I rarely write to commend a Democratic lawmaker, especially if
she has remained in office for over two decades, and continues to support
questionable policies which do nothing to limit the explosion of government or
restrict our country’s overextended military engagements throughout the world.
Dianne Feinstein, from San Francisco Supervisor to mayor to
US Senator, has attracted a muted following of conservatives. Not for her
domestic policies, including her lock-step support for the Obama agenda of
stimulus, insurance mandates, certainly. I voted for Elizabeth Emken in the
2012 election, an autism activist who failed to gain the necessary name recognition
to get elected. Despite three articles on Emken’s candidacy in the LA Times,
Dianne Feinstein refused to debate her opponent.
Feinstein’s domestic policies are negligible. Her vocal and
fervent support for Israel, coupled with a stern requirement for strict records
on terrorist activity while neutralizing all pertinent threats to our security,
commands respect at home and abroad. I will never forget her collegial candor
in endorsing Condoleeza Rice for Secretary of State. Despite the menacing
comments of fellow Senator Barbara Boxer, the senior Senator maintained her poise
while prospering Ms. Rice’s confirmation.
Recently, Senator Feinstein commandeered support for the
Jewish State, demanding that we strength our ties with our Western allies. The
one issue that unites many Democrats and all Republicans, the state and status
of Israel is paramount for the peace and prosperity of the Middle East.
Switching focus to the nature and the possible outcomes of
the Middle Eastern crisis, no one can ignore that the Bush Administration went
out of its way to promote comity and commerce with Israel. In this respect,
Feinstein was more cooperative than her liberal colleagues. President Bush’s
military forays startled Arab leaders in the region, forcing Libyan dictator
Moammar Ghaddafi to give up his nuclear weapons programs. Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak held real
elections for the first time, even if they were symbolic gestures instead of
substantial reforms. After fifteen years in occupation, the Syrian army left Lebanon.
American forces invaded Iraq, with mixed results, and remains in Afghanistan,
with diminished outcomes.
A foreign policy of threat and relinquish in the Middle East
was best. A system of occupation and nation-building has over-extended our
military while emboldening non-nation state actors. “Realist” foreign policy
experts, from former President George Herbert Walker Bush and his secretary of
state Brent Scowcroft, determined that propping up stable nationalists would
sideline radical elements from taking power
then taking over in the region. A cynical assessment to neoconservatives
and liberal internationalists, Bush and Scowcroft’s pragmatism has proven
well-founded in light of the Arab Spring, which has removed moderate regimes which
were friendly to the West. Frustrated masses, impoverished by the housing
crisis which as afflicted the global economy, exchanged dictatorial rule for Islamic
radicalism, unchecked by populist sentiment which demands hope and change now,
yet has no tradition of Jeffersonian Democracy to spring from.
Israel trusted that a secure border with Egypt would remain
relatively quiet as long as Mubarak remained in power; recently installed President
Mohammed Morsi has openly engaged Hamas, the terrorist group which controls
Gaza and is now firing rockets with greater range towards Tel Aviv and
Jerusalem. Israel now faces a growing existential threat not just from the
restive nations along her borders, but also from a nuclear Iran intent on
achieving nuclear capability.
Besides the violent assaults on Israel, the terrorist attack
on the US Embassy in Libya has decimated the hopes for a transitional peaceful
process in the region. Syria remains a teeming battlefield of insurrection and
rebellion, with a record 30,000 or more massacred by the waning Assad regime. Senator
Feinstein’s call for solidarity with Israel could not be more timely, but her
concerns may not only be “too little, too late” but timelessly out of date. How
can one sovereign nation negotiate a staggered peace when the opposing nation refuses
to recognize the right of the other to exist? The animosity between radical
Muslims and Israelis transcends geography and economics, based in a crisis of
identity in the Middle East, where innovations in energy production, a rapidly
changing global network of trade, and heightened religious turmoil have pressed
oppressed tribal elements to attach themselves to radical clerics and wage
Islamic jihad.
Pursuing Feinstein’s unequivocal support for Israel is
better than trying to remake the rest of the region in a mold similar to
Western liberal democracy. The politics of the region resists any rational
interventions, as the conflicts are best with tribal rivalries and militant
resentments exacerbated by arbitrary borders drawn under European mandate. A
strong Israel, one which takes back Gaza and hastens constructing in the West
Bank, will enraged centrists and liberals looking for peace at any cost, but after
seven years, the spirited hate of radical groups has not abated.
Senate Feinstein and her peers in Congress have every reason
to demand a solid policy of support and respect for Israel. One can only hope
that President Obama will ingratiate himself more with Israel and less with the
weakened diplomatic efforts of his previous administration.
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