The House speakership drama enters a new week under increased urgency as Israel declared war Sunday following unprecedented surprise attacks by Hamas.
Kevin McCarthy’s historic ouster as speaker leaves the House in uncharted legal territory regarding what it can do under acting Speaker Patrick McHenry. When Congress lawmakers return to Washington, they will be under pressure to elect a new speaker swiftly amid the crisis in Israel, which has prompted calls from within the Republican Party to speed up their timeline given the national security implications of keeping the role vacant.
As the Biden administration looks to provide additional assistance to Israel, officials were unsure Saturday about what could be accomplished without a sitting speaker. While McHenry is serving as speaker pro tempore, he has little power outside of recessing, adjourning or recognizing speaker nominations, and it’s unclear whether he can participate in intelligence briefings on the crisis in Israel.
As an American Jew, the right has two reasons why they support Israel. Neither is “help the Jews.” (Though, this is the public reason they give to try to convince Jews to vote for them.)
The first reason is Jesus returning. Evangelicals think that, for Jesus to return, Jews have to be controlling Israel. Then a huge attack has to happen and suddenly Jesus will come back. They’ve got the first part so Jews losing control of Israel would be a step backwards from Jesus returning.
But the way, this view also goes against peace in the middle east. If some magical diplomat were to forge a lasting peace between Israel and the Palestinians tomorrow, the chances of a huge attack on Israel would plummet. Evangelicals actively support things (like the settlers) that they know will inflame tensions. They toss lit matches and additional kindling on the tinderbox in the hopes of igniting a huge explosion - all while they are safely outside the radius of the potential explosion.
The second reason is because the right thinks Jews = Israelis. If they get their wish of being able to get rid of all the American Jews, they like the idea of being able to just ship us off to Israel. Nevermind that many of us have, at most, tenuous connections with Israel. We’re Jewish and thus the right thinks we should be in Israel and not in America.
If shipping us all over makes the previously described tinderbox explode, killing a bunch of Jews, well the right will just consider that two birds with one stone.