Who will win the U.S. presidential election today? Well, Israel, of course. Before the third televised debate between President Barack Obama and his Republican rival Mitt Romney, then during and after it, Israel came ahead of every other consideration in U.S. foreign policy. The last debate between the two candidates was supposed to focus on foreign relations, but out of 17,000 words in the transcript, the topic of foreign relations featured in only half, while Israel took up 1500 words. Even Russia, China and the Arab countries together did not receive this much attention. President Obama said that the Arab countries are required first to support U.S. efforts in the fight against terror, and second to support what he called “our interest" in Israel's security. He described Israel as an honest friend and the greatest ally of the United States. But to the U.S. president I want to say that Israel is the greatest enemy of U.S. interests. Indeed, it was Israel that caused the hostility to his country, threatening U.S. interests around the world, particularly in Arab and Muslim nations. I also add to this that Israel is a racist and criminal occupation state, and the mother of all terrorism. But all I hope for is for Obama, if he wins, to undermine Benjamin Netanyahu's campaign in Israel, where Knesset elections are set to take place in two months from now. Mitt Romney spoke about Syria. But he was not bothered about Syrians dying every day, as much as to say that Syria and Iran were arming Hezbollah “which threaten our ally Israel." Then in response to a question by moderator Bob Schieffer about Israel and Iran's nuclear program, Romney said that if he were to become president, then support for Israel will not only be diplomatic or cultural, but also military in nature. I believe that the above settles the identity of the winner in the U.S. presidential election, which brings me to my second question: How will the winner come to be victorious? Well, this will be done by buying the election lock, stock and barrel. Indeed, in 2008, the election broke a record in spending, which amounted to US$ 2.8 billion, and in 2012 will hit another record with 3.3 billion spent. Most of the funding the Romney campaign received came from Super PACs, which include in their ranks Pro-Israel Jewish American billionaires with Likudnik leanings. By contrast, the majority of funding for the Obama campaign comes directly from voters. While the latter may not contribute more than US$ 100, there are hundreds of thousands of them. Then perhaps the way Obama has handled the aftermath of hurricane Sandy will help him, without having to spend any extra dollars. So the winner is Israel in an election up for sale. Nevertheless, there are other issues in the election that are yet to be settled, unlike the Israeli issue. I read that young people will be the key to victory, and that racism has tainted the race to the White House. I also read that women voters will tip the election in favor of this or that candidate, or that the voters of the Hispanic community will be the ones to determine its outcome. I will venture to say that the majority of women and Hispanics will vote for President Obama, and perhaps I will also add, this time with more confidence, that a majority of White Americans will vote against the president, while a majority of African Americans will vote for Obama. This may explain the headline about racism in the elections in a news story run by the New York Times. In the 2008 elections, Obama was 12 percentage points behind John McCain among White voters, while this year, public opinion polls show him to be 23 points behind Romney among the same segment. Although White voters represent a majority in every U.S. election, the same polls continue to favor Obama to win a week later. Finally, the Republicans could have lost the race and still emerged victorious, if they have focused on snatching a majority in the Senate to control both houses of Congress, and obstruct any political decision by the president. Instead, the Republicans ended up antagonizing significant swaths of the voters, first through the statements made by Todd Akin, the Republican senate candidate in Missouri, about “legitimate rape." Then no sooner had the outrage subsided about this that Richard Mourdock, the Republican senate candidate in Indiana, declared that if a woman was raped and then she conceived, then this “reflected God's will." Since I began my column today by declaring the winner in the U.S. election, I will conclude by declaring the loser: Us. [email protected]
