Posted by
J-GOP on Thursday, April 03, 2008 1:33:19 PM
There is an interesting situation shaping up in the State of Colorado with the race for the seat in House District 6 that is being vacated by current House Speaker Andrew Romanoff, who is leaving as the result of term limits.
The fact that Republican candidate, Rima Barakat-Sinclair, a Muslim woman, is unusal enough, but equally so are her previous statements about the current situation in the Middle East with regard to the Israeli/Palestinian conflict. Her position begs the question as to whether a Republican candidate for office can succeed with an anti-Israeli bias.
Today support for the State of Israel is considered a strategic platform issue within the Republican Party. Unlike Democrats, that seem to be more tacit in their support that vacilates between appeasing the Jewish vote and holding an apologistic position towards Islamic-terrorism and the hard-line anti-semitism of many Muslim regimes, Republican support for the Jewish State is much stronger, steady, and assured.
So when a Republican candidate for office makes controversial and false statements about the Israeli/Palestinian conflict, many in the party begin to doubt that candidate's sincerity to run as an authentic Republican. One of the reasons for this dobut also has to do with the 'over-crowding' on the Democrat side of the aisle for the open house seat, which has approximately five additional candidates currently vying for the position.
The situation has caught the attention of several prominent Colorado Republicans in public office and in the media. Her candidacy so alarmed Republican blogger Joshua Sharf, an orthodox Jew, that he now is collecting signatures to try to get on the ballot to run against her in the August primary. On his blog, "A View from a Height" Sharf has published a video where Sinclair gives an interview to a local news reporter where she states the following position on Israel:
"The military are really acting like the bully in the region. Unfortunately, the Israeli soldiers now are known to be just bombing and killing babies. In fact, and this is a statistical fact, Shin-Bet, which is the equivalent of the security forc...er, institution, I think it is the equivalent of the FBI, has already acknowledged that 80% of the people they killed are civilians have nothing to do with any militant group. They admitted that in 2003, we can imagine the ratio today. And this 80% of the 4000 people that are killed since 2000, in any civilized society they were murdered. 80% they admitted, Shin-Bet, had nothing to do with any militant group. This will give you an idea about how bad the scope of things are in the Palestinian area."
Congressional candidate Mike Coffman's campaign (and curent Secretary of State) on Tuesday informed Sinclair they were going to return her campaign donations because of an interview she gave where she called Israel "an occupier."
Finally, Rocky Mountain News columnist Vincent Carroll, has this to say in the Thursday column on Sinclair's run entitled "Centrist?" where he states:
"Barakat Sinclair stands with the hard-edged anti-Israel fringe. She has made too many similar claims regarding the Israelis' alleged policies of "systematic indiscriminate murder" to brush them off as an aberration."
The question is not only whether Sinclair is running as a true supporter of the Republican Party, but whether ANY Republican candidate that is running with a clear anti-Israel position has a hope of being elected to public office. Many Jewish, Christian, and Republican voters in House District 6 feel that such a candidate with this position is an unacceptible candidate for office.