Pundits and politicians billed
Democrat Jon Ossoff versus Republican Karen Handel as a major referendum on the
first few months of the Trump administration.
Democrats poured tens of
millions of dollars into the effort to flip Georgia’s 6th District, helping to
make it the most
expensive US House race in history. But on Tuesday Republicans held the
conservative stronghold by a margin of 52-48 percent.
Democrats have now lost
all four special elections to replace Republicans who joined President
Donald Trump’s cabinet, including in Montana where the Republican candidate physically
attacked a journalist just hours before election day.
Ossoff ran a centrist
campaign, trying to pull right-wing voters – exactly the kind of strategy that
failed to put Hillary Clinton into the White House. Ossoff was also cautious in
referencing Trump – one of the most
unpopular presidents since polling began.
According
to Kamau Franklin, editor of the Atlanta
Black Star, this strategy “is just wrong.” By tacking to the right on
issues like healthcare and the economy, Ossoff failed to galvanize the
Democratic base.
Franklin predicts that
Ossoff’s defeat will reignite the “civil war” within the party between the
centrist Clinton-Obama wing and the more progressive wing that gravitates
toward Senator Bernie
Sanders.
Tough and ignorant
Domestic issues, of course,
drove this vote, but Democrats also missed opportunities to distinguish
themselves on foreign policy.
Like other Democrats foisted
on voters by party leaders, Ossoff engaged in “me-tooism” to show just how
tough – and ignorant – he could be when it comes to the Middle East, particularly
the question of Palestine and the Israelis.
Both candidates emphasized
their support for Israel.
Ossoff listed 13 priorities on his campaign website.
“US-Israel relations” ranked sixth. Constituents might have been surprised to
learn he put Israel before national security, veterans, seniors, the
environment, education, criminal justice and fighting corruption.
It’s difficult to discern if
Handel orders her priorities any differently. She listed eight issues on her website with “Israel”
coming fourth, before “jobs and the economy.” But her list – unlike Ossoff’s –
was in alphabetical order.
Ossoff declared he is
“committed to Israel’s security as a homeland for the Jewish people and to
strengthening the historic, unbreakable bond between the United States and
Israel.”
Noting he has twice traveled
to Israel, he affirmed his “deep personal relationships with family who live in
Jerusalem and many friends who live in Israel.” In his view, Palestinians
appear to count for less.
The victor Karen Handel
sounded indistinguishable, emphasizing that the “United States and Israel share
a remarkable friendship” and various “shared objectives” such as to “defeat
terrorism.”
Both made boilerplate nods
towards “peace.” But neither offered a word about the imperative ethical need
to end the Israeli occupation, let alone about respecting the right of return
of Palestinian refugees and ensuring equal rights for all.
Georgia’s 6th District was
previously held for 20 years by Newt Gingrich, the
former House speaker and Republican presidential hopeful who declared
in 2012 that the Palestinians are an “invented people.”
Gingrich, who was re-elected
repeatedly despite – or perhaps because of – a history
of bigotry, was currying favor with billionaire casino magnate Sheldon Adelson,
a major backer of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and big donor to
anti-Palestinian causes.
A political group tied to
Adelson reportedly
spent more than $6 million dollars to defeat Ossoff.
Brutal mentors
Minimally qualified, Ossoff touted that while an undergraduate
at Georgetown University he “studied under Madeleine Albright and former
Israeli Ambassador to the United States Michael Oren.”
These are scarcely badges of
honor, but they indicate that Ossoff, as a representative of the Democratic
establishment, offered no break from interventionist foreign policies that have
brought injustice and catastrophe on a global scale.
When she was secretary of
state in the Clinton administration in the 1990s, Albright notoriously defended
sanctions that killed an estimated 500,000 children in Iraq. Challenged by 60
Minutes’ Lesley Stahl whether inflicting such suffering could be justified,
Albright answered,
“we think the price is worth it.”
Oren, Ossoff’s other mentor,
is currently a minister in Netanyahu’s government.
Oren lied in a 2014 interview
with CNN’s Wolf Blitzer about the killings
by Israeli forces of Nadim Nuwara
and Muhammad
Abu al-Thahir, two Palestinian children shot dead in cold blood on video
during a Nakba Day protest a few days earlier.
Oren indicated on television –
days after they were killed – that it was not certain that the two boys were
even dead.
In order to generate this
bogus doubt, he cited the videotaped shooting of 12-year-old Muhammad al-Dura
in Gaza in 2000 at the outset of the second intifada, which generated worldwide
outrage.
Oren recycled the far-right
conspiracy theory that
the shooting had been staged, even questioning whether the child “was shot
at all.”
At the time, Oren was
described by CNN as merely a “Middle East analyst,” as if he had not spent many
years as a soldier in Israel’s army and an official apologist for its policies.
It is a damning indicator that
Oren can be uncontroversially cited by a Democratic candidate with no party
leaders challenging Ossoff for promoting his connection to an anti-Palestinian
racist who engages in grotesque fabrications and conspiracy theories.
Time for radical break
National polling
indicates that core
constituencies increasingly disagree with the pro-Israel positions taken by
Democratic candidates.
Majorities of Americans also support
radical breaks on domestic policy – such as a single-payer
healthcare system.
Yet in the race for Georgia’s
6th District, the Democratic establishment rallied around a candidate who opposes
single-payer and stuck to the traditional script on foreign policy.
Defying conventional wisdom
that voters only want right-wing populism or bland centrism, Britain’s Labour
Party this month surged
to its most successful general election performance in years on a platform of
left-wing policies championed by Jeremy Corbyn, a leader
with a lifelong record of supporting Palestinian rights.
After a string of defeats, it
is an example Democrats urgently need to study.
No comments:
Post a Comment