What GOP Foreign Policy Is Good for the Jews?

Ben Smith catches the head of the Republican Jewish Coalition expressing concern over a report that Republican presidential candidate Jon Huntsman relies on “realists” of the George H.W. Bush school for advice. “@jonhuntsman look to Brent Scowcroft, Rich Armitage &Richard Haas for FP advice,” Matthew Brooks tweeted this morning. “Expect alarm in the Jewish community.”

This isn’t about Israel per se: Few mainstream Republican (or Democratic) presidential candidates will express anything less than staunch support for the Jewish state. (“Israel is an ally, a strong ally, and a friend,” Huntsman recently said, and he asserted that President Obama should not have brought up the 1967 borders.) However, it goes further than merely Israel: Supporters of Israel see Scowcroft-style “realism” as a slippery slope toward isolationism, which is, in turn, bad for Israel. It’s why Rep. Eric Cantor’s trashing of much foreign aid (though not Israel’s) was quickly quashed; it’s why the RJC absolutely does not trust Ron and Rand Paul.

Where under the leadership of President Bush—as well as with a booming economy, no looming debt crisis, and a still embryonic Tea Party—foreign policy could fall roughly along party lines, now partisan affiliation is not necessarily an indicator of foreign policy views, and in the Republican camp, in particular, you have everything from interventionist neoconservatives (of course) to “bring ‘em home,” “no entangling alliances” neo-isolationists. (A good example is the reaction to President Obama’s hastened withdrawal of troops from Pakistan: “Republican presidential candidates including Mitt Romney and Jon M. Huntsman Jr. are demanding a swift withdrawal from Afghanistan,” the Times reports. “Highlighting the unusual political splits the war is causing, other Republicans criticized the president for pulling out too soon.”)

Many are focused, and not wrongly, on whether Jewish donors and voters will abandon Obama over his perceived harsher line on Israel. But an interesting subplot of the Republican primaries will be how Jews feel about Huntsman and frontrunner Romney suggesting, contra the neocons (and more in line with Obama), that the Afghanistan surge ought to be ended and the troops brought home, and what the implications for such views are for other foreign policy questions, including, say, Iran. Being head of the Republican Jewish Coalition is a much more difficult job today than it was three years ago.

Jewish Republican Official Questions Huntsman Advisers [Ben Smith]
Jon Huntsman Sees Independents as Key [Politico]
Obama Will Speed Pullout From War in Afghanistan [NYT]
Earlier: What Obama Said Last Night
Tea Party Senator Endorses End of Israeli Aid