot, the besieged Israeli town that he personally visited in March, and whose predicament he
explicitly compares to the mainland United States coming under attack from one of its borders.
Goldberg's twin interviews underscore two facts. First, major-party candidates for the U.S. Presidency must still pay
homage to warm American ties to Israel, no matter how, as in Obama's case, dramatically this may contradict their
previously-held views. Second, whereas McCain is secure on the topic, Obama worries about winning the pro-Israel vote.
© Daniel Pipes 2008
Originally Published in the Jerusalem Post, June 5, 2008
Republished with the Permission of Daniel Pipes
Reprinted from the Daniel Pipes Mailing List, June 5, 2008
Article URL: http://www.danielpipes.org/article/5567
LINKS TO RELATED TOPICS:
Israel & the Arabs -- The Israeli-Arab Conflict
Middle East -- Arabs, Arab States,
& Their Middle Eastern Neighbors
American Foreign Policy -- The Middle East
Islamism & Jihadism -- Radical Islam & Islamic Terrorism
Page Three
Page Two
Page One
International Politics & World Disorder:
War & Peace in the Real World
Page Two
Page One
Islamist Terrorist Attacks on the U.S.A.
Osama bin Laden & the Islamist Declaration of War
Against the U.S.A. & Western Civilization
Islamist International Terrorism &
U.S. Intelligence Agencies
U.S. National Security Strategy
Dr. Daniel Pipes, a Ph.D. in Islamic History (Harvard University, 1978), is the Founder and Director of the Middle East Forum,
the Founder of Campus Watch, a signatory of the Project for the New American Century, a former board member of the U.S.
Institute of Peace, a former adjunct scholar at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, a Golden Circle supporter of the
U.S. Committee for a Free Lebanon, a former member of the U.S. Department of Defense Special Task Force on Terrorism and
Technology, and a former lecturer at the U.S. Naval War College, Harvard University, the University of Chicago, and the
University of Pennsylvania. Dr. Pipes was the Director of the Foreign Policy Research Institute from 1986 to 1993.
Author or co-author of eighteen books, Dr. Pipes is a regular columnist for Front Page Magazine, the New York
Sun, and the Jerusalem Post. His analyses of world trends and of forces and developments in the Middle East
have appeared in numerous North American newspapers, including the Washington Post, the New York Times,
and the Wall Street Journal. He frequently appears on American network television, as well as at universities and
think tanks, to discuss the Middle East, Islam, and the Islamist threat to the U.S.A. and the West. He also has appeared on
BBC and Al Jazeera, and has lectured in approximately twenty-five countries.
Dr. Pipes is a Polish-American Jew whose parents fled Poland in 1939, immigrated to the U.S.A., and assimilated well into
American society and culture. His father is Richard Pipes, an American historian specializing in Russian and Soviet history
and serving as Professor of History at Harvard University from 1950 until his retirement in 1996. During the Cold War, the
worldview of Richard Pipes was strongly anti-Soviet and anti-Communist.
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Dr. Almon Leroy Way, Jr., Editor
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