The (anti-)Israel House Lobby

Last week, the House overwhelmingly approved a resolution addressing the situation in Gaza. In the nine-part measure, the House recognized Israel’s “right to act in self-defense to protect its citizens against Hamas's unceasing aggression”; encouraged “the Administration to work actively to support a durable and sustainable cease-fire in Gaza,” including urging Egypt to prevent arms smuggling into the Gaza; reiterated “that humanitarian needs in Gaza should be addressed promptly and responsibly; called for Hamas to release kidnapped Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit; and expressed “its strong support for . . . the welfare, security, and survival of the State of Israel as a Jewish and democratic state with secure borders, and a viable, independent, and democratic Palestinian state living side by side in peace and security with the State of Israel.”

As normally occurs in such symbolic resolutions, the legislation’s text was abstract enough to make the measure almost impossible not to support. It therefore was striking to see five members vote against the resolution, and 22 others abstain.

The five negative votes included the three most extreme members of the House—Democrats Dennis Kucinich and Maxine Waters, Republican Ron Paul—plus Nick Rahall, a West Virginia congressman of Lebanese descent not known for his pro-Israel views; and Milwaukee congresswoman Gwen Moore. The 22 abstentions (all Democrats) tilted heavily toward the left wing of the party’s caucus, with two exceptions: James Moran, the Virginia congressman notorious for wild statements about the Israel lobby; and Michigan congressman John Dingell, whose district contains a good portion of Michigan’s Arab-American population.

The anti-Israel bloc drew disproportionately from two groups. Although Speaker Pelosi strongly supported the resolution, abstentions came from five other Northern California Democrats—Pete Stark, Sam Farr, Barbara Lee, George Miller, and Lynn Woolsey. And of the anti-Israel bloc’s 27 members, one-third (Waters, Moore, Lee, Donna Edwards, Keith Ellison, Hank Johnson, Carolyn Kilpatrick, Donald Payne, and Diane Watson) are African-American.

The latter figure was an especially troubling aspect of the vote. In the 1980s, the affinity for the PLO from members the Congressional Black Caucus (combined with rising black anti-Semitism in cities like New York and Chicago) weakened the traditional alliance between blacks and Jews. For most of the 2008 campaign, the legacy of this split posed problems for Barack Obama in Florida and Nevada—ironic, of course, since Obama had a very good record on issues related to Israel, and had come under attack in his 2000 primary challenge to Bobby Rush as being too close to North Side Jews.

That, in the end, Jews backed a black candidate with percentages similar to those given to white Democrats in 2000 and 2004 suggested that the breach of the 1980s and 1990s had healed; it would be a shame if the Gaza operation undid this aspect of the political benefits of the Obama victory.