Israel Continues to Lose Support From Liberal Democrats by Gregory Hilton

Liberals are continuing to abandon the Jewish State, acccording to a new Israel Project survey which appeared in the Jerusalem newspaper, Haaretz. The results were analyzed by Adam Horowitz, a founding member of Jews Against the Occupation. He covers the Middle East full time from “a progressive Jewish perspective.” Horowitz says “The section of the American public where Israel is most rapidly losing support is among liberals who align themselves with the Democratic Party.”
The news was cheered on the website Open Left which today says “Collectively, news about the continuing ethnic cleansing and colonization of Palestinian lands, and the inhumane Gaza siege is taking its toll on liberal Democratic support of Israel under the right wing Likud party.”
The poll asked “Does the U.S. need to support Israel?” In August of 2009, 63% of Americans polled said that the U.S. does need to support Israel. In June of this year, 58% of respondents shared the same view; by July only 51% of respondents said the U.S. needed to support Israel.
Another question posed by the pole was “Is the Israeli government committed to peace with the Palestinians?” In December of 2007, 66% of respondents said that the government, then led by Ehud Olmert, was committed to peace with the Palestinians. In June of 2009, a month after Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu visited the White House, only 46% of Americans said they believed the Netanyahu government was committed to peace.
According to the liberal publication Slate, “various polls document the liberal disenchantment.” The Gallup Poll reports that 80 percent of Republicans have a favorable view of Israel, compared with only 53 percent of Democrats. The Zogby numbers are even worse. They found 42% of Democrats had a favorable rating of Israel compared to 92% of Republicans resulting in a 50% gap between the parties.
Only 54 percent of Jews under 35 who aren’t Orthodox are “comfortable with the idea of a Jewish state” (as compared to more than 80 percent of those over 65). Among younger Jews, only 20 percent rated as “highly attached” to Israel in another poll.
Slate says “It’s hard to see this as good news for either Israel or Democrats. . . Obama won nearly 80 percent of the Jewish vote in 2008. I doubt he will get as much of it in 2012.”
Other Observations About Jews
Helping the down and out, and doing charitable acts, is an essential part of being a Jew. They consider this a Mitzvah. That is perhaps why liberalism was, and is attractive to Jews. However, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has said “Israel’s worst enemies are not Arabs or Palestinians, but liberal American Jews.” Other surveys have demonstrated that some 30% of Jews do not support Israel, find the concept of “Israel” an anachronism, and find Judism a “tradition.” There are religious Jews who say there will be no Israel until established by the Messiah.
On a related topic, it is often falsely claimed that the Jews killed Jesus. This comes from the New Testament which was written by Jewish men who had become Christians. They wrote of ‘The Jews’ in a negative way. The Christian Church has been quite clear about this. We killed Jesus – all of us – through our sins. Jesus died in order to redeem us from our sins. He died for us. If we were not sinners he would not have needed to die. Therefore, we collectively killed Jesus – not any one group of people.