Democrats’ Support for Israel Collapses

Shocking but not surprising is our reaction to the release of a survey from Gallup finding support for Israel among Democrats at a parlous 33 percent. Republicans back the Jewish state at an 83 percent clip, making the partisan gap on the question of Zion akin to the Ramon Canyon that yawns in the Negev. The Jewish Telegraphic Agency reckons that the outcome “is the latest stark sign that Democrats are losing their love for Israel.”We take no pleasure in one of America’s two great political parties drifting away from the Jewish state. It is a gathering calamity for all the country, not least the Democrats themselves. As recently as 2022, Gallup reports, 63 percent of Democrats viewed Israel favorably. That’s a drop of 30 points in just three years. Over that same stretch, Republican enthusiasm for Israel ticked up two points. That disparity, Gallup asserts, “shatters the prior record.” Gallup also discloses that 55 percent of Democrats support the desiccated communist regime at Havana, which means that Cuba outpaces Israel’s support among Democrats by more than 20 points. Forty-five percent of Democrats support the “Palestinian Territories,” even after more than a year of war begun by Hamas’s killing and kidnapping spree in Israel’s south. Also a factor is President Trump’s swing behind Jerusalem. Some Jewish Democrats appear to be doubling down on denial. The chief executive officer of the Jewish Democratic Council of America, Haile Soifer, blames “Prime Minister Netanyahu’s close alignment with Donald Trump.” As if Democrats would feel more warmly toward the Jewish state if America’s leader were implacably opposed to it. President Biden, while he supported Israel in the days after October 7, hemmed and hawed for the next year.Vice President Harris struck an even colder tone, and her assertion that she had “studied the maps” and deemed military action at Rafah verboten will not soon be forgotten in the annals of martial strategy. While she likely pulled something like seven in ten Jewish votes — old habits die hard — there were ample signs that Jews were registering the emerging prospect that there could soon be only one party in America committed to the well-being of Israel. If we were a Democratic grandee ostensibly committed to Israel — say, Senator Schumer — we would treat these results as the five-alarm fire that it is. Instead, the solon is out promoting a new book on antisemitism even as he works to block sanctions for the kangaroo jurists who would hale Mr. Netanayahu and other Israeli leaders into court. It is left to the Trump administration, rather than New York’s Democrats, to decry the barbarism at Barnard.The Democrats’ ditching of Israel is about more than just the Jewish state. The party is increasingly committed to a worldview for which hostility toward Israel follows as day succeeds night. It is no coincidence that the pandering of the party to anti-Israel voices was prelude to defeat at the polls. Every organization that embraced a politics organized against the Jews has eventually capsized.The Democrats are for the moment performing in the off-Broadway venues of American politics, so it would be easy to shrug at the party’s flight from Israel. The example of British Labour illustrates how a party can lose its way. Abraham’s search for 10 righteous men at Sodom could soon resemble the hunt to locate a pro-Israel Democrat. Today’s 33 percent mark may yet come to signal the good old days.

Democrats’ Support for Israel Collapses

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