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How did Christie do among Jews? Still not totally sure

By Eric Fingerhut · November 17, 2009

Two weeks after the election, the Republican Jewish Coalition is touting a poll showing that New Jersey Republican Gov.-elect Chris Christie took 38 percent of the Jewish vote in the state. But there are a few facts about the poll that should lead political observers to be quite skeptical of the results.

Linked here is the memo that the RJC sent out noting that Democrat John Corzine took 62 percent of the Jewish vote to Christie's 38 percent -- still a large victory among Jewish voters but significantly lower than the 78 percent Barack Obama received according to exit polls last year.

But the poll only surveyed 72 Jewish voters, which gives us a large margin of error of plus or minus 11.5 percentage points. (Back in the 2008 campaign, GOP pollster Frank Luntz said a poll with a margin of error that high was "unreliable.")

In addition, the poll, conducted by McLaughlin & Associates, was commissioned by the Republican National Committee and was not an exit poll but a post-election poll. That means that respondents were contacted on the evening of Election Day and the day after the election and asked who they voted for. National Jewish Democratic Council executive director Ira Forman notes that a number of studies have shown that voters are much more likely to say they backed the winner when asked who they voted for after the election.

RJC executive director Matt Brooks responded that since the poll overall found almost exactly the same distribution of votes among the candidates as the actual results produced, there wasn't any post-election change in behavior.

Brooks said the poll is an "important data point" in showing that independent Jewish voters are not happy with Barack Obama, noting that Corzine was even on the ticket with a Jewish running mate, lieutenant governor candidate Loretta Weinberg.

Forman said the flawed numbers, particularly because of the small sample size don't tell us much at all about the Jewish vote in New Jersey on Election Day.

"It's fairly meaningless," he said.

After the jump, the RJC's release on the numbers:Read More >>>

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Rep. Israel: Time to reassess relationship with Turkey

By Eric Fingerhut · November 17, 2009

Rep. Steve Israel (D-N.Y) says he wants the United States to reassess its relationship with Turkey, in the wake of that country's recent harsh criticism of Israel over the Gaza war and other matters and its exclusion of Israel from a NATO military exercise.

"Turkey really worries me," said Israel in an interview with JTA Tuesday after returning from a three-day trip to the Jewish state last week. "They've shown thoroughly irresponsible behavior."

Israel said he would be sending a letter to Secretary of State Hillary Clinton demanding a reassessment of the relationship in light of Turkey's recent actions.

Israel traveled with two former colleagues from the House Armed Services Committee, Chairman Ike Skelton (D-Mo.) and Rep. Patrick Murphy (D-Pa.). They met with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and other top leaders and Israel said he believes that "peace talks remain out of reach" at the present time.

"It seems to me Israel continues to offer ideas and show restraint and their reward is a Palestinian Authority that continues to miss opportunities," he said, adding that he believes it is unfair for Palestinians to insist that Israel freeze all settlement growth before coming to the table.

Rep. Israel also said that Netanyahu told him last week's meeting between him and Presidnet Obama was "very important" and that relations with the president are "much, much better."

"They just needed time one-on-one to get a better feel for each other," he said.

And he said there while there may have been a lot of chatter in recent months about tensions in the U.S-Israel relationship, one needs to also focus on important things like the joint military exercise that the two countries just completed this week.

"You can't ignore the fundamentals on military cooperation," Israel said.

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Funny Republicans

By Ron Kampeas · November 17, 2009

A mole who attended the Saban Institute forum in Jerusalem this week singled out as cutups not Bill Clinton or Bibi Netanyahu, the event's star speakers, but U.S. Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) -- and California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger (R.)

There was a panel featuring Schwarznegger with (U.S. Rep.) Henry Waxman (D-Calif., the chairman of the House Energy Committee) talking about Green energy, and at one point Lindsey Graham - who was in the audience - got up and said he was working on a bill with Joe Lieberman (also there), "who, no offense Henry, is my favorite Democrat...actually, my favorite Republican, too.''

Schwarzenegger also had a good line when sitting next to Waxman, saying: "I don't know if you saw my movie Twins, but this is the sequel."

Just in case you didn't get it, here's Waxman-

And here's Schwarzenegger's co-star in the 1988 Good Twin-Bad Twin comedy, Danny DeVito:

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Where did “Settlements” go?

By Ron Kampeas · November 17, 2009

Spencer Ackerman has a nice catch (h/t to a Ben Smith tweet):

When the White House press shop sent out its statement criticizing Israel this afternoon — I received mine at 2:14 p.m. — the headline above the statement read: “Statement by White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs on the Approval of Settlement Expansion in Jerusalem.” But the version that appears online has the headline “Statement by White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs on Jerusalem.”

UPDATE: A source tells me that  "settlements" was a press shop error, corrrected by National SWecurity Council folks better aware of White House policy.

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Ian Kelly (State) v. Matt Lee (AP) - the battle over equivalence

By Ron Kampeas · November 17, 2009

Matt Lee of the Associated Press takes on Ian Kelly at the U.S. State Department on equating Israel's announcement of additional units in Gilo in eastern Jerusalem v. Palestinian plans to unilaterally declare an independent state.

Reporters in these sessions often play devil's advocate, so I wouldn't read too much into whether the tense back and forth reflects what Lee believes or does not believe.

Still, I want to take up what Lee presents as an imbalance between Israel's "building" vs. mere Palestinian "rhetoric:"

QUESTION: But should U.S. inaction, or in response to Israel’s actions, then be interpreted as some sort of about-face in policy – the President turning his back on the promises he’s made to the Palestinians?
MR. KELLY: You’re – okay, you’re using language that I wouldn’t use. I mean, again, our focus is to get these negotiations started. We’re calling on both parties to refrain from actions, from – and from rhetoric that would impede this process. It’s a challenging time, and we just need to focus on what’s important here, and that’s --
QUESTION: Well, what actions (inaudible) the Palestinians taken recently that would impede progress?
MR. KELLY: Well, as I say, we would discourage all unilateral actions, and I think --
QUESTION: Fair enough. But the Palestinians --
MR. KELLY: We talked yesterday --
QUESTION: -- don’t appear to be taking any unilateral actions. It seems to be (inaudible).
MR. KELLY: Well, we did talk yesterday about the – and I want to make sure I get my language right here – about the – discouraging any kind of unilateral appeal for United Nations Security Council recognition of a Palestinian state in the West Bank and Gaza Strip. That would fall in that category of unilateral actions.
QUESTION: Okay. So the Palestinian call for this, which was rejected by both the EU and yourself yesterday, you’re putting that on the same level as them building – as the Israelis building --
MR. KELLY: No, I’m not saying that. You just said that, Matt. I’m not saying that. I’m just saying that --
QUESTION: Well, you’re saying you’re calling on both sides to stop doing these things.
MR. KELLY: We are.
QUESTION: Yeah. But the rhetoric from the --
MR. KELLY: I’m not saying they’re equivalent.
QUESTION: -- Palestinians is not actually constructed in a --
MR. KELLY: I’m not saying they’re equivalent. I’m just saying that we – they – we have to treat these things as sensitive issues.

In defense of State, a planning committee's "announcement" of intent pretty much equates to the Palestinian Authority's "announcement" of intent, rhetoric-wise -- they're both "announcements."

More substantively, should it come to a Palestinian unilateral declaration -- this is not mere "rhetoric." Croatia's unilateral declaration of independence in 1991 preciptated a bloody, lengthy war -- one that Yugoslavia's Slobodan Milosevic hankered for, to be sure, but his grand designs made the consequences of Croatia's UDI all the more predictable, and irresponsible.

And no serious history of the Yugoslav wars that I've read lets Croatian leader Franjo Tudjman off the hook for the subsequent bloodshed.

Anyway, the full, rancorous exchange is below the jump. Enjoy.

White House statement on building in Gilo

By Ron Kampeas · November 17, 2009

Marcy just posted this brief on the latest evidence that all is not cookies and coffee between the Obama and Netanyahu administrations:

JERUSALEM (JTA) -- The White House expressed dismay over the approval of  the construction of 900 housing units in an eastern Jerusalem neighborhood.

The Jerusalem  muncipal planning committee approved the plan for four- to five-bedroom apartments iabutting Gilo on Tuesday, just hours after an Israeli newspaper published an article reporting that the Obama administration objected to the community's expansion.

"We are dismayed at the Jerusalem Planning Committee's decision to move forward on the approval process for the expansion of Gilo in Jerusalem," White House spokesman Robert Gibbs said Tuesday afternoon. "At a time when we are working to re-launch negotiations, these actions make it more difficult for our efforts to succeed. Neither party should engage in efforts or take actions that could unilaterally pre-empt, or appear to pre-empt, negotiations.

"The U.S. also objects to other Israeli practices in Jerusalem related to housing, including the continuing pattern of evictions and demolitions of Palestinian homes. Our position is clear: the status of Jerusalem is a permanent status issue that must be resolved through negotiations between the parties." 

Gilo, which is located over the Green Line, has a population of more than 40,000. The new development, called "Gilo's western slopes," is designed to attract more well-off residents, Ha'aretz reported.

On Monday, special U.S. Middle East envoy George Mitchell, in a meeting in London with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's aide Yitzhak Molcho, asked Israel to stop building in Gilo, according to Yediot Achronot. The newspaper said Molcho rejected the request.

"This is related to a routine procedure of the regional planning committee to approve construction in the Gilo neighborhood of Jerusalem," officials in Netanyahu's office reportedly told Yediot. "The Gilo neighborhood is an integral part of Jerusalem, in the same way that the Ramat Eshkol, Rehavia, French Hill, and Pisgat Zeev neighborhoods are part of the united city, and there is no difference between construction in these neighborhoods of Jerusalem and construction in Tel Aviv or Haifa."

The brief includes the entirety of the White House statement.

First out of the box with a statement is Americans for Peace Now, via their spokesman, Ori Nir:

By approving plans for wide scale construction in East Jerusalem, Prime Minister Netanyahu is undermining the prospects for the very negotiations that he claims he wants. Construction in the West Bank and East Jerusalem sends a message to the world and to Israel’s Palestinian partner that the Israeli government is not interested in holding peace negotiations in earnest.

Relatedly, Jerusalem mayor Nir Barkat protested earlier this month about a lack of communication from the Obama administration. But actions talk louder than words -- so who here's at fault?

UPDATE: Answering my question before I even asked it, APN says in an analysis that Bibi's at fault:

The Gilo plan is thus extremely provocative on several levels.  It represents a clear and public statement from the Netanyahu government that it is neither "freezing" nor acting with "restraint" in East Jerusalem.  It compels the Palestinians to respond, just as it compels other regional actors to respond.  Finally, it has important strategic implications, since the plan, implemented, would impact on border options for Jerusalem under a future peace agreement.

Today's crisis was by no means inevitable.  Nobody (except for those of us who obsessively follow Jerusalem at its most minute level) had any idea this Gilo plan was on the agenda for today.  This means that Bibi could easily have responded positively to US concerns and quietly quashed or delayed the project, without any political cost.   Alternatively, he could have offered another (deceptively) constructive course, like allowing it to be deposited for public review but promising to find other ways to hold it up later.  Or he could simply have refused to intervene, but kept quiet about it - letting today's technical approval process run it course and only react publicly, after the fact.  

Bibi had a number of conventional options; he chose to go nuclear.

LATER UPDATE: And Now, the Orthodox Union weighs in:

Today, The White House issued a statement expressing its "dismay" at the decision by the City of Jerusalem Planning Committee to approve the construction of new housing units in the south Jerusalem neighborhood of Gilo.

The Union of Orthodox Jewish Congregations, through its director of public policy Nathan Diament, issued the following statement:

On matters regarding Jerusalem, the position of the Union of Orthodox Jewish Congregations of America, is clear – Jerusalem is the eternal and indivisible capital of Israel and the Jewish people.
 
In this context, it is also worth noting that that is the official policy of the United States as articulated in a duly enacted Act of Congress which states:

(a)Statement of the Policy of the United States.—

(1)Jerusalem should remain an undivided city in which the rights of every ethnic and religious group are protected;

(2)Jerusalem should be recognized as the capital of the State of Israel”

While we appreciate the efforts by the Obama Administration to delicately manuever the Israelis and Palestinians back the the negotiating table, it is the Palestinians who are proposing the radical step of bypassing those negotiations and unilaterally acting, while this approval of additional construction in a built up section of southern Jerusalem is not a radical move.

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Tidbits: Religious rift on left over abortion funding, big debate Sat. night

By Eric Fingerhut · November 16, 2009

• Sarah Posner explores a possible rift between left-leaning faith groups due to the Stupak Amendment restricting abortion funding
• Alan Dershowitz will debate Jeremy Ben-Ami this Saturday night at the 92nd St. Y, and the "audience decides who makes their case best."
• For those who saw Sunday night's Curb Your Enthusiasm, a proposal to send "Duberstein" to mediate in the Middle East.

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Soros, Soros everywhere

By Ron Kampeas · November 16, 2009

I think Daniel Luban at the Faster Times has the Washington Times story on the National Iranian American Council mostly wrong.

I agree there's not much to the charges that NIAC lobbies for Iran, but Eli Lake, the reporter, allows NIAC its rebuttal, which makes the story anything but the "hit job" Luban and its other detractors have made it out to be. And there's otherwise a lot of substance to the article.

Still, this insight by Luban is pretty funny. It turns out that the Iranian regime and its most dedicated American critics have something in common: An abiding hatred of George Soros:

For the neocons, Soros is an Iranian stooge; for the Ahmadinejad regime, he is an American stooge. The man just can’t win.

Nothing like a steamy fantasy to bring bedfellows together, or as Luban puts it:

I have often found it startling how easily staunchly Zionist and philo-Semitic writers slip into the language of traditional anti-Semitism when talking about Soros — the latest incarnation of the shadowy Jewish financier whose “tentacles” extend throughout the corridors of power.

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When no Hatikvah means hopeless

By Ron Kampeas · November 16, 2009

Israelity tracks the story of the Vienna fencing competition that "misplaced" its copy of Hatikvah when two Israeli  teens placed gold and bronze, and has a suggestion I like:

If the Hatikva snub had happened to Yuri Foreman, he might have come out swinging. Foreman, an aspiring rabbi who mixes religious studies with work in the gym, made history in Las Vegas on Saturday night when he became the first Israeli boxer to win a major world title, outpointed Daniel Santos over 12 rounds to claim the WBA super welterweight crown.

The 29-year-old, who was born in Belarus but lived in Haifa from the ages of 10 to 19. Foreman, who remained unbeaten in 28 fights, emigrated from Israel to Brooklyn and began studying to become a rabbi three years ago.

Maybe we should send Foreman to Austria next to teach them Hatikva.

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More on those paintings

By Ron Kampeas · November 16, 2009

Laura Rozen digs deeper into the mysterious shifting painting in the Oval Office (Is it reversible? Are Grant's eyes tracking Bibi? Shades of Scooby Doo!!)

I told my Israeli uncle about the Bibi-Obama photo, and the abundance of cookies. He asked me if the meeting was substantive.

Me: "Well, they met for 70 minutes."

My uncle: "That's a lot of cookies."

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