Articles
Washington Report on Middle East Affairs, May 2004, page 26
Election Watch
By Janet McMahon
Israel-Firsters Target Jim Moran (D-VA) For Defeat
Don’t spend too much time trying to find Rep. Jim Moran’s name in the following list of recipients of pro-Israel PAC contributions for the coming 2004 elections—it isn’t there. In fact, the last time the Democratic congressman received such contributions was in 2000, when he was graced with $5,000—for a career total of $14,600.
Compare that to the $37,500 Nevada Congresswoman Shelley Berkley has received in 2003 alone—for a race in which she is unopposed. In the mere six years since she was first elected in 1998, Berkley has received a career total of $203,885 from pro-Israel PACs. Not only has this enabled her to soar to the top of the list of House career recipients of pro-Israel PAC funds, but Berkley now is ensconced on the House International Relations Committee, chaired by gal pal Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen (R-FL)—who, perhaps not coincidentally, is making her first appearance on the current congressional Top Ten list.
In Moran’s case, however, the pro-Israel community is not relying on the power of money alone. In a March 26 article in The Washington Times, Charles Hurt reports: “Three top advisers to Sen. John Kerry are helping to unseat Rep. James P. Moran in an unusual effort to topple the seven-term fellow Democrat from Northern Virginia, who is routinely re-elected by wide margins.”
Hurt names Kerry advisers Robert M. Shrum, Steven A. Elmendorf and Steven A. Grossman, former AIPAC president and Howard Dean campaign chair, as working on behalf of Alexandria attorney Andrew Rosenberg. Moran’s June 8 primary challenger is a client of Rosenberg’s and has received contributions from Elmendorf and Grossman, according to the Times article.
Moran’s latest sin was committed at an antiwar meeting last year, when, in response to a question from an audience member, he said, “If it were not for the strong support of the Jewish community for this war with Iraq, we would not be doing this. The leaders of the Jewish community are influential enough that they could change the direction of where this is going, and I think they should.”
Since Israel’s backing of the war on Iraq is supposed to be a state secret, Moran’s remarks immediately elicited the charge which, in American public discourse, is always waiting in the wings—“pure, unadulterated anti-Semitism,” in the words of the Anti-Defamation League. He also was stripped of his post of regional whip.
But Moran did not need the war on Iraq to understand the nature and power of Israel and its American friends. As former Congressman Paul Findley, author of the groundbreaking They Dare to Speak Out, described Moran in the June 1994 Washington Report: “By congressional standards, he is a newcomer, now completing his second two-year term, but he has already made his mark for both perception and courage.” The Virginia congressman had warned following the Hebron massacre: “This type of atrocity will continue unless the United States exerts its leverage free of political considerations but motivated by the principles of justice and human rights...” In January 1996, Moran, a member of the House Appropriations Committee member (now we’re talking money!), visited Jerusalem, where he witnessed Israeli soldiers beating a young Palestinian (see Moran’s account in the April 1996 Washington Report “Letters to the Editor”).
Moran’s situation calls to mind the Alfred Hitchcock classic, “The Man Who Knew Too Much.” While he may know too much for Israel-firsters, Americans desperately need Moran’s knowledge, and his determination to tell the truth.
Janet McMahon is managing editor of the Washington Report on Middle East Affairs.
