Quote of the Day
""Reaching out to the Muslim world may help in creating an environment for peace in the Middle East, but we must insist as Americans that our policies be firmly grounded in the beliefs of the Judeo-Christian tradition upon which this country was founded."
House minority whip Eric Cantor, speaking to Christian Zionists.
Jon Chait suspects Cantor is advocating the United States should back Israel based on religious commonality.
Cantor is saying that Israel deserves America's support merely because of its Jewish quality. So if, say, Israel were to become a fascistic state bent on the destruction of its neighbors*, then the case for the U.S.-Israel alliance would be no less strong, because of a shared religious heritage. It's a rancid, illiberal, primitive way of thinking about foreign policy.
Cantor listens to Britney Spears. To suggest Cantor has a foreign policy worldview is giving him too much credit. Cantor was pandering. The fact a member of the Republican Congressional leadership advocates basing America's foreign policy on "Judeo-Christian tradition" and not national interests is troubling. Pandering or no pandering.
Labels: eric cantor, israel, jon chait
posted by Michael Hussey @ 9:44 PM
1 Comments
1 Comments:
'Israel in fact has no sovereignty whatever over East Jerusalem, which it seized from Jordan in the 1967 war. Its presence is as a military occupier, and the legitimacy of its presence depends upon the U.N. General Assembly partition of Palestine in 1947. That resolution recognized Israel within defined borders. But it also recognized Palestinian territory outside those borders, as set by U.N. Resolution 181, as belonging to the Palestinian people, who have the sovereign right to establish their own state there. That includes East Jerusalem.' William Pfaff
Post a Comment
Subscribe to Post Comments [Atom]
<< Home