Conference taveng::bagels

1254.0. "Baker Insults Jews" by POWDML::JULIUS () Tue Aug 25 1992 00:53

The Jewish Advocate, August 21-27, 1992
Baker Promotion:  An Insult to Jews
By Ruth King

(Copied without permission)

The promotion of Secretary of State James Baker to the 
position of chief of the Bush re-election campaign rewards 
a man who has done more than anyone else in the 
administration to damage U.S.-Israel relations and to 
insult the American Jewish community.

President Bush is sending a message to Jewish voters that
their concerns are irrelevant.  Baker's long record of
hostility toward Israel, and his reported use of anti-
Semitic rhetoric, should have resulted in his demotion,
not his promotion.

Remember:
Baker has to this day refused to publicly deny two anti-
Semitic remarks that have been attributed to him by 
reputable journalists.  David Bar-Illan, editor of the 
Jerusalem Post, reported (in the Israeli daily Ma'aariv) 
on March 5 that Baker once remarked, "Jews remember the 
Holocaust, but they forget insults as soon as they smell 
cash."  Two days later, the Los Angeles Times reported 
that Baker has in the past referred to Jewish members of 
the U.S. Congress as "the little Knesset."  Suggestions 
that Jews are greedy and "dual loyalty" accusations 
against Jewish congressmen should be unacceptable in 
American political discourse.  They should not be 
rewarded with promotions.

Baker has been promoted to a position where he will be 
trying to woo the votes of the very Jewish voters upon 
whom he has heaped such scorn.  Indeed, the wooing seems 
to have begun already.  Publications as diverse as the 
New York Times and Time magazine have already 
characterized Baker's recent visit to Israel as a 
cynical attempt to win American Jewish voters for Bush.

The man who said, "F--- the Jews" now desperately seeks 
the votes of Jews.  As chief of Bush's re-election 
campaign, Baker will no doubt make many similar pitches 
for Jewish votes - but Jewish voters will not soon 
forget the things he said and did as Secretary of State.

----
Ruth King is treasurer of the Jewish Election Committee 
in New York.
----