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Wednesday, September 14, 2011

What happens with the Jews?

According to the DrudgeReport, tomorrow's New York Times will have as its lead story an effort by the Obama campaign and the DNC to solidify Obama's standing with Jewish voters. All I can say is that it isn't going to work. In fact, I find it amazing that the Obamacrats even think they have a chance to succeed. Here's why.

Many Jews consider voting for a Democrat to be a central part of their being. For decades, indeed for over a centrury Jews have been a constant part of the Democrats' coalitions. During the Civil War, the chairman of the DNC was a Jew. By the 1920's, Jews were firmly in the Democrat party. When the Depression struck and FDR came to the fore, the marriage between the Democrats and the Jews was cemented as never before. Sure, there were always a few Jewish Republicans, but they were aberrations. Jewish Republicans were also among the most liberal in the GOP. A good example would be Jacob Javits, a Republican who would never fit into today's conservative GOP.

Even when the country moved to the right, Jews stayed fixed as liberal Democrats. Perhaps the most famous statement of this truism came from the late Daniel Patrick Moynihan who said that "Jews live like Episcopalians and vote like Puerto Ricans."

Beginning in the 1960's and expanding in the 1970's when Carter was president, however, the left in America became the home of those who were anti-Israel. The group that castigated Israel for every problem in the Middle East spread through the liberal academic world. At the same time, far right groups that had earlier spread hate for all minorities faded away as any sort of a force in American politics. Even then, however, Jews did not leave the Democrats. Instead they watched as Republican presidents like Nixon and Reagan provided important support for the Jewish state. Of course, when Clinton got into the White House he too remained a clear friend of Israel. The American/Israeli relationship had its ups and downs, but there was never any question that at the heart these were two friends. George W Bush was an extremely strong friend to Israel and that was noticed by many Jews.

It has only been in the last three years that there has been any question about the nature of the relationship between the USA and Israel, and Jews have noticed. Obama started by making a major issue about Israeli "settlements" even though most of the so called settlements were just apartment buildings being constructed in Jeruslaem, the Israeli capital. Then Obama did his best to embarrass the Israeli Prime Minister. Again, Jews noticed. No longer was there a disagreement between friends when Obama and Netanyahu spoke. Now Netanyahu was treated as an enemy or at a minimum as a distasteful visitor. Most Jews could not understand why Obama would make this change; after all, Israel had not done anything to merit such treatment. Israel had pulled out of Lebanon. It had pulled out of Gaza. It had pulled out of areas of the West Bank. And it had done all this without getting anything in return from the Palestinians.

Then Obama really dropped the big one on Israelis. He told them to negotiate their new borders starting from the 1948 lines. These were borders that were and remain totally indefensible. Obama, however, did not care. He was going to bring help to the opressed Palestinians. In the course of doing so, Obama was prepared to ignore the terror attacks from the Palestinians. He was prepared to ignore the Palestinians' refusal to even agree that Israel had a right to exist. Obama was prepared to accept the idea that the state of Palestine had to be free of Jews, Judenrein as the Nazis put it. Obama was prepared to let Israel suffer in order to attempt to gain the friendship of the radical Islamists who were the main terrorists against the USA.

During all of this, Obama gave speeches about the close friendship between Israel and America. Obama spoke often and well about that close friendship. Then Obama went out and treated Israel not like a friend, but rather like a troublesome acquaintance who had to be controlled and then disposed of. Again, American Jews and other friends of Israel noticed.

This was another of those issues where Obama and the Obamacrats fell victim to their main conceit, namely the belief that Obama's speeches were more important than his deeds. There is, however, a reason why the old saying is that actions speak louder than words. Those in the Jewish community and the other friends of Israel who had watched Obama's constant attacks on Israel understood all too well that Obama was no friend of the Jewish state.

The truth is that at this point in his presidency, Obama cannot repair his standing with big portions of the Jewish community. Why would they believe him. Will he give another speech? So what! It will just be more nice words. Will he move to support Israel in the UN? Everyone will then just wonder what Obama would do once he was re-elected. Would it be the Obama of the last three years or the new and improved Obama. Few friends of Israel would be willing to gamble with the security of the Jewish state to find out the answer to that question. The truth is that Obama has lost the support of a major portion of the Jewish community. The further truth is that Obama worked hard to lose that support.

I do not mean to say that all Jews will now become Republicans. That will by no means happen. But think of this: in 2008, Jews were a little less than 3% of all voters and they split for Obama over McCain by 78 to 22%. If only 20% of the Jews shift sides and that margin changes to 58 to 42%, it will reduce Obama's popular vote margin by over 1% out of the 7% margin he achieved over McCain. More important, since the Jewish vote is concentrated in just a few states, that same shift could cut Obama's margin by over 2% in Pennsylvania, Florida, Ohio, New Jersey and California and by over 3% in New York. If the rest of the electorate moves away from Obama, he could well lose most of those states.

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