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MIXING CHURCHILL
AND THE BIBLE, DeLay talked of a destiny shared by America and Israel. He
asked for “divine assistance” in protecting both. In closing, to the
astonishment of his audience, he recited—in Hebrew—the last lines of the
Jewish prayer for the dead. The crowd, many in tears, joined in. (DeLay
had been coached by a Jewish former staffer.) “It was quite a moment,”
said Jack Abramoff, a lobbyist.
Quite an
understatement. Though they welcomed him as an ardent supporter of Israel,
many in the audience at the Republican Jewish Coalition conference were
wary of DeLay’s view on a host of social issues—he’s pro-life,
anti-gay-rights, pro-voucher, pro-gun, pro-school-prayer. Nor are they
fond of his occasional declaration that what America needs most is more
Christians in office. “Some would argue that it’s a mistake for Jews to
get into bed with the religious right,” said Jess Hordes of the
Anti-Defamation League.
Too late. Indeed,
these bedfellows aren’t strangers anymore, which presents George W. Bush
with a new opportunity—and a new risk. Opening another front in his war on
terror, the president has launched an effort to coax Israelis and
Palestinians toward peace. As Bush prepares for his trip to the G8 summit
in France, there is talk he’ll tack on a trip to the Middle East. But the
“Roadmap” he wants to pursue there runs not only through the Byzantine
byways of the Levant, but along the political freeways of America. If he
is at all serious, Bush eventually will hit a potentially impenetrable
roadblock at home: the deepening alliance between Jewish supporters of
Israel and the growing ranks of Christian Zionists.
Simply put, the administration won’t be able to lean hard on
Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon without being attacked by two blocs it
cares very much about as the 2004 election approaches. Eager to capitalize
on Bush’s standing as a war commander and a friend of Israel’s, White
House strategists hope to double the size of Bush’s Jewish vote. Still,
the numbers there, however pivotal in places such as Florida, are small.
Much more is at stake among the nation’s 50 million evangelicals.
Pressuring the Israelis also risks incurring the wrath—perhaps expressed
in thundering, Biblical terms—of activists who claim to speak for that
constituency, which the White House hopes will turn out in record numbers
next year. “We are going to watch the Road-map very carefully,” Jerry
Falwell told NEWSWEEK.
In April 2002,
Christian Zionists were infuriated when the president, in a Rose Garden
speech after a particularly heinous suicide bombing in Israel, seemed to
equate Palestinian terrorism with the Israeli Army’s actions on the West
Bank. Not only did he not call for the ouster of Yasir Arafat (a goal of
hard-liners for years), Bush sent Secretary of State Colin Powell to the
region to meet with the Palestinian. “That was more than those of us who
support Israel could take,” said Gary Bauer, a leading Christian
Zionist.
A plague of e-mails and letters
descended upon the White House. Engineered by Bauer, Falwell, Pat
Robertson and others, several hundred thousand messages flooded the
administration, urging it to lay off Sharon and jettison Arafat. In their
regular conference call with the White House, evangelical leaders made the
same case. “Well, let’s just say that the Middle East comes up during most
of these calls,” says Falwell. Other—perhaps more powerful—voices chimed
in: congressional leaders and neoconservatives in and out of the
administration. White House Press Secretary Ari Fleischer soon was calling
Sharon a “man of peace.”
Having heard the
message in April, the White House responded more fully in June 2002, when
the president launched the Roadmap concept. Though the new Zionist
alliance had serious questions—especially about putting the future of the
West Bank and Jerusalem up for negotiation—they were thrilled that Bush
told Arafat to go. Diplomatically, the move made sense. Politically, it
was no accident. Indeed, NEWSWEEK has learned, political adviser Karl Rove
was involved in reviewing drafts of both of Bush’s major addresses on the
Middle East. Senior administration officials say Rove merely “noodled” the
“phrasing” of the speeches.
But in the
Middle East, every noodle is important. A former senior Bush
administration official says that proposed language favorable to the
Palestinian cause was “walked back” after the speeches were reviewed by
Vice President Dick Cheney, national-security adviser Condi Rice, Defense
Secretary Donald Rumsfeld and Rove. According to the former official, Rice
and her deputy, Stephen Hadley, defended the edits. In one conversation,
Hadley said that the speeches needed, among other things, to be
politically viable. (Through a spokeswoman, Hadley strongly denied that
politics was involved.)
Still, there’s no
doubt the White House is aware of the new Zionist alliance, a typical
American marriage of faith, principle and convenience. American Jews who
see Israel’s survival as a paramount issue are looking for support. Coming
to meet them are the evangelicals, who tend to believe that the “Covenant
of Abraham” promised the Jews their entire ancient homeland—including all
the modern-day West Bank—forever. Many (though not all) evangelicals
believe that Jesus won’t return until the Jewish state is fully
re-established, including in Jerusalem.
Mere
politics is involved, too. Conservative Christians want to shed their
image of intolerance. “They’re tired of being branded anti-Semites,” says
Grover Norquist, a conservative activist. GOP leaders bless the marriage,
and hope to get it into a Big Tent strategy for 2004. There is evidence
that a number of major Jewish donors—longtime Democrats—are covering their
bets if not switching sides, especially in New York, where the shock of
9-11 adds urgency to the war on terror and to Bush’s popularity among
Jews.
After private assurances from Bush,
Sharon late last week made a show of accepting the Roadmap in concept, if
not in its particulars. But the new Zionists are taking no chances. Three
weeks ago Bauer was warned by allies in Israel’s government—one of them
was Tourism Minister Benny Elon, a source told NEWSWEEK—that Bush was
about to pressure Sharon. Bauer and others swung into action. At a
conference in Washington, speaker after speaker denounced the document as
a “Roadmap to hell.” Bauer organized a letter to Bush from two dozen
evangelical leaders, warning that any attempt to be “evenhanded” between
Israel and the Palestinians would be “morally reprehensible.” “If they do
anything other than make Jerusalem the capital of Israel, they would be
messing with the word and the power of God,” Robertson told NEWSWEEK.
DeLay pitched in, too. Speaking to Jewish political activists in
Washington last week, he said, “Israel is not the problem in the Middle
East. Israel is the solution.” He spoke no Hebrew this time, but it still
sounded like a prayer.
With Holly Bailey and Richard Wolffe
© 2003 Newsweek,
Inc.
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Mixed Marriage: Evangelicals and
Israel
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