Likelihood of Success

Soros wants his money’s worth

Mar 21, 2007 Orient, Politics and Poker

And not in shekels, either. Captain’s Quarters calls George Soros “underwriter” of the Democratic party. With a little luck, aided by the force of his magnificent, warbucks-enriched and hypocrisy-proof ego, he may end up being its undertaker — at least in terms of separating the men (including Senator Clinton) from the boys on the issue of Israel.

Regarding which, it’s safe to say, Soros is fundamentally “anti.”

That works out great come a-primary time, because so is the Democratic left-wing “base.” The hard left and black voters, though utterly beyond any risk of bolting the plantation now that the Nader distraction is apparently gone, still needs the occasional bone. Policies and pronouncements counseling “balance” and Palestinian self-determination always play well here and keep clowns such as Jimmy Carter in the thick of things. Hence the only Democratic candidate to condemn Soros’s most recent anti-Israel remarks — his claim that Israel ought to be forced to negotiate with Hamas, an entity that does not grant it the moral or political right to exist — is Barak Obama, who despite qualms to the contrary is actually black and not, like Hillary Clinton, merely married to the First Black President.

The problem with this strategy in the long run is not so much us Jews, including the ones on the coasts with all that money that goes to support the Democrats. Jews as a political force, notwithstanding the effectiveness of AIPAC in particular, are not one-issue voters; certainly not any more. They need only a bare minimum of pro-Israel noises from their candidates and then move on to their liberal political religious obligations. These liberal Jews happily believe that the policies of Bill Clinton, such as propping up the likes of Yassir Arafat and making constant feel-good investments of blood and gold in “peace processes,” are the good strong medicine Israel needs to take. These are the children and grandchildren of the Red Diaper Babies and presidents of the Eleanor Roosevelt Fan Clubs of the Grand Concourse and Morningside Heights. They were raised in self-deception and cultural and religious confusion. Seen in their best light they, like Soros, are big on the rights of Oppressed People, the limitless advantages of concessions, negotiation and appeasement, and, of course, guilt over anything that smacks either of an excess of zeal in self-defense or a lessening of their esteem in the eyes of the goyim world opinion. In this regard they are not to be blamed — they are no worse, and no more contemptuous of their heritage and identity, than the ruling clique in Israel itself.

No, the problem for Democrats is that in Red America — in flyover country, the only states not already in one column or another — Israel is on the Good Side. In the general election, not only will all candidates have to tack to the center compared to their nomination run-ups, but they will have to satisfy audiences among the undecideds that they are not selling the Israelis down the river. GOP candidates, besides George W. Bush, don’t usually have that problem, and if the Democratic candidates cave on Israel — well, it is a only a matter of when; but if it happens now — count on the Republicans to exploit this in 2008. Will Soros’s selection have a response?