Two victories this week for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, one seismic, the other minor though not insignificant. First, he won a solid re-election victory that affirmed his dire warning of the peril from a nuclear-armed Iran. Secondly, he persuaded an influential American liberal that his campaign warning that Israel's Arab citizens might swing the election against him was not a despicable, race-baiting tactic as alleged by other liberals.
Netanyahu may never learn of this second vote of approval from liberal comedian Bill Maher, but it remains worth savoring for conservatives here in the U.S.
It was heard on last night's broadcast of HBO's Real Time with Bill Maher during a panel discussion with former GOP congressman Jack Kingston of Georgia, ex-New York City Councilwoman Christine Quinn, and Republican strategist Mercedes Schlapp --
KINGSTON: He was making sure that his base showed up ...
QUINN: By pandering fear ...
SCHLAPP: That's not fear. It was not fear. It was basically saying those Arabs are not going to vote for him and so he's going to have to bring out his vote. This is what you do in an election, Bill.
MAHER: We got off on a tangent. Let me ask the question I was going to ask about this, which is when he said that, 'Arab voters are coming out in droves to the polls,' I heard a lot of commentators here say, it would be as if Mitt Romney in 2012 on the eve of the election said black voters are coming out in droves to the polls. But I don't know if that's really a great analogy. I think that would be a good analogy if America was a country that was surrounded by 12 or 13 completely black nations who had militarily attacked us many times, including as recently as last year. Would we let them vote? I don't know. When we were attacked by the Japanese, we didn't just not let them vote, we rounded them up and put them in camps.
And it was the archetypal liberal of American history, Franklin D. Roosevelt, who ordered it, his decision enacted in California under state attorney general (and future liberal Supreme Court justice) Earl Warren, and upheld by the Supreme Court in 1944 with a 6-3 vote, all six justices in the majority having been appointed by FDR. Roosevelt's executive order was rescinded by President Gerald Ford in 1976, followed by another Republican president, Ronald Reagan, signing into law reparations to Japanese-Americans imprisoned by Roosevelt, with those payments starting under yet another Republican president, George H.W. Bush. Notice two dissimilar patterns here?
Back to the Real Time exchange --
KINGSTON: You know, I think on this race, Netanyahu wasn't just motivated on his own re-election as much as he is on the survival of Israel. On one side he has the Gaza Strip, Palestinian Authority recognizing Hamas. To the north he has Hezbollah. To Syria he now has ISIS. I think he's actually very, very concerned about the future of his country and the fact, that as you're saying, these countries that are all around him have promised to wipe Israel off the map. So he was fighting not just for his own political future but for Israel's.
QUINN: Well look, I mean, I think the truth of the challenge and the danger for Israel, that's real and I think it's really important that we as Americans stand with Israel 24-7 (you just know there's a 'but' coming ...). And I think that Prime Minister Netanyahu is concerned about the future of his country. But (bingo!) let's not pretend it wasn't politics 'cause the day after the election we went right back.
SCHLAPP (pouncing): Of course it was politics! How do you win an election?!
MAHER: He's a politician, by the way, in a real democracy that lets Arabs vote. So I'm just saying, a little perspective.
Mr. Netanyahu, how dare you fight here, this is the War Room!
Something else to savor from last night's Real Time: seldom-seen balance in a discussion on the show -- conservatives Kingston and Schlapp vs. liberals Maher and Quinn.
