> >As for Gephart as "a strong pro-Israel voice"?
>
> I didn't say that Dems are anti-Israel; in fact, I said the opposite.
> Gephardt is considered a strong Israel supporter within the Dems but is
> hardly a fanatic and in fact took heat when in 1999 he tried to appoint
> Salam Al-Marayati, executive director of the Muslim Public Affairs Council
> in Los Angeles, to serve on the National Commission on Terrorism, a
> 10-member group charged with reviewing national policy on terrorism.
> Gephardt was not particularly courageous in defending his nominee when
> hard-core Jewish groups attacked him because MPAC had expressed sympathy
> for the despair of Palestianians who occasionally turned to violence, but
> the fact that he nominated him at all puts him outside the pro-Likud camp.
>
> And during his 1988 Presidential campaign, he criticized the Reagan
> administration's failures to actively promote peace in the Middle East-
> "''During the last seven years, the Reagan Administration has relegated
> Middle East peace to a low priority" and endorsed a multi-country
> conference on achieving peace along with direct talks on establishing a
> Palestinian administration for the occupied territories.
Wow, that's thin gruel. So the Dem leadership runs from AIPAC-friendly Gephardt to Sharon-friendly Lieberman? Sign me up!
Seth