Mr. Ambassador, Have You No Shame?

America's former ambassador to Israel, Daniel Kurtzer, recently spoke to the Philadelphia Jewish community about the upcoming US presidential election. And this, in part, is what he said:

So, when I looked at the candidates [for President of the United States], the first question on my mind – and it is probably the first question on the minds of many of you in this room – is where does the candidate stand with respect to Israel?

Does this strike you as nutty as its strikes me? Kurtzer is an experienced diplomat who served 29 years in the State Department, was ambassador both to Israel and later to Egypt, and later went on to work as a visiting professor at at Princeton. And yet when he gives a speech to a group of American Jews in Philadelphia, what does he tell them? He says, this honest man, that for him (and he assumes for everyone in the room as well), the most important thing when it comes to choosing a United States president is how the candidate stands "with respect to Israel."

Note that he didn't say the most important issue for the Jewish community is the candidate's stance with repect to the slumping economy, loss of jobs, declining dollar, Iraqi war, health care, immigration, tax reform, Social Security, high school drop out rate, mortgage crisis or climate change. No, the first and really only important question in the minds of American Jews is how the candidate stands on Israel.

In former times when we were at war, such misplaced loyalties would be seen as a sign of treason. Yoday we see them as the only way to win an election.