B Neil Snyder, AMERICAN THINKER
A Republican Jewish Coalition news release on Friday included some revealing information:
Washington, D.C. (March 16, 2012) — The Republican Jewish Coalition (RJC) today released an analysis of support for Israel broken down by political affiliation that reveals a clear “Israel Gap” between the parties. Republican support for Israel is 25 points higher than Democratic support, and according to Gallup, only a bare majority, 53% of Democrats, express sympathy with Israel.
“Democrats are suffering from an ‘Israel Gap’ and it’s gotten worse under President Obama,” said Matthew Brooks, RJC executive director.
Gallup, in a poll released recently, asked American voters, “Are your sympathies more with the Israelis or more with the Palestinians?” An overwhelming 78% of Republicans chose Israel, with 21% choosing the Palestinians or both/neither/no opinion. Among Democrats, a bare majority of 53% chose Israel, with 47% choosing otherwise. Among Independents, support for Israel was 56% with 44% choosing otherwise.Over the last dozen years of Gallup polling on this question, there has been a clear trend: Republican support for Israel has risen steadily, moving from 60% to a high of 85%, while Democrat support has been relatively flat, at around 50%. Independent support has also moved upward over time, from 42% to a high of 60%.
Gallup’s data over time shows a clear difference between Republicans and Democrats on Israel, with strong and increasing support for the Jewish state among Republicans, and lower and relatively unchanged support among Democrats.
This unmistakable trend should be a wake-up call to Jewish Democratic leaders and those who care about Israel, indicating that significant efforts should be made to rebuild strong support for Israel in the Democratic Party.
Source: Crosstab data and graphs supplied by Gallup. February 2012 poll analysis is here:
The news release included the chart below from Gallup:
A whopping 78% of Republicans are sympathetic with Israel while only 53% of Democrats are sympathetic with Israel. Unfortunately, the trend line for both Democrats and Republicans is moving in the wrong direction. In 2010, Republicans who sympathized with Israel represented 85 percent of the party, and in 2011, 57% of Democrats sympathized with Israel.
Despite his public rhetoric to the contrary, it’s obvious that President Obama regards Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu with distain and that he sees Israel as the problem in the Middle East. Our president has bent over backwards and done everything that he can to curry favor with tinhorn despots throughout the region, but to no avail. At every juncture, they have turned against him and us.
Emboldened by the naiveté of a bowing President of the United States who prefers “leading from behind” to real leadership, Islamists are taking control in the Middle East, and led by Iran, they are stepping up pressure on Israel. Sadly, I doubt that President Obama even knows that he’s the cause of the problem, but thankfully, he’s a politician to the core. With his reelection threatened and his support among Jewish people waning, he has finally decided to act against Iran. I only wish that it was for the right reason, not to enhance his chances of winning a second term in office.
Our president and his entire foreign policy apparatus should be shouting from the rooftop about the indiscriminate rocket attacks on Israel emanating from Gaza over the past few days. As it is, he and they have shown remarkable restraint in even criticizing the culprits once again encouraging Israel’s and our enemies. The consequence is that Obama is helping to precipitate an all-out war in the Middle East, a war that the United States can ill afford for Israel to lose.
Most Republicans understand the situation. Some Democrats do as well, but many don’t. President Obama’s handling of United States’ interests in the Middle East is one of the many reasons why he should not be reelected. Let’s hope that Jewish voters recognize the problem and know where to place the blame for Israel’s predicament.
Neil Snyder is a chaired professor emeritus at the University of Virginia. His blog, SnyderTalk.com, is posted daily.
I agree with Laura, I strongly support Israel and always will.
You just MADE my case, loksh.
It is abundantly clear, even from the material you cite, that the Executive Branch has persistently thwarted the unambiguous intent & will of the American People as expressed in the repeated legislative attempts of Congress to move the Embassy.
Me too.
Meanwhile, however, you’ve done nothing to challenge, let alone dispel, Snyder’s observation that Republicans demonstrate greater sympathy for Israel than Demos.
Ron I do believe that the majority of Americans support Israel, but the rest of the world doesn’t. Perhaps India is sympathetic to Israel given that country’s problem with islamic terrorism emanating from Pakistan for so many years. I remember seeing a poll a few years ago regarding various nations and their opinion of Israel. Only America and India showed a majority to have a positive opinion of Israel.
“Jewish fascist imperialist”.
Okay, I can live with that, and even smile at the thought of it.
Just so that Israel takes and keeps Gaza, the Sinai, southern Lebanon, and Trans-Jordan. Even if the Jewish nation has to turn to real fascism to accomplish that. I want the Jewish nation to develop into a first-grade power. I could not care less about peace, and I am only interested in results. All this will take time, but the Jewish nation and its state must never avert their attention from the long-range goals about which I incessantly write.
Otherwise, all those Jews murdered outright or starved to death in the bloodlands of eastern Europe died for nothing, and the local swine of the Middle East will overrun Israel. Power, properly applied, is everything. And aggressive offense almost always trumps passive defense in war.
I know you are religious, but don’t even bother trying to tell me that is not what ha-Shem had in mind for our nation, because I will never agree with you over that. I’ve been reading the Soncino chumash for some decades now, and that’s exactly what I think ha-Shem wants for us. The overriding ultimate mitzva is that of conquest of enough land for Israel to become a self-sufficient and powerful commonwealth. The only religious Jews I ever had any interest in were men like the great Rav Kahane, who lived and died for a greater Israel. That, I think, is the purest form of Judaism. And I want the new Jewish nation that will arise in the future to be worthy of the attention ha-Shem has paid to all of us, in the millenia since Avraham first sensed the presence of his creator.
So call me whatever you want. But know that I want for Israel to retake the land that the real Yamit which you named yourself after, shall be retaken, rebuilt and kept, in defiance of the whole damned world, if necessary.
Arnold Harris
Mount Horeb WI
Bernard I have to agree with you. Jews have to unite and be focused. They are the rightful heir of the Holy Land and they need to reclaim it.
Begin by reclaiming Gaza. Never give the arabs anything and I mean anything. They will steal and swindle whatever land they can get their hands on.
The only peace they are interested in is a good piece of the Holy Land which they have no G-d given rights.
Israel has to stop worrying about world opinion, f–k world opinion. The opinion you read about is what the liberal left media wants everyone to believe.
I said many time (I am a broken record), Israel needs a gigantic PR program as they are loosing on the media front.
I believe a majority of Americans and those abroad support Israel but you ain’t going to read about it since the liberal left controls the media.
Obama by no means is a friend of Israel and he cannot be trusted. He lies. He is only interested in his re-election.
I am sure you know his buddy George Soros a anti-Semite is no friend of Israel. He is dirt and I mean dirt.
Right now I believe Israel has every right to go into Gaza and remove Hamas. Over 200 rockets in the last 10 days certainly warrants the right to do so. By the way it should be a good licking. Need to put the fear in their hearts and likewise the Muslim Brotherhood who control Egypt. They need to know a laser is constantly on them and their asses are grass if they look cross-eyed at Israel.
I know my opinion doesn’t count but by G-d I am offering it.
I don’t like the idea of Israeli children having to remain in shelters for fear of rockets from a bunch of assholes.
You are a Jewish fascist imperialist. 😉
Not much I can do, most of my comments are either botted or moderated too!
I just posted a reply to dweller that was botted by the spam filter.
You have no CASE!!!!!
Wikipedia
The Jerusalem Embassy Act of 1995 is a public law of the United States passed by the 104th Congress on October 23, 1995. It was passed for the purposes of initiating and funding the relocation of the Embassy of the United States in Israel from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem, no later than May 31, 1999, and attempted to withhold 50 percent of the funds appropriated to the State Department specifically for ‘‘Acquisition and Maintenance of Buildings Abroad’’ as allocated in fiscal year 1999 until the United States Embassy in Jerusalem had officially opened. The act also called for Jerusalem to remain an undivided city and for it to be recognized as the capital of the State of Israel. Israel’s declared capital is Jerusalem, but this is not internationally recognized, pending final status talks in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. The United States has withheld recognition of the city as Israel’s capital. The proposed law was adopted by the Senate (93–5), and the House.
Since passage, the law has never been implemented, because of opposition from Presidents Clinton, Bush, and Obama, who view it as a Congressional infringement on the executive branch’s constitutional authority over foreign policy; they have consistently claimed the presidential waiver on national security interests.
Sen. Dole’s amendment adopted into the introduced language included a provision that, in part, returned to the Executive Branch the power over foreign affairs it already had.
Since 1998, the relocation of the embassy from Tel Aviv has been suspended by the sitting President semi-annually based on national security concerns as provided for in section 7 of the Act.
Since this provision went into effect in late 1998, all the Presidents serving in office during this period have determined moving forward with the relocation would be detrimental to U.S. national security concerns and opted to issue waivers suspending any action on this front. A re-assessment has to take place every six months however. In response, members of Congress have begun to include language to do away with the President’s exclusivity in making the determinations or flat-out remove the waiver provision completely from the Embassy Act altogether.
Claims have arisen that a result of the Embassy Act, official U.S. documents and web sites refer to Jerusalem as the capital of Israel, although this has been the case in many instances before the Act became law. The CIA World Fact Book has carried the typical Federal citation concerning Israel’s capital and the absence of the usual concentration of foreign embassies being within its boundaries or proximity.
A potential site for a future US Embassy office building has been demarcated by Israel and the US, and is maintained in the neighborhood of Talpiot. Currently, the United States has three diplomatic office facilities in Jerusalem: a Consulate on Agron Road in West Jerusalem, a consular annex on Nablus road in East Jerusalem and a new office annex in the West Jerusalem neighborhood of Arnona, which opened in October 2010.
In March 2011 a new bill, the Jerusalem Embassy and Recognition Act of 2011 (H.R. 1006
), was introduced. Cosponsored by fourteen Members of Congress, including House Europe Subcommittee Chairman Dan Burton (R), House Foreign Affairs Committee Chairwoman Ileana Ros-Lehtinen (R) and House Middle East Subcommittee Chairman Steve Chabot (R), the bill would discontinue the Presidential waiver authority included in the 1995 Act, relocate the U.S. Embassy in Tel Aviv to Jerusalem, and affirm the city as the undivided capital of Israel.
I’ll believe when I see it
1) I’ve been a Jewish American for almost 78 years. Since 1956, the year after it was legally possible for me to vote, I cast my ballots in all the presidential elections for Republicsns: Eisenhower, Nixon, Goldwater, Nixon, Nixon, Ford, Reagan, Reagan, Bush, Bush, Dole, Bush, Bush, McCain. This year, hopefully, it will be for Romney. I don’t have much interest in knowing what’s on the minds of all the liberal Jews of this country, and it would be truthful for me to say that I don’t really care what they think.
2) Recognition of any of the goyim of Jewish control of Jerusalem is not significant to me. I’m only interested in the reality of a growing population of more than 625,000 Jews in Shomron, Yehuda, the annexed parts of greater Jerusalem, and Golan. I want more of the same for a reconquered and annexed Gaza territory and Sinai peninsula on the southwest and west; southern Lebanon to the Litani river gorge to the north, and Trans-Jordan to the east. You can call me a Jewish imperialist if you want. I won’t really care about that either. For me, it’s always been the way Stalin reportedly said to Dzerzhinski back in the early 1920s:
“Feliks, there one important thing that can be said about power. It’s the one thing in the world you can’t fake; you either have it or you don’t”.
Arnold Harris
Mount Horeb WI
What branch of the US govt controls the placement of the Embassy?
And what Cabinet bureaucracy dominates that branch?
And which party dominates that bureaucracy?
Rest my case.
Yamit (Uncle) tell Ted to release my comment. This moderation thing is out of wack.
Yes, where is the American Embassy in Israel, it should be in Jerusalem the capital of Israel the sovereign Jewish Nation.
Some American dumb asses don’t know their geography or history.
Where is the American Embassy in Israel?
I rest my case.
Considering that the Democratic Part has a lock on Jews, Blacks, immigrants and other minorities, it comes as no surprise.