As US President Obama and Israeli PM Netanyahu continue to bandy demands back and forth with no result over the stalled peace process, some Jews in America are looking for a better politician to stand behind, Talking Points Memo reports. That politician is former vice presidential nominee Sarah Palin.
Jewish American for Sarah Palin fancies itself a coalition of "academic, religious, and political leaders" in support of the former governor of Alaska, but to date, it's only one man: former editor of Philadelphia paper the Jewish Exponent Binyamin Korn.
Why Sarah Palin? Concerned with the "escalation of rhetoric from the White House" about Israel, Korn looked to Palin because she is "mainstream, charismatic, and she seems to get under the president's skin effectively." He says JewsforSarah.com is not looking for a politician well-acquainted with Israel, Judaism, or Jewish issues, but Palin fits the bill as far as steadfastly supporting Israel on all issues germane to the AIPAC agenda.
TPM describes Palin as a "hardliner on Israel-Palestine," but it is reasonable to believe her debate for either side would not go too deeply beyond prepared talking points. Regardless, Palin walks the walk Korn is looking for, calling Israel's March 9 announcement to build 1600 new Jewish settler housing units in East Jerusalem a "minor zoning decision."
Sarah Palin is not the first name in no Jewish American lips, and Palin has not polled well among American Jews - her approval rating near the 2008 presidential election was just 37% - but Korn says "we aim to change that."
He is also unmoved by concerns raised in the Atlantic by Jeffrey Goldberg that Palin has a secondary, eschatological motivations for supporting Israel: namely that she is among those Evangelical Christians (NB: not all Evangelical Christians) who believe gathering all the Jews in Israel will bring about the end of the world and the second coming of Christ. This also includes, Goldberg says, the Jews' "conversion to Christianity and their mass death in the battle of Armageddon."
Korn says, "Jeffrey Goldberg can write what he wants ... but if a person is going to be fair about this, and you want to raise questions about the religious motivations of a politician let us start with the 44th president." He is referring to President Obama.
"I'm not even talking about any Muslim implications here," Korn says, "but given his policies, you wonder. I accept at face value that he's a Christian, but then why do you bow to the king of Saudi Arabia?"
Perhaps because that is diplomatic protocol between royalty and non-monarchical heads of state.
As gung-ho as Korn is about supporting Palin, he says his group has had no contact with the former governor or her camp.
