T Party pro Israel

Tea party
The myth of the anti-Israel Tea Party
Jennifer Rubin, who recently moved from Commentary magazine to take a blogging seat at the Washington Post, writes that the idea that the Tea Party is anti-Israel is a myth:

The emergence of the Tea Party, a grassroots movement on the right dedicated to fiscal discipline, set up a potential conflict in the Republican Party between hawks and neo-isolationists. As things have panned out, however, the neo-isolationists have largely been routed. This is nowhere more in evidence than with regard to support for Israel.

In conversations with multiple Republican leaders and their advisors, I've detected not a whiff of neo-isolationism, nor, frankly, anything but robust support for Israel (coupled with criticism of the Obama administration's sometimes harsh public rhetoric about the Jewish state). A senior Senate aide tells me: "This is a freshmen class of Republicans whose pro-Israel credentials are beyond dispute by anyone except fierce partisan Democrats and liberal journalists with anti-GOP blinders. In fact, these new Republicans would make the Maccabees proud."

...The executive director of the Republican Jewish Coalition, Matt Brooks, told me this morning that it is "wishful thinking" by the left that the Tea Party is anti-Israel. He argues, "Survey after survey shows that grassroots Republicans are more pro-Israel than grassroots Democrats by a consistent margin of almost 2:1. The trouble going forward for Israel in the body politic comes from the progressive left, not the from the right." He adds that "it is clear to anyone who follows politics that Ron Paul is way outside of the mainstream of the GOP."