President Romney is Going to Israel!

Republican candidate for President, Mitt Romney, said this week that if he becomes President, he will visit Israel during his first foreign trip. So he is only two elections away from those famous Israeli breakfasts and some photo ops at the Kotel with those awkward cardboard kippahs.

So he has obviously earned the votes of all those eligible American voters working hard in the Israeli tourism industry. But what about the rest of the demographic clearly being sought with such promises? Mitt was speaking to a group of Jewish Republicans when he announced his travel plans. And let’s be clear, there are some very powerful Jewish voices in the Republican party. But election in and election out, those on the right are constantly saying that this will be the cycle that finally brings Jews from the party of FDR, JFK and James Carville over to their corner. But it never happens. Jews regularly vote Democrat at a margin of about 3:1.

Of course this promise was not just Mitt looking to add El Al to his frequent flyer miles plan, he was taking a jab at every Republican’s favorite punching bag: President Obama.

President Obama has been in office just shy of three years and since being sworn in, he has yet to visit Israel. And no one in the room listening to Mitt speak needed to be reminded of that slight.

President Obama has sent many from his inner circle to Israel. Secretary of State Clinton has been, Vice President Biden has been (one might recall that he was intentionally embarrassed for the sake of inter-party Israeli politics during his visit). Within two days of his inauguration, President Obama appointed George Mitchell as a “Special Convoy for Middle East Peace.” While this latter appointment did not succeed as hoped, it is more than can be said for his two predecessors on the job, at least in terms of getting involved in the matter quickly. Both Clinton and Bush did get intimately involved in the subject, but not until MUCH further into their tenures.

Mitt Romney famously claimed that President Obama had thrown Israel under the bus for commenting that a future agreement between Israel and the Palestinians would be based on the 1967 borders. Of course what President Obama was saying was no different than what President Bush was saying before him or what a host of Israeli Prime Minister’s have been saying for years. This list includes Ariel Sharon, the original architect of the settlements.

Can attacking Obama on Israel help Mitt become President? Well, it looks like he might need to start focusing on Newt Gingrich first if he wants a chance at the real prize in November.

I wrote a little while back that Israelis have warmed considerably to Obama in recent months. His poll numbers were way up with Jewish Israelis from last year at this time. In fact a new poll even found that Israelis rank Obama in their top-five most admired world leaders. This list isn’t even limited to acting leaders. Churchill made the list. Mitt Romney, he will be sad to hear, did not.

Of course Mitt had hardly caught his breath from promising to nab an Israeli stamp for his Presidential passport than he all but guaranteed that as Commander-in-Chief, he would attack Iran. He said that “the ayatollahs will not be permitted to obtain nuclear weapons on my watch. A nuclear-armed Iran is not only an Israel problem, it is problem for the United States and all the decent countries of the world.”

As a side note, Mitt even called on Iranian President Ahmadinejad, who has about as much power in Iran as Donald Trump has in US politics, to be indicted for the crime of inciting Genocide under Article III of the Geneva Convention. Now do not get me wrong, Ahmadinejad is a world-class jerk who adds nothing constructive to international politics. But Mitt is asking for quite a lot when he himself is clearly at odds with aspects of the Geneva Convention regarding torture. The Convention states that “torture means any act by which severe pain or suffering, whether physical or mental, is intentionally inflicted on a person.” Mitt has come out in support of water boarding, which clearly would be outlawed by the preceding provision.

Whether or not the US should attack Iran will not be decided by talking points and sound bites. I am sure that President Obama has held many meetings with many experts on the subject. I am sure that should we see a President Romney in one year’s time, he too will hold many meetings with many experts on the subject. Perhaps his conclusions will be different that President Obama’s; perhaps war really is imminent. Some wars are necessary and if the facts are there, the world, or at least the American people, might stand behind President Romney as he leads us down that path. But in the meantime, it is important to remember that while promising war, especially one that is sure to be extremely painful for both the US (and Israel), in order to win votes might be good politics, it is terrible leadership.

Mitt need give this last point a lot of thought if he wants to make next year’s list of world leaders most admired by Israelis. Because isn’t that really what it’s all about?

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