CPAC speakers embrace Israel symbolically as 51st state

ANALYSIS:

The Republican Party and the conservative movement now fully embrace Israel as, at least symbolically, something like a 51st state.

That was the common thread of agreement on foreign policy at the annual Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) that ended at the weekend across the Potomac River from Washington.

Israel’s importance in how America faces the future is almost incalculable, “given that 2016 promises to be in big part a national security election,” according to longtime GOP pollster Kellyanne Conway.

“CPACers are saying ’Use military force sparingly yet strategically,’” Mrs. Conway said of her straw poll findings. “The most popular poll response was the one that posited using force where U.S. interests are present. To them, there is a difference between defending Israel and resisting Putin when he wants a warm-water port in the Crimea Sea.”

This year was the first time she was responsible for creating and overseeing the CPAC-Washington Times straw poll.

This time, too, this largest annual gathering of conservatives amounted to three days of continual endorsements, from those who took turns on the conference stage, of boots on the ground and bombs in the air. Enough of both, as Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas put it, to hurtle the Islamic State “back to the Stone Age” and to defend Israel no matter what.

That was the message from the other presidential hopefuls — from Bobby Jindal, Ben Carson, Rick Santorum, Scott Walker, Jeb Bush, Donald Trump and Newt Gingrich. Only Rand Paul, the winner of the CPAC straw poll, sounded a bit less hawkish.

Let there be “no light between the United States and Israel” was mantra of the other speakers as well, from GOP Senate and House members to academic scholars, student activists and interest-group leaders.

More domestic and foreign policy subjects were addressed in other interesting, faster-paced panel discussions on the main stage than in recent memory of these meetings. But for the friends of Israel, the podium at the Gaylord Resort in Maryland was one long, sustained shining moment when the GOP and the conservative movement all beat the drums of war to defend Israel against Iran, the Islamic State and all other comers.

Greg Rothman, adviser to former Sen. Rick Santorum of Pennsylvania agreed that virtually every possible presidential candidate at CPAC this year — as well as the movement speakers and panelists — committed the U.S. unconditionally to the defense and security of Israel.

In that sense, he said, Israel had become a de facto 51st state and acquired commitments that even President Franklin Delano Roosevelt could not make to Britain until after the U.S. declared war after Pearl Harbor.

“Conservatives understand that the Islamist jihad won’t stop at the destruction of Israel,” Mr. Rothman said. “Our 2016 GOP nominee must recognize Israel as America’s best friend in defending the West” from Islamist groups like al Qaeda and the Islamic State.

He noted that Mr. Santorum “is going back to Israel again this spring after a trip last summer.”

“What Margaret Thatcher and Pope John Paul were to Reagan and the Cold War, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Jordan’s King Abdullah will be to the next American president in this war,” Mr. Rothman said.

However, there was a bit of a disconnect between the people on the stage and the people viewing the stage.

Of the 3,007 persons who participated in Mrs. Conway’s survey of attendees, an overwhelming 70 percent favored a “Peace through strength” foreign policy that calls for ’building a strong military that is used sparingly when U.S. interests are at stake,” she said.

That wording that approximates the views expressed by conservatives traditionally wary of foreign entanglements and involvement in regional squabbles. The CPAC respondents — a 42 percent plurality of whom were students — “are for selective engagement, rejecting the extremes of absolute interventionism or absolute isolationism,” she said.

Mrs. Conway worded her poll this way: “Thinking about national security, which approach is the most effective way to protect America?” and the alternative answers suggested that both neoconservatism and isolationism are minority positions.

⦁ “A strong interventionist foreign policy” — the position long associated with neoconservative hawks — won a nod from 16 percent of respondents.

⦁ “Selective disengagement from world affairs” — an approximation of what might be called the “isolationist” view that Pat Buchanan brought to the table in his 1992 presidential run — garnered 12 percent support from CPAC attendees.

“Conservatives are of two minds on the role of the U.S. abroad,” Mrs. Conway said in an interview Sunday. “They are weary of ubiquitous U.S. intervention and endless engagements, yet they view Israel through a special lens.”

“Its interests are our interests,” she said. “Its enemies are our enemies.”

But not all of Israel’s supporters find the 51st state analogy felicitous.

“Israel continues to be the ’canary in the mine shaft’ for America and for freedom in the region and elsewhere,” said Bruce Ash, an Arizona member of the Republican National Committee.

“I reject anyone stating Israel is our 51st state,” Mr. Ash said. “That is insulting to Israel’s sovereignty and to why America has protected our national interests in the region.”

“Many talk about the power of the so-called Israel lobby in Congress and the White House. This is rubbish,” he said.

“America has carried out our national interests in the Middle East through Israel. If it was not in our best interests we would not have done so.”