Right Web

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Jennifer Rubin—not to be confused with the erstwhile model and Hollywood actress by the same name—is author of the Washington Post’s Right Turn blog, which is known for its militarist, right-wing take on Israeli and U.S. security issues. Called “la Pasionaria of the neocons” by Time’s Joe Klein, Rubin has contributed to a number of neoconservative and right-wing outlets, including Commentary, the Weekly Standard, Human Events, the Jerusalem Post, and Pajamas Media.[1]

Rubin often uses her Post perch to attack both Republicans and Democrats whom she deems insufficiently supportive of Israel and weak on U.S. defense. She has attacked Dennis Ross, a “pro-Israel” Middle East adviser in the Barack Obama administration, for being delusional in his willingness to work for Obama[2]; criticized Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) for his opposition to the use of torture[3]; and accused Sarah Palin of losing her way on U.S. security policy after parting ways with “experienced neoconservative foreign policy advisers Randy Scheunemann and Michael Goldfarb.”[4]

After President Barack Obama’s widely discussed May 2011 Middle East policy speech (as well as his follow up speech at AIPAC)—in which the president reiterated the long-standing U.S. policy that Israeli-Palestinian negotiations should use the 1967 border as the starting point—Rubin excoriated the president in a series of blog posts, arguing that he ignored Israeli concerns, “slurred” President George W. Bush’s “Freedom Agenda,” and demonstrated once again that he is an “apt negotiator on behalf of the Palestinians and a thorn in Israel’s side.”[5]

Rubin also frequently targets Jews who support the Obama administration and exhibit “liberal” tendencies. For instance, Rubin cited the views of Josh Block of the Progressive Policy Institute as an example of why President Obama “must be very certain that liberal Jews will enthusiastically support him no matter what.” Quoting an email from Block in which he characterized Obama’s May 2011 AIPAC speech as “a strong reaffirmation of the US-Israel relationship,” Rubin lamented: “This is the sort of spin that pro-Israel Democrats use to justify voting for Obama.”[6]

Discussing her penchant to attack “liberal Jews,” a writer for the Columbia Journalism Review reported in late 2010, “Over the past year, Rubin has—at least four times—quoted, linked to, and endorsed Rachel Abrams’s notion that Jews in America have a ‘sick addiction’ (in Rubin and Abrams’s words) to the Democratic Party. When I asked Rubin about the phrase ‘sick addiction,’ she said her arguments against Jewish support for Democrats were clear from her writings, and cited a book by Norman Podhoretz (Abrams’s stepfather) called Why Are Jews Liberal? In his book, Podhoretz repeatedly laments the ‘stubborn attachment’ of Jews to the Democratic Party, but there is no mention of this being a sickness. There’s a difference there with regard to discourse: one approach aims to explain a lamentable phenomenon, the other seeks to deride it.”[7]

Rubin and the Post

Rubin was hired to write Post’s Right Turn blog in November 2010. Previously, Rubin had worked as a labor attorney in Los Angeles, as an editor at Pajamas Media, and as a contributor to Commentary magazine’s Contentions blog. Discussing her work, Commentary editor John Podhoretz wrote, “Jen has labored daily … never missing a news story, never missing an op-ed column, reading everythingand digesting everythingand commenting on everything.”[8]

In her introductory Right Turn column, Rubin wrote: “What do I believe in? For starters: American exceptionalism, limited government, free markets, a secure and thriving Jewish state, defense of freedom and human rights around the world, enforced borders with a generous legal immigration policy, calling things by their proper names (e.g. Islamic fundamentalism), and recapturing vocabulary (a ‘feminist’ is not the same as a pro-choice activist). Nearly all wisdom is found in the Godfather movies (no, not Part 3!) and the Torah. … I'm a harsh critic of racial preferences, the Middle East ‘peace process’ (which is short on peace-production), Keynesian economics, judicial imperialism, and liberal statism.”[9]

The decision by the Washington Post to hire Rubin in November 2010 was the subject of heated discussion among inside-the-beltway observers. Explaining the move, Posteditorial page editor Fred Hiatt wrote, “Jennifer will provide critical news coverage and commentary, with an exacting eye on conservative policy-making and Republican campaigns, pundits and politicians. From a conservative perspective, she also will cover a wide range of foreign and domestic issues and media controversies. We imagine her blog in some ways as a companion to Greg Sargent's Plum Line, though of course with its own style and blend of reporting and analysis.”[10]

A writer for the foreign policy blog Lobelog opined, “While the Post op-ed page still features some smart right-of-center commentary from Charles Krauthammer and George Will, Hiatt has also brought on board a number of party-line hacks like [Marc Thiessen], Bill Kristol, Michael Gerson, and now Rubin. The fact that Rubin is intended as a counterpart to Sargent is also revealing about the way that ‘balance’ is understood in the mainstream media. Sargent certainly leans liberal, but he is also a very good reporter who breaks stories and is willing to criticize the Democrats; Rubin, by contrast, has no real experience as a reporter (as opposed to commentator) and has never met a Republican or Likud talking point she didn’t like. The dominant feature of Rubin’s politics, of course, is her ultra-hawkish Greater Israel Zionism. … While she is quick to accuse Israel’s critics of anti-Semitism, Rubin is not so fond of actually existing American Jews, whom she views as unpatriotic and insufficiently supportive of Israel.”[11]

Similarly, blogger Eli Clifton wrote, “Jennifer Rubin … claims that her blog offers coverage of ‘politics and policy’ for ‘conservative readers.’ But you’d be excused for thinking that her foremost interest is Israel’s conservative politics and policy.” Clifton cited a February 2011 conference in Israel at which Rubin participated with support from the William Kristol-led group the Emergency Committee for Israel (ECI). “The Washington Post’sclaim that [Rubin] is representative of the conservative movement is deeply misleading,” wrote Clifton. “Her close relationship with ECI, her gleeful promotion of the ‘military option’ against Iran’s nuclear facilities, and her proclivity towards smearing her opponents as ‘Israel-bashing’ show that Rubin represents the interests and ideology of the hawkish, pro-Israel right-wing.”[12]

Track Record

Rubin’s writings have covered a broad range of issues, including everything from the tax cuts and Sarah Palin, to Virginia politics and immigration policy. But she is best known for her views on foreign policy and the Middle East, which are squarely ensconced in the hawkish right. Critiquing the tendency of some observers to call Rubin “conservative,” blogger Philip Weiss wrote, “Isn't conservative a misnomer for neoconservative, and blind support for Israel? ... She lives in the U.S. and writes for Commentary and thinks that all of Palestine belongs to the Jews, or some other hokum that rationalizes the killing of Palestinian noncombatants at a rate of one every other day in the Jim Crow Jewish hinterland.”[13]

Rubin’s Right Turn columns are often preoccupied with Israel, even when discussing U.S. domestic politics. For instance, Rubin contributed her voice to a chorus of other neoconservatives who have endeavored to enlist the support of Tea Party politicians, blogging in early December 2010, “The emergence of the Tea Party, a grassroots movement on the right dedicated to fiscal discipline, set up a potential conflict in the Republican Party between hawks and neo-isolationists. As things have panned out, however, the neo-isolationists have largely been routed. This is nowhere more in evidence than with regard to support for Israel.” She then quoted an unnamed “senior Senate aide” who told her, “This is a freshmen class of Republicans whose pro-Israel credentials are beyond dispute by anyone except fierce partisan Democrats and liberal journalists with anti-GOP blinders.”[14]

Rubin has also used her Right Turn blog to venerate neoconservative figures and groups. In one entry, she discussed the work of neocon Democrat Sen. Joseph Lieberman, lauding his efforts to pressure the Obama administration on Iran (although she questioned how he would be able to “pivot” from his focus on sanctions to “a more robust approach that may include the use of force”) and Israeli-Palestinian peace, particularly his efforts to get President Obama to drop the insistence on freezing settlement growth.[15]

In another entry, titled “Time to pull the plug on UN Human Rights Council,” Rubin highlighted “a recent accomplishment” of the Geneva-based UN Watch, a controversial “monitoring” organization led by Hillel Neuer that generally spends its time denouncing the Human Rights Council for its alleged anti-Semitism. Citing a campaign by UN Watch to “out” a UN official because of his purported anti-Israel bias, Rubin wrote, “Now, here's a meaningful move the House Republican leadership could make in the foreign policy realm: Urge the administration to pull out of the [Human Rights Council] and prevent U.S. taxpayer dollars from being used to support it.”[16]

Rubin has also written in support of so-called Christian Zionists groups that espouse views closely in line with those of Israel’s rightwing Likud Party regarding Israeli claims to Palestinian territory. In an August 2010 article for the Weekly Standard titled “Onward, Christian Zionists,” Rubin heralded the work of the rightwing Christian pastor John Hagee and his group Christians United for Israel (CUFI). Describing CUFI’s annual conference, she wrote, “In Washington, D.C.’s convention center they danced the horah, sang Hebrew songs, and waved American and Israeli flags. Charlie Daniels played Hatikvah on his fiddle. It wasn’t a bar mitzvah, or a gathering of the pro-Israel group AIPAC. It was the fifth annual summit of an even larger pro-Israel organization, the nation’s largest: Christians United for Israel, better known as CUFI.” She described Hagee as “a charismatic preacher with a sonorous baritone voice. At the banquet, he held the crowd spellbound, explaining Israel’s plight and the threat of a nuclear-armed Iran. He reminded the crowd that John F. Kennedy went to Berlin at the height of the Cold War, “an outpost of democracy in a sea of tyranny.”[17]

Rubin used the article to explain why, from the neoconservative perspective, it was important to maintain close relationships between the American Jewish community and the Christian Right. Although “among Jews, there remains some skepticism and some outright hostility” towards CUFI, wrote Rubin, she cited Hagee’s view that there had been “progress among those Jews whose support for Israel is grounded in their faith.” She than cited the much maligned former George W. Bush official and convicted Iran Contra principal Elliott Abrams, who said, “American Jews ought to notice that there are actually more evangelicals in this country than Jews by about 20 or 30 to 1. With the Jewish population shrinking as a percentage of the American people, Christians are an increasingly critical base of support for Israel—and groups like CUFI are begging us to accept their help. We should accept it with gratitude and enthusiasm.”[18]

Despite her strident support for rightist groups, Rubin has at times opposed some of the rhetoric espoused by far right groups and individuals. For instance, in a March 2007 article for Politico, she harshly criticized conservative writer Ann Coulter, who she said, “Has made a career of interspersing insightful and cutting political criticism with outrageous and morally repugnant remarks.” Highlighting some of Coulter’s more divisive comments—like her infamous comment at a Conservative Political Action Conference that “our motto should be post-9-11, ‘rag head talks tough, rag head faces consequences’”—Rubin wrote, “It's about time for a presidential contender, perhaps all of them in the spirit of Newt Gingrich’s crusade for improving public discourse, to say ‘enough.’ Coulter’s never-ending stream of venom is not amusing, unhelpful to Republicans, and not in keeping with the ideals of a party that fancies itself as the proponent of a colorblind society and heir to Lincoln.”[19]

Please note: IPS Right Web neither represents nor endorses any of the individuals or groups profiled on this site.