new pro-Israel group

http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0710/39613.html





New conservative group will oppose Obama Mideast policy
By: Ben Smith
July 12, 2010 03:54 PM EDT

Leading conservatives will launch a new pro-Israel group this week with a scathing attack on Rep. Joe Sestak, the Democratic Senate candidate in Pennsylvania, the first shot in what they say will be a confrontational campaign against the Obama administration’s Mideast policy and the Democrats who support it.

The Emergency Committee for Israel’s leadership unites two major strands of support for the Jewish state: The hawkish, neoconservative wing of the Republican Party, many of whom are Jewish, and conservative Evangelical Christians who have become increasingly outspoken in their support for Israel. The new group’s board includes Weekly Standard Editor William Kristol and Gary Bauer, the former Republican presidential candidate who leads the group American Values, as well as Rachel Abrams, a conservative writer and activist.

“We’re the pro-Israel wing of the pro-Israel community,” said Kristol.

While President Barack Obama and Israel Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu attempted to put the best public face on their differences after a White House meeting last week, the two leaders have had a contentious relationship. Some American backers of Israel, as well as many Israelis, remain deeply suspicious of Obama’s efforts to press Israel toward specific policy shifts and to improve American relations with the Muslim world.

The new committee declined to disclose its funding — as a 501(c)(4) advocacy organization, it isn’t required to — but said it had raised enough to air its first ad, starting this week, on Fox and CNN and during a Philadelphia Phillies game. The ad attacks Sestak for signing a letter criticizing Israel’s blockade of Gaza while not signing a defense of Israel circulated by the American Israel Public Affairs Committee and for appearing at a fundraiser for the Council on American Islamic Relations, which it describes as an “anti-Israel organization the FBI called a ‘front group for Hamas.’”

CAIR denied the 2008 allegation, and no charges were ever brought against it.

“Does Congressman Joe Sestak understand Israel is America’s ally?” asks the ad’s narrator.

A spokesman for Sestak, who defeated Sen. Arlen Specter for the Democratic Senate nomination, rejected the ad’s characterization.

“Joe is a strong supporter of the State of Israel,” said April Mellody, referring to the congressman’s service as a naval officer in the first Gulf War. “It’s political silly season, so it’s not surprising these conservatives are trying to distort Joe’s record.”

The Emergency Committee plans to advertise in other congressional races as well, according to Noah Pollak, its executive director.

“We want to be hard-hitting; we want to get into the debate and shake things up and make some points in a firm way,” he said.

The group will target races for the House and the Senate, but there’s little doubt the larger target is the Obama administration, which Bauer told POLITICO is “the most anti-Israel administration in the history of the United States.”

Along with earlier pressure on Israel to restrain building in Jerusalem, critics point to suggestions that the U.S. won’t seek to block an investigation led by the U.N. secretary-general into its raid on a flotilla bound for Gaza and new pressure on Israel to disclose its nuclear program.

Much of the traditional relationship between the U.S. and Israel remains unchanged, notably strong military-to-military ties and arms sales. Israel has also been pleased by increasing American pressure on Iran.

A White House spokesman, Ben Rhodes, declined to comment on the new group but provided a string of recent comments from Netanyahu on the strength of the countries’ relationship.

“I trust Barack Obama, the president of the United States, to carry out with me the policies that have joined Israel and the United States in what Barack Obama has called the unbreakable bond,” Netanyahu told CBS’s Katie Couric last week. “We have common goals, common interests, and we now have a job to do to get on with our common goal of achieving peace with security. I trust we’ll be able to do that together.”

The Emergency Committee will fit into a broadening spectrum of American pro-Israel groups, many of which have followed AIPAC’s lead in seeking to avoid open rifts with the White House and the political parties. Kristol said this group was inspired in part by the new liberal group J Street, whose ability to amplify criticism of the Israeli government showed, he said, the power of a small new group — if on the other side of the debate.

“There are some who say they’re pro-Israel but aren’t really,” he said, referring to J Street. “Then there’s AIPAC, which is a wonderful organization, but one that’s very committed to working with the administration, so they pull some punches publicly.”

One official at an American Jewish organization welcomed the group to the degree that it would make criticism of Democrats “mainstream,” but also expressed concern that a group with such Republican origins would contribute to a deepening partisan cast to the debate over Israel, with Republicans lining up behind the Israeli government while some Democrats align themselves with Netanyahu’s American critics.

Bauer dismissed that notion.

“I encourage our Democratic friends to have a competition with us on who can be more pro-Israel, because I think it’s in the interests of the United States and not a political party,” he said. “I’m really hoping that people like Sen. [Chuck] Schumer and others will aggressively speak out for Israel at a time like this.”

And the group’s emergence has already provoked rancor on the left. After a liberal foreign policy blogger noticed that the group had quietly registered a website, the national security editor for the blog of the Democratic-aligned Center for American Progress, Matt Duss, tweeted sarcastically, “Because the world really needs another astroturf Israeli propaganda outfit.” A spokeswoman for CAP said he spoke for himself and not the group.