All the way at the bottom of an article in Haaretz about the Jewish voters by and large maintaining their loyalty to the Democratic party, you’ll discover another classic: U.S. Jews are enamored with Israeli prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, more than any other person alive.
American Jewish voters did not change their voting behavior on Tuesday’s mid-term elections, and favored Democrats over Republicans by a 69%-28% margin, according to a new poll released on Wednesday by the left-leaning J Street, Haaretz reported.
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The poll results included several contradictory results, which should be of concern to the J Street folks, if they’re looking beyond the headlines:
84% of American Jews prefer a deal with Iran over war
85% support an active American role in the Arab-Israeli conflict
73% support U.S. pressure of both sides
47% approve of pressure on Israel “to make the compromises necessary to achieve peace”
80% support a two-state solution
28% of those polled said Israel should suspend all settlement activity in the West Bank.
So, now to the final paragraph:
The poll asked respondents to rate their feelings of warmth towards various personalities and institutions on a scale of 0-100, and the results, in descending order of their mean score were: Netanyahu (61), Jon Stewart (58), Clinton (57), Democratic Party (51), Barack Obama (49), Malcolm Hoenlein (45), Sheldon Adelson (28), Republican Party (28), John Boehner (25) and the newly elected and soon to be Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (24).
Now, one word about the Jewish voter’s loyalties: Congressional elections are not national, they are run district by district, which means that in many Jewish centers across America Jewish voters are voting Democrat because the Democratic candidate is either running unopposed, or has been so entrenched in his position, the other side isn’t even trying to compete seriously.
This is true not just for Jews, but for all the other voting groups.
In fact, with that being our electoral reality, the 69% figure of Jews voting Democrats represents some loss in Jewish loyalty. Back in 2008, Obama received 78% of the Jewish vote.
And that was down from 1960, when JFK took a whopping 82% of the Jewish vote.
Anyway, someone should tell Bibi we love him, he could use it this week.
