Israelis, U.S. Jews Differ Dramatically On Obama,Caroline B. Glick

Have American Jews abandoned Israel in favor of President Obama? This is a central question in the minds of Israelis today.

In a poll of Israeli Jews conducted in mid-June by the Jerusalem Post, a mere 6 percent of respondents said they view Obama as pro-Israel. In stark contrast, a Gallup tracking poll in early May showed that 79 percent of American Jews support the president.

These numbers seem to tell us that U.S. Jews have indeed parted company with the Jewish state.

No American president has ever been viewed as similarly ill disposed toward Israel by Israelis. With only 6 percent seeing the administration as friendly, it is apparent that distrust of Obama is not a partisan issue in Israel. It spans the spectrum from far left to right, from ultra-Orthodox to ultra-secular. But with his 79-percent approval rating among U.S. Jews, it is clear the American Jewish community is quite sympathetically inclined toward Obama.

Appearances of course can be deceptive. And it is worth taking a closer look at the numbers to understand what they tell us about American Jewish sentiments regarding Obama and Israel. First, however, we should consider what it is about Obama that makes nearly all Israeli Jews view him as an adversary.

The Jerusalem Post poll showed a massive divergence between Israeli Jews and Obama on the issue of Jewish building beyond the 1949 armistice line. The Obama administration has refused to budge in its hard-line demand that Israel end all Jewish building in north, south, and east Jerusalem as well as in Judea and Samaria.

For its part, the Netanyahu government has refused to bow to this demand. Seventy percent of Israeli Jews support the Netanyahu government's handling of the issue with the Obama administration and 69 percent oppose a freeze on Jewish building.

Beyond Obama's agitation on the issue of Jewish construction, Israelis are dismayed by what they perceive as the generally hostile approach he has adopted in dealing with the Jewish state. This approach was nowhere more in evidence than in his speech to the Islamic world in Cairo on June 4.

It wasn't just Obama's comparison of Palestinian terrorism to the anti-Apartheid movement in South Africa, the American civil rights movement and antebellum slave rebellions that set people off. There was also Obama's inference that Israel owes its legitimacy to the Holocaust.

It is that claim - Obama repeated it during his visit to Buchenwald - which forms the basis of the Islamic narrative against Israel. It argues that Jews are not indigenous to the Middle East, and that the only thing keeping Israel in place is European guilt about Auschwitz. Not only do Israelis of all political stripes reject this as factually false, they recognize it is inherently anti-Semitic because it ignores and negates 3,500 years of Jewish history in the land of Israel.

With Israeli distrust of Obama so apparent, and so easily explained, two questions arise: How has Obama managed to maintain American Jewish support despite his unprecedented unpopularity in Israel? And what is the likelihood that when push comes to shove, American Jews will stand with Israel against the president they so admire?

Obama's great success in maintaining support among American Jews owes much to the fact that most American Jews do not pick up the same messages from Obama's statements as do Israeli Jews. Whereas Israeli Jews recognize that it is morally obscene, strategically suicidal and historically inaccurate to suggest that Israel has no rights to Jerusalem, Judea and Samaria and that Jews have no right to live there, American Jews do not intuitively understand this to be the case. Consequently, while Israeli Jews recognize Obama's calls for a total freeze in Jewish construction in these areas as inherently hostile, most American Jews do not.

Beyond this, for the past 15 years, Holocaust education - more so than Zionist education or Jewish religious education - has become the hallmark of American Jewish identity. As a consequence, American Jews may not see anything objectionable in Obama's inference that Israel owes its existence to the Holocaust.

If the divergence in U.S. Jewish and Israeli attitudes toward Obama is simply a consequence of a lack of American Jewish awareness of the significance of Obama's positions and policies for Israel, then the disparity in views can be easily remedied by a sustained issues awareness campaign by Israel and by American Jewish organizations. For many of Israel's core American Jewish supporters, such a campaign would no doubt go a long way in energizing them to challenge the administration on its positions vis-à-vis Israel.

But there are other factors at work. According to the American Jewish Committee's 2008 survey of American Jews, some 67 percent of American Jews feel close to Israel. These numbers, while high, are not significantly higher than similar support levels among the general U.S. population. (A survey of general American sentiment toward Israel conducted this month by the Israel Project shows that support for Israel has dropped by 20 percent in the past nine months - from 69 to 49 percent. Presumably, Jewish American support for Israel has also experienced a drop.)

More significantly, the AJC survey showed that in the lead-up to the 2008 presidential elections, only three percent of American Jews said a candidate's position on Israel was the most important issue for them. Indeed, according to survey after survey of American Jewish opinion over the past decade, U.S. Jewish support for Israel, while widespread, is not particularly deep. This sentiment lends to the conclusion that American Jews will not abandon or temper their support for Obama simply because he is perceived as being hostile to Israel.

The picture, then, is a mixed bag. Support for Israel against Obama will likely rise as a consequence of a sustained educational campaign among American Jews about the issues in dispute and their importance for Israel's security and national well-being. But even in that event, it is unclear how dramatic the shift would be. Given the shallowness of U.S. Jewish support for Israel, no doubt many American Jews will not care enough to reassess their positions on either Israel or Obama.

The one bit of encouraging news in all this is the persistence of support for Israel relative to Palestinians among rank and file Americans. Palestinians are supported by a mere five percent of Americans.

No doubt it is this disparity that is motivating leading Democratic politicians - most recently Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid and Democratic Senator Robert Menendez from New Jersey - to publicly distance themselves from the administration's Mideast policies.

If U.S. Jewish leaders and pro-Israel activists can educate just a fraction of the American Jewish community, and motivate them to stand with Israel in a significant way against administration pressure, this will likely motivate still more lawmakers and politicians from both parties to maintain support for Israel against the administration. Certainly it will help convince Israelis we haven't been abandoned by American Jewry. And that in itself would be no mean achievement.

Caroline Glick is senior contributing editor at The Jerusalem Post. Her Jewish Press-exclusive column appears the last week of each month. Her book "The Shackled Warrior: Israel and the Global Jihad," is available at Amazon.com.

Read Comments (9)

American jews and rabbis are wimps
Date 10:06, 06-24, 09

As an american jew and a grandson from 15 lost in the holocaust I warned of obamas lack of self identity hate for the jews and the american way. Jews beware you have been warned

shallowness of American Jews:(
Date 05:06, 06-25, 09

I find it sad that the Jewish people themselves don't support Israel,would like to know some of their other views,I wonder if the majority of Jews are democratic?

Divorce Settlement? Political Divergence
Date 05:06, 06-25, 09

The current political chasm can be viewed as a temporary (trial) separation. However whenever this occurs divorce cannot be ruled out.
Throughout history differing branches of the same people have parted company. What would divorce terms look like? A modest proposal.
(1) All children will reside with their parents in their country of residence.
(2) All property and financial assets will remain with the residents in the countries where those assets are currently located. Each nation's Jews will be absolved of any obligations of alimony to the residents of the other nation. All holy sites shall remain in the nation wherein they currently reside. The divorce will be classified as no fault due to irreconcilable political differences about conferring residential, financial, and water resource advantages to individuals based upon accident of birth (i.e. religion, gender, race, ethnicity). Israel shall govern itself according to the laws of Torah/Halacha. American Jews shall govern themselves according to the constitution and laws of the United States. Visitation terms shall be decided at a later date.

Signed, Michael Green, Portland, Oregon, USA

Blind as Sheep
Date 09:06, 06-25, 09

Jews that support Obama and his anti-Israel ideology, are like blind sheep, following their master to the slaughter house. I call them suicidal Jews! Vicki Williams

No Jew should be surprised with Obama.
Date 09:06, 06-25, 09

Just like no German Jew could say they didn't know in 1933, no American Jew can claim they didn't know. Anyone with two brain cells rubbing against each other could clearly see from miles away what Obama was about.

Never-the-less, like programmed automatons, they line up and vote Democratic even when the alternative choice (Bush 2004) was the most solidly pro-Israel president in American history. By 2008, knowing the antisemitism they so claim to loathe had become de rigueur among the left, their beliefs... their secular religion caused them to report to precincts on election day like automatons and vote for Obama.

That the bulk of American Jews are non-observant is well known. One qualifier is that they are non-observant in a rabbinical sense. American Jews do believe strongly in something and that is the Democratic party. The Democratic Party is their religion. They believe in it and obey it.

They claim to value wisdom and learning yet ignore biology, psychology and history. Words like lemmings, group think and Judenrat never enter their minds as they look to their Diaspora "leaders" and take comfort in knowing all their friends are running headlong in the same direction.

Having abandoned the Torah as primitive superstition, their secular theology is a self made Frankenstein. As leftists, they were instrumental in creating the philosophies of moral relativism and political correctness. They gave it life and sustenance never realizing the philosophies are transient, anchored upon ever shifting sands.

The sands have shifted. Antisemitism, pro Philistine and neo-Luddism have become the standards of political correctness within the left. Yet, like the brilliant but misguided scientist, American Jews will not turn away from their monster.

Go Israel fo!
Date 02:06, 06-26, 09

American Jews have taken for granted the asylum they have found in the United States to where some came when they escaped the Pogroms in Russia but mostly arrived after WWII Holocaust. One cannot take things for granted; American Jews distancing themselves from Israel and their staggering assimilation may turn to be simply the déjà vu of European Jewry history. Jews can live anywhere in the world but must always know that where ever they are they are simply guests. Israel is the only place on earth where Jews are no longer guests. No matter where Jews live, the home for all Jews, the State of Israel, must be unconditionally supported by all Jews. Jews always walked on egg shells among the Goyeem, which is no longer the case in Israel. A Jew, who is not unconditionally proud of the Jewish State of Israel, is not a real Jew! Go Israel go!
Nurit Greenger

in defense of Obama's Jewish supporters
Date 02:06, 06-26, 09

Glick assumes that the Israelis understand Pres. Obama's views of Israel better than American Jews do, and that it is objectively true that Obama does not support Israel. These two points are both highly debatable. Many if not most American Jews who do have Israel on their radar--and most do to some degree or another--still basically trust Obama on Israel, even if they are uncomfortable with his settlement emphasis. I am both strong supporter of Israel and a strong Democrat. I stand by Obama because I am convinced he has a deep appreciation for the Jewish experience and the need for Israel's existence as a Jewish state. My assessment is based on the his repeated statements about Israel and the Jewish people in interviews and speeches in the past couple of years (See for example Jeffrey Goldberg's interview for The Atlantic). Note also the responses of AIPAC and the AJC to Obama. I am uncomfortable with his emphasis upon settlements and lack of pressure on the Palestinians, because this approach does not follow from what is plainly the most profound source of the conflict's persistence: Arab rejectionism Nonetheless, _strategically speaking_, I think that Pres. Obama's approach has the potential to be successful in improving Israel's situation vis a vis it's neighbors. I think that he is putting himself in a position where he can turn around and make credible demands of the Palestinians and pressure the Arab League and European countries. I admit that wishful thinking plays some part in this, but so does my sense of Obama's style of statesmanship. He is not someone who wears his heart on his sleeve, a la GWBush, and when it comes to statecraft, this is a strength. He is extremely deliberate in his official moves. Moreover, he is not wide-eyed about the prospects for peace, love, and happiness in the world. this man has a keen appreciation for the difference between political judgement and everyday moral judgement.

Now, we can argue about what the body of evidence says about Obama's approach to Israel and the conflict. We can also argue about "what's good for Israel"--i.e. 2 states or something else. For my two cents, I am very concerned about Israelis or American Jews promoting themselves as anti-Obama. We need Obama's political capital. What is simply inaccurate in Glickman's analysis is that American Jews support Obama precisely because they don't really care about Israel. We have a different overall sense of Obama's attitudes towards Israel and the Jewish people, and it's not at all a given that Israelis understand him better than we do. That said, I do think that there a sizeable number of American Jews who do not recognize just how tough a bind Israel is in vis a vis her neighbors--how her good faith efforts at peace negotiations and land concessions have actually backfired. The younger generation in particular--in Israel too I suspect--does not sufficiently grasp the importance for Israel to remain a Jewish state.

Hiding from Disillusionment?
Date 07:06, 06-26, 09

It is true that most American Jews' ideas about domestic party politics seem rooted in the right-left definitions of the era from 1968 to 1985. They simply have not caught up with the realities of the world around them.

These realities include the fact that a huge number of evangelical Christians have embraced the cause of Zionism for Jews, while at the same time time mainstream Protestants frequently champion the Palestinian cause. They also include a huge increase in anti-Semitism qua anti-Israelism on the left in academic, journalistic, and political rhetoric all over the United States, Europe, and throughout the halls of the UN.

Really, so many American Jews are just hiding their heads in the sand. When what we need is people with minds that are agile and active enough to recognize the and keep up with the changes going on, what we so often get from community leaders is people who are dragging their feet because they are afraid to ruffle feathers. This is not a good survival tactic.

support
Date 10:06, 06-29, 09

I totally agree with the author. I am one of the Jewish people that didn't vote for Obama because of his policy for Israel.
A strong Israel is a "MUST" for the Jewish people's security and assurance of survival.