The widening partisan gap on Israel
Shmuel Rosner has some interesting observations on that Gallup poll on support for Israel that came out last week.
3.Rosner goes on to observe that the partisan gap regarding Israel is wider than the partisan gap on any other country in the survey. And one of Rosner's readers point out that Israel is the only country in the survey for whom support increases with age. For every other country, support decreases with age. And Israel is the only country that has more support from Republicans than from Democrats.
Well - not all Americans. While the upward trend is likely to encourage Israelis, there are also more worrisome signs in this poll. Republicans become more supportive of Israel, but with Democrats the picture is less rosy. In fact, as far as I can recall another record was set in this poll: the gap between Republican and Democratic support is higher than ever (37%!). Two years ago, I wrote about another poll in which the difference was "significant": it was a mare 20%.
What to make of all this? My sense is that more and more American support for Israel is not coming from Jews (most of whom vote Democrat) but from Evangelical Christians (most of whom vote Republican). I believe that explains the survey results, as well as many other polls we have seen that show that younger Jews are less concerned about Israel than the older generation. While it's a shame that so many Jews are unsupportive (and have replaced Judaism with Liberalism as their religion), in the long run, the support of Evangelical Christians makes it likely that Israel's support will remain high in the United States, even as a greater percentage of Jews are lost to assimilation and intermarriage. Isn't it ironic that the Jewish state is becoming dependent on Evangelical Christians for its support in the United States? God works in strange ways, doesn't He? And I have long since given up trying to explain them.
Israel Matzav: The widening partisan gap on Israel
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