The Neo-Cons Form a New pro-Israel Group to Oppose Obama's Middle East Policies.

It was only a matter of time before the neo-cons set out to destroy anyone who differed in any way from their fanatical pro-Israel stance. In the ad above they have turned their fire towards Joe Sestak, for daring not to offer the correct amount of devotion.

But their real target is Obama for daring to get serious about forming a state of Palestine.

The Emergency Committee for Israel’s Leadership unites two major strands of support for the Jewish state: The hawkish, neoconservative wing of the Republican Party, many of whom are Jewish, and conservative Evangelical Christians who have become increasingly outspoken in their support for Israel. The new group’s board includes Weekly Standard Editor William Kristol and Gary Bauer, the former Republican presidential candidate who leads the group American Values, as well as Rachel Abrams, a conservative writer and activist.

“We’re the pro-Israel wing of the pro-Israel community,” said Kristol.

Jennifer Rubin thinks that this will cause the Democrats problems.

Ambassador John Bolton comments via e-mail on the Emergency Committee for Israel:

I don’t understand why so many people accept the Obama Administration’s ritualistic recital of the pro-Israel catechism, rather than looking at its specific policies and actions. You can say “unbreakable relationship” as many times as you want, but it has no real-world impact. I don’t see how anybody can object to a new group that simply points out the obvious disjunction between what Obama and his acolytes are saying and what they are actually doing.

Indeed. The reaction on the left will speak volumes about its sensitivity on just this point. Are the leftists pro-Obama’s-Israel-policy, or are they truly pro-Israel? There is a difference, one they’d rather not have highlighted, especially in an election year.

Glenn Greenwald is today highlighting this myth that Jewish voters in America get turned off when an American president is perceived as being insufficiently pro-Israel.

When The Washington Post hired torture advocate and low-level Bush propagandist Marc Thiessen as an Op-Ed columnist, it got exactly what it apparently wanted: a regular dose of falsehood-filled neoconservative tripe. But even by his own lowly standards, Thiessen outdoes himself today by hauling out one of the neocon Right's most disproven though still-favorite myths: that Jewish American voters are about to abandon Democratic politicians en masse because of their supposed lack of devotion to Israel. The Right spent all of 2008 spreading the myth that Obama had a "Jewish problem" because of his perceived unreliability on Israel, only for Obama to receive close to 8 out of 10 Jewish votes, even more than John Kerry received in 2004. That's because the dirty little secret of neocons is that the vast majority of Jewish American voters reject their worldview.

This is a myth. Recent surveys of Jewish opinion show that Obama retains his popularity, even at this time, as he challenges Netanyahu over settlement building.

Once again, the neo-cons are talking to themselves and imagine, because everyone they speak to in their tiny cabal agrees with them, that they somehow represent a much wider body of opinion.

Tags: The Emergency Committee for Israel’s Leadership, Kristol, Bolton, Israel, Palestine