House's DeLay Bonds With Israeli Hawks
JERUSALEM — He delivered his words with the rolling cadence of a tent revival. He slipped the West Bank's Ramallah into a string of cities that included Auschwitz, Pyongyang and Damascus. He invoked Moses and Anne Frank. He mixed Old Testament language into the American civics class lexicon of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.
"I come to you with a very simple message: Do not be afraid," House Majority Leader Tom DeLay (R-Texas) told a rapt crowd of Israeli lawmakers, yeshiva students and academics here Wednesday.
"We hear your voice call out in the desert, and we will never, ever leave your side."
They may be talking peace and Palestinian statehood in Washington, but DeLay is touring the Holy Land with a message for Israeli hawks: The war is not over, and the United States is Israel's brother in arms in a pitched battle against evil.
"Standing up for good against evil is very hard work -- it costs money and blood," DeLay told a thronged hall in the Israeli parliament building. "But we're willing to pay."
One of the most prominent leaders in the group of so-called Christian Zionists who have grown in power in the post-Sept. 11 Bush administration, DeLay is a longtime friend to Israel. But his conservative audience still had plenty of cause to be nervous.
The U.S.-backed "road map" to peace is inching along. President Bush is pushing for a Palestinian state and a halt to Jewish settlements in the Palestinian territories. Palestinian Authority Prime Minister Mahmoud Abbas was welcomed warmly at the White House last week.
All of this is anathema to many right-wing Jews -- and also to many Christian Zionists, whose reading of the Book of Revelation fires a fervent devotion to Israel and a discomfort with Muslim claims on the Holy Land.
Instead of discussing reconciliation and compromise, DeLay lingered on apocalyptic images of battle and strife.
"There is no middle ground, no moderate position worth taking," he said. "We fight humbly and proudly together
"Brothers and sisters of Israel, be not afraid. The American people stand with you, and so does our president."
"As I shook his hand, I told Tom DeLay that until I heard him speak, I thought I was farthest to the right in the Knesset," quipped Aryeh Eldad, a right-wing lawmaker from the National Union party.
