As Drudge aggressively teased all day yesterday, the front page of today’s New York Times reports that in light of the Republican upset in NY-9, the Democratic Party is redoubling its efforts to woo Jewish voters, and plans a coordinated pushback on Israel issues.
I say bring it on. Most of the voters their efforts will reach those whose votes are not at risk, while they are likely to have a relatively low success rate with those who are considering voting Republican.
Jews don’t vote Democrat because they want the most pro-Israel candidates, at least in the way that the right expects pro-Israel to mean (i.e. actually favoring Israel over its enemies – “hard” pro-Israel views – as opposed to some sort of “peace is good for Israel and we need to bully them into it” cheat, which are “soft” pro-Israel views). Jews vote Democrat because they identify with Democratic Party and those in its coalition, feel a sense of otherness towards the Republican Party and its coalition, and tend to be liberal on other issues. Israel doesn’t make much of a difference in the voting habits of most Jews, so long as they can justify that the Democrat is minimally acceptable on the Israel issue.
If the Democrats want to be drawn into an argument of who is more pro-Israel in the hard sense (soft pro-Israel Jews aren’t ripe for GOP pickups on this issue), that is an argument we can win. To many of these folks, Obama’s Israel policies speak for themselves (Dan Senor has a good rundown over at the WSJ), and will be difficult to justify, while Republicans can easily outbid him on hard pro-Israelism. Meanwhile, the Democrats’ pushback will be putting considerable effort into triaging the soft pro-Israel votes that are not at risk anyway, and they will have distracted themselves from more effective lines of attack.
Hard pro-Israel views have become Republican, not bipartisan, making it quite difficult for Democrats to support them. Bipartisanists on the Israel issue point out that 60% or so of Americans sympathize more with the Israelis than the Palestinians.
What they do not say is that they percentage pro-Israel enough to say that the United States should lean towards Israel in the conflict is only between a quarter and a third of Americans. A Brookings study found that while nearly half of Republicans (46%) want the United States to side with Israel, only 11% of independents and 14% of Democrats do.
Thus, the hard pro-Israel coalition is approaching 2/3rds Republican (I can’t provide an exact number because the partisan breakdown of the poll is not provided). There do exist polls that show similar numbers supporting the United States leaning towards Israel as sympathizing personally with Israel, but these polls were conducted by partisan firms hired by a pro-Israel group, and the question about national policy was asked immediately after and with the same wording as the personal question. The fact that the questions got essentially the same answers should be chalked up to biased survey design.
Hard pro-Israel policies may come to be because the hard pro-Israel minority is much larger than the few percent who favor the Palestinians, and because hard pro-Israel policies generally having the assent if not support of many “soft” pro-Israel voters.
Unfortunately, however, even many hard pro-Israel Jews will still vote Democratic because other matters are more important. In my next post, I will explain what sustains Jewish support for Democrats, and what Republicans might be able to do about it
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Comments
Given the obvious, ever-growing and ever more socially acceptable anti-semitism of the Left, the hard pro-Democrat voting pattern of American Jews explodes the myth of superior Jewish intelligence. But there is the example of NY-09 so maybe it’s just temporary insanity and at least some are recovering.
Someone want to tell me why two groups, who have been victims of racial/religious pogroms, are so enamored of a political party that has consistently operated against those groups’ interest continue to vehemently, zealously support that political party?
If someone could make the case that they use some form of brainwashing/psychological manipulation I could believe it but I can’t see that is what is being done. The Democrats are not that smart or adept.
Another way it could backfire is that some of the most vile anti-Israel blowhards are Jews. Norm Finklestein, Glenn Greenwald, Peter Beinhart, the creeps at Mondoweiss, and all the Jews who read and support their views are examples.
I have no idea how large this segment is, but given how much noise they make it at least appears to be significant. A “hard” pro-Israel stance will hurt Obama with this group. While they would never vote Republican, they are an influential group of opinion shapers. They could write stuff urging Jews who disagree with Obama’s “hard” pro-Israel policy stance to not vote for anybody and to withhold financial support for Obama’s re-election campaign.
I think that nobody ever expected the US government to change their stance toward Israel, so just like Israeli opposition politicians, the Left felt they had a pass to beatup on Israel, a “sticking it to ‘The Man'” kind of thing.
Additionally, until NY-9 being somewhat anti or worse toward Israel had never been a problem for the Democrats.
Suddenly, unexpectedly, they wakeup one day to find “Change they don’t believe in.”
Obama’s obvious lack of support for Israel has fueled the recent threatening moves by both Egypt and Turkey. Given Ergodan’s threat to start escorting vessels to Gaza along with the change in Turkish fighter IFF software it appears that Turkey, Egypt, and Iran are preparing for war against Israel again.
So there will be ample opportunity to show where one stands on Israel when help is requested to beat back yet another attack by Muslims on Israel.
One of my best friends growing up was a virulently anti-Israel leftist Jew given to calling Israelis “Nazis.”
Very smart guy … two master’s degrees and a UC Berkeley law degree … but there is just a cognitive blind spot … or moral-psychological Tourette’s where he blurts things out and I can only say, “You can’t possibly believe that.” It’s a condition easy to spot, difficult to fathom.
I can tie him up in knots in our little impromptu debates … but he refuses to change his mind. He’s absolutely impervious to logic, let alone common sense, which he seems to despise.
There are some people you just can not get through to. I’m glad conservatives and Republicans take the principled stand, even if there is no payoff in it. And if some liberal Jews can be swayed … that’s icing on the cake.
That’s about the best explanation of Anti-Semitic / Anti-Jewish Jews, I have heard, as of yet.. I kind of equate them to the Term- OxyMoron, but that is just a word..
I read about the Partisans, and the other so-called Jewish police, who controlled the Jews, in an authority capacity, under and for the Nazi’s, during WWII, and before, in Nazi occupied Europe.. You would not believe the brutality they caused on their own people.. it was just abhorrent, let alone what the Nazi’s did to the Jews, and other so called undesirables, in Hitler’s evil, called the Final Solution, aka, the Holocaust.
They have that same mentality and attitude.. It just boggles and staggers the mind, as is incomprehensible.. but yes, it happens.. Some things just cannot be explained, or rationaled, with any sense or logic or reason..
Hell, I want to be a Jew so that I can have all of the money in the world and control the media.