The Jewish Press, America's Largest Independent Jewish Weekly Newspaper, endorsed George W. Bush for President on Wednesday.
Excerpts:
It was George W. Bush’s lot to have been elected president at a time when two defining developments were at work, fundamentally changing the world landscape. The European Union’s burgeoning determination to fill the international political void created by the collapse of the Soviet Union was one. And the unprecedented challenges presented by an international terror crusade on the move —underscored eight months into Mr. Bush’s presidency by 9/11 — was the other.
Both these developments required — and will continue to require — leadership not rooted in outdated geopolitical thinking; leadership cognizant of the reality that our ostensible friends do not necessarily share our interest in a strong United States and that our enemies do not risk as much as we do from confrontations gone seriously bad.
With this in mind, the choice Americans must make on November 2 should be an easy one. One can prattle about the significance of this or that difference between President Bush and Senator Kerry on the environment, Social Security, jobs, taxes and a whole slew of other domestic issues. But that avenue ineluctably ends up as a clash of partisan talking points about inherently insoluble problems. When it comes, however, to the war on terror — the overarching issue of our time — the choice of Mr. Bush over Mr. Kerry is a clear one from everything available in the public record. And for those with a special interest in Israel, the choice is even clearer. (emphasis mine)
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As if anticipating future critics who would not grasp that the lack of traditional threats did not matter, or who would find it politically and economically convenient to shrug off seemingly non-imminent danger, [Pres. Bush] underscore[d] the new reality, summarizing what came to be labeled the Bush doctrine of preemption: "We’ll be deliberate, yet time is not on our side. I will not wait on events, while dangers gather. I will not stand by as peril draws closer and closer...."
And, almost presciently, he added, "But some governments will be timid in the face of terror. And make no mistake about it: If they do not act, America will."
In sharp contrast, Senator Kerry seems to see the state of the world much more statically, certainly not in terms of a holy war launched against America. As has been widely noted, when asked recently by a New York Times Magazine interviewer what it would take for Americans to feel safe again, he responded, "We have to get back to the place we were, where terrorists are not the focus of our lives, but they’re a nuisance. As a former law-enforcement person, I know we’re never going to end prostitution. We’re never going to end illegal gambling. But we’re going to reduce it, organized crime, to a level where it isn’t on the rise. It isn’t threatening people’s lives every day, and fundamentally, it’s something that you continue to fight, but it’s not threatening the fabric of your life."
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In a speech critical of President Bush’s war against terror, Senator Kerry pledged to "fight a more effective, more thoughtful, more strategic, more sensitive war on terror that reaches out to other nations and brings them to our side and lives up to American values in history."
If the contrast isn't clear to the general public, the Jewish Press makes it clear to those who are pro-Israel:
Viscerally, the president draws no distinction between international terror and terror directed against Israel. And indeed, the Bush administration has consistently acknowledged Israel’s broad right to defend itself against terror, even in the face of claims at the UN that it has overreacted to attacks by Palestinian terrorists.
Moreover, in addition to linking Israel’s response to the Intifada with the global war against terror, President Bush groundbreakingly declared that, respecting U.S. policy, there would be no Palestinian "right of return," since it would mean the end of a Jewish state in Israel, and that Israel had a legitimate claim to substantial portions of the West Bank.
On the other hand, Senator Kerry has spoken of former president Jimmy Carter and former secretary of state James Baker — both blatantly anti-Israel — as his choice for emissaries to the Middle East. He has also retained as advisers many of Bill Clinton’s discredited Oslo architects and others who have urged moral equivalence between the murder of Israeli women and children and Israel’s reaction to terror.
Nor can we forget that Mr. Kerry told an audience at an Anti-Defamation League dinner that he wanted to be an "honest broker" in the Middle East, despite all the political baggage that phrase has assumed and as if there were a moral equivalence between Israel and Palestinian terrorists. Or that Mr. Kerry told an Arab group that the Israeli defense wall — which has sharply curtailed the murder of Israelis — was an "impediment" to peace in the region and was "provocative and counterproductive."
Senator Kerry also called Yasir Arafat a "statesman" and a "role model." He has said that we must "look to Chairman Arafat to exert much greater leadership."
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All things considered, we all will be better off with George W. Bush as president for the next four years.
HT: LGF.
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