Posted on 08/02/2002 5:34:12 PM PDT by veronica
For a several years now, growing numbers of Americans Jews have been abandoning their traditional electoral allegiance to the Democratic Party. Since September 11, thanks to the leadership of President Bush, this trend has not only accelerated in pace but has undergone a fundamental shift. Indeed, the Democratic Party is clearly worried about the American Jewish community's shifting support toward the Republican Party.
This shift has been reported at length, over the last several months, in mainstream media outlets like The Washington Post, the Wall Street Journal, The New York Times, Newsweek and the Los Angeles Times. Such articles surfaced again after Bush made his groundbreaking June 24 speech, in which he fundamentally redefined American policy in the Middle East, calling upon the Palestinians to embrace Western, democratic reforms. This tide change is easily tracked and perfectly logical.
For starters, recent state and local elections strongly suggest not only that Jews have become less rigidly partisan at the local level, but also that they are displaying a certain degree of open-mindedness to conservative approaches to public policy. This is further attested to by the American Jewish Committee's 2001 Annual Survey of American Jewish Opinion, which found substantial evidence of the Jewish community's diversity of political attitudes and showed nearly 70% job approval ratings for Bush.
Democrats, particularly Jewish Democrats, have refused to accept these facts. Indeed, they have been asserting that the news reports are all entirely unfounded and that the whole notion is wishful thinking. To substantiate such claims they, as a matter of course, defensively cite historic voting patterns to try and demonstrate that Jews will always be Democrats. Quite frankly that is like trying to drive a car by only looking in the rear-view mirror. And when the "once a Democrat, always a Democrat" argument proves unconvincing, Jewish Democrats try to play their ultimate "trump card" by raising the specter of the most dreaded force available to them: the religious right.
Yet even fears of the so-called religious right won't save the Democrats. For one thing, the institutional mainstays of the religious right no longer exist: Pat Robertson has exited political life, the Christian Coalition is now significantly smaller and the Moral Majority is defunct. What's more, these days the American Jewish community has generally recognized that Christian conservatives are often in that category merely in a technical sense. Most conservatives, including Bush, are first and foremost distinct individuals with distinct and varied political principles, who happen to be observant members of a particular faith. This is, at least in part, why Republican Rep. Tom DeLay of Texas whom Democrats routinely single out as ultimate evil incarnate because of his religious convictions received one of the largest ovations of any of the speakers at the American Israel Public Affairs Committee policy conference in May. This is also why the Anti-Defamation League, a previously harsh critic of the religious right, ran full-page ads in papers across the country reprinting a pro-Israel speech by Ralph Reed, the former executive director of the Christian Coalition and current chairman of the Georgia Republican Party.
Mostly, however, American Jews recognize that the Republican Party, because of adherence to core political principles, is also a better friend to Israel than the Democratic Party. Republicans have a strong and natural affinity for Israel because it is a liberal democratic regime, and as friends of liberty, they support Israel. Indeed, because American Jews have for a very long time been one of the Democratic party's most reliable core demographics, Republicans support Israel expecting no political benefit; their support is not about paying off a particular constituency, but is primarily about shared values, protecting liberty and standing by a key strategic ally.
Bush has fundamentally redefined the American-Israeli relationship out of conviction, rather than political expediency. Unlike former president Bill Clinton, Bush has demonstrated a very clear understanding of the moral terrain in the Middle East and the moral and political failures of the Arafat regime. Bush has, as a result, been unambiguous in revealing his loyalties to Israel, making clear the importance of holding Israel's strategic and security interests foremost in mind when considering possible avenues for peace.
By contrast, much of the Democratic Party has seemingly abandoned support for Israel. A much touted CNN/USA Today/Gallup June 2002 poll found that while a plurality of Republicans say the Untied States demonstrates "the right amount" of support for Israel, a majority of Democrats 51% said that American support was "too much." When Congress recently passed a resolution in support of Israel and our "common struggle against terrorism," the only two dissenting votes in the Senate were Democrats Senators Robert Byrd of West Virginia and Ernest Hollings of South Carolina. Later, Hollings, seemingly just to remind us that he is just as anti-Israel as Byrd has always been, publicly compared Prime Minister Sharon to Saddam Hussein and Bull Conner, the infamous police commissioner who unleashed attack dogs and fire-hoses on civil-rights protestors in Alabama back in 1963. Yet instead of castigating Hollings, for striking as grossly an anti-Israel stance as, say, Democratic Rep. Cynthia McKinney of Georgia, his Democratic Party colleagues have stood silent.
In fact, standing silent with regard to Israel has been something the Democrats have been particularly good at of late. For in that same congressional resolution, 42 Democrats in the House voted no or abstained. Although Democrats would like us to forget such goings-on, the American Jewish community has clearly taken notice.
Because of this obvious and tractable fact, the Democrats are running scared and rightfully so. After all, the Democrats stand to lose big should the Jewish community prove less loyal come election time and not just in terms of lost votes. According to research by University of Akron political scientist John Green, "Jews accounted for 21 percent of donors to the Democratic presidential primaries in 2000," or at least $13 million out of $62 million raised by former vice president Al Gore and former senator Bill Bradley. With such high stakes, it is understandable that Democrats should allow their own wishful thinking to cloud their vision.
In arguing against reality, however, the Democratic Party's leaders have highlighted just how out of step they really are with the country, as well as with the Jewish community. The party is locked in a September 10 worldview, refusing to recognize how the evil of September 11 fundamentally refocused every American's perspective, Jew and non-Jew alike.
Matthew Brooks is executive director of the Republican Jewish Coalition, the only national grassroots organization of Jewish Republicans.
F*****g Jew bastards...
What a coincidence. Byrd is a confessed former member of the KKK. As for Hollings, he isn't talking
Right now, I remain skeptical. I grew up in a Jewish neighborhood on the (far) Upper West Side of Manhattan, and there wasn't a Republican to be found within view of the George Washington Bridge. (Unless there were a few in Jersey- we never went over there).
How'd I do?
How'd I do?
You left out the Doctor's Plot, the Rosenbergs, the Rothschilds and, of course, the Protocols. Other than that, you were doing fine. :)
You must have lived near some Methodists.
(Much) less persuasive to the average Jew - the middle-class or upper-middle-class Jew - than fear of their own or their kid's college or career prospects gone down the drain due to the reverse discrimination seen as divinely ordained by liberals!!
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An accurate quote, but . . . uh . . . the picture . . .
Couldn't you have found a more revolting pic of hildabeast????
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