Harper’s support for Israel is remarkable given the fact that the Muslim population in Canada is growing exponentially and far exceeds the Jewish population. There is a major difference between Canadian Jews and American Jews, namely that Canadian Jews are more religious and identify more strongly with Israel and the Jewish people. Ted Belman
How the political shift among Jewish voters plays in Canada
JEFFREY SIMPSON, Globe and Mail
There’s no such thing as the “Jewish vote.” Instead, there are voters who are Jewish of every hue known to the faith. Many of these voters, however, have changed their political allegiance.
An Ipsos Reid exit poll of voters in the last federal election found that 52 per cent of Jewish voters supported the Conservatives, 24 per cent the Liberals and 16 per cent the NDP. If remotely accurate, the exit poll reflected an enormous shift in voter preference among Canadian Jews.
The majority of Canadian Jews had usually voted Liberal before the Harper Conservatives took office. The Liberals were seen as the party of immigration and diversity, important values for Jewish voters. The Liberals were also pro-Israel. Even when the Progressive Conservatives’ Brian Mulroney governed, a leader as staunchly supportive of Israel as any prime minister, the majority stuck with the Liberals.
In recent years, however, the Liberals have been seen as not being
pro-Israel enough for a lot of Canadian Jews, who have switched their
political preference to the Harper Conservatives. A higher share of Jews vote for the Harper Conservatives than Canadians as a whole, just as do Protestants (55 per cent, according to the exit poll).
The same shift away from traditional political moorings and toward the political right is under way in the United States, where Jews are migrating to the Republicans. A congressional seat in New York City with a large Jewish population that had been Democratic since the mists of time just elected a Republican. And Republican presidential candidates are falling over themselves to berate President Barack Obama for not being sufficiently supportive of Israel.
Some of this continental political shift might reflect nationwide trends in both countries. Jews, after all, share the same concerns as their fellow citizens about the economy, social policy, fiscal affairs, unemployment, crime or whatever. Conservatives and Republicans might strike some of them as having better answers to these problems than Liberals or Democrats.
But there’s one issue that galvanizes Jewish voters as no other part of the population: Israel. Within Israel, a coalescence of views has occurred behind Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s right-wing coalition government about how to protect Israel’s security and deal with the Palestinians and other neighbours.
Israelis might disagree sharply about all sorts of domestic issues, but a majority seems to agree with his attitudes toward the Palestinian Authority, the continuation of settlement building and the angry rejection of prodding from the Obama administration.
Within Mr. Netanyahu’s coalition is Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman, who has expressed fierce opposition to any Palestinian state.
This majority view within Israel is now reflected in the North American Jewish Diaspora. Voting patterns have changed in Canada, where the Harper government has emerged as one of the most unquestioning defenders of Israel – or rather the Netanyahu view of Israel.
Mr. Harper might have had partisan political considerations in mind in supporting a Netanyahu view of Israel’s situation. But he also felt deeply about Israel as a democracy, sharing Canadian values, surrounded by Arab sham democracies, theocracies and dictatorships. For him, it was a black and white matter.
Various public opinion surveys, including some taken by Canadian Jewish organizations, have alarmed leaders of the Canadian Jewish community because they’ve also shown Israel’s growing unpopularity in Canada. That’s another reason to believe that Mr. Harper’s position is driven by profound personal conviction rather than political calculation. Presumably, a majority of Canadian Jewish voters believe he does indeed hold these convictions and are voting Conservative.
In straight mathematical terms, Mr. Harper’s unadulterated support for the Netanyahu view of Israel has obviously proved popular among Canadian Jews.
But on this highly polarized issue of Israel and its neighbours, where almost no middle ground exists, such a position risks alienating Muslims, whose numbers in Canada are growing much faster than the Jewish population.
A sharp domestic split has thus emerged. Whereas 52 per cent of Jewish voters supported the Conservatives, according to the Ipsos Reid exit poll, only 12 per cent of Muslim voters did so. Forty-six per cent voted Liberal and 38 per cent NDP.
It’s because many canadian jews are children of Holocaust survivors and we know first hand what has happened to the jews, we have very small families, and have rebuilt from ashes. We are not as assimilated as American Jews, many of whom are third generation and nver experienced the holocaust.
Until the USA removes their present anti-Israel/anti-Semitic president and government from power and replaces it with those whose morality and actions come close to those of Prime Minister Harper, neither AmericanEagle nor any other American should presume to criticize Canada or Canadians.
Do not tell us what your Republican candidates will DO. Let us see what they do DO. Until they act, their words are only so much DO DO.
Universities in Canada don’t fall under Federal jurisdiction. Harper has no control over what does or doesn’t happen there.
You folks can swoon all you like over Stephen Harper’s “talking” and “signing” but I will be far more impressed AFTER he actually does something about anti-Semitism in Canada. For example, at the routinely anti-Semitic York University.
All the current Republican candidates except Ron Paul are strong supporters of Israel and will actually DO things to support Israel including armed intervention if push comes to shove.
I am not at all religious nor are many of my friends or acquaintances. They vary from atheists to orthodox but without exception most of them are strongly pro Israel.
I am surprised that The Globe & Mail which has been generally, often illogically anti Israel would publish Jeffrey Simpson’s article.
Could it possibly be influenced by the morality, decency and honesty of Steven Harper?
Could it be that, perhaps, like Prime Minister Harper it sees the morality of supporting Israel and opposing the multitude of immoral, sharia following, murderous Muslim states?
That’s because allot Canadian Jews are Sephardic Jews from French speaking Muslim countries.
Yes, if only every western leader had the moral compass of Stephen Harper. I wish we had his equivalent for president.
The leftist msm has no qualms about publishing blatant lies when it comes to Israel. I wish it was true that Lieberman opposes fakestinian statehood, but he is in favor of land swaps.
My impression of Harper is that he supports Israel purely on moral grounds, he believes it’s the right thing to do. There’s very little political gain, if any, in his stance.
And the author’s claim that Lieberman has expressed “fierce opposition to any palestinian state” is an outright lie.
– This article is correct in attributing high personal principles rather than politics to PM Harper’s support of Israel.
– But this article is rather misleading in characterizing this Israeli government as “right wing”. Likud MKs are violating their own semi-right-wing platform as they tacitly or explicitly agree with policies that discriminate against Jews and with the partition of the country, objecting only to the methods, not the acts themselves.
For example, a few Likud MKs lamented the roughness employed in expelling Migron Jews from their homes in the middle of the night, with the subsequent razing of their homes – but not the expulsion itself.
An even more egregious example: Likud MKs are going along with the PM’s plan to give land away for the creation of the state of Palestine. They say they are “considering” discussing the annexation of “some” settlements, only if… and when…. but it’s only a thought at the moment… nothing definitive…. don’t get your hopes up…. the situation is so delicate….
– The fact that Canadian Jews are supporting PM Harper may be due more to the fact that they belong for the most part to the middle class, and therefore they appreciate having a brilliant and effective economist at the helm in these troubled times. Back in their Reform or Conservative synagogues, Canadian Jews still lean towards the creation of a Palestinian state.
– Not to be forgotten, a terrorist cell caught in Canada had as one of its goals the decapitation of PM Harper. Definitely not a way for Muslims to make friends with him or his supporters.
– And one last item: PM Harper publicly endorses the creation of a Palestinian state, but he’s forced to do so for diplomatic reasons. He can’t sound more Zionist than the Israeli government itself and call for annexation instead.
Which is why I am gratful for American Christians. They are the only significant support Israel has outside of the diaspora Jewish community.
I got spam-botted, as often happens. Oops — no, I didn’t. My bad.
This goes beyond talk about Canadian Jewry, and touches upon one of our favorite topics, Binjamin Netanyahu. If the author is correct, Bibi’s policies have won a tremendous following abroad, in places that matter (like Canada). That doesn’t give him divine status, but it is certainly a plus in his dossier.
My personal observation, as a non-Jew: For all their craziness, and bitter denunciations of each other, the Jews appear at heart to be a most civil people. They have a violent, genocidal history: They crucified thousands of their own number over matters of religious protocol (under the Hasmoneans), and massacred hundreds of thousands of non-Jewish Romans during the 117 Galut Rebellion. They know how to take abuse, but they also know how to dish it out; yet, in this world we live in, filled with Jew-hatred on a scale that exceeds that of the 1930s, Jews as a whole have been supportive of a path of moderation and measured response. This is very annoying, at times, to people like me, who would like to see the Jews behave more like the general American public and give the Arabs hell; but it displays a wisdom of sorts.
Disagree at will.