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Israel’s attack on Gaza diminished its support among Democratic voters

Almost 70% of Democratic voters now say that their congressional reps support Israel more than they do.

A new University of Maryland Critical Issues Poll shows that Israel’s recent attack on Gaza hurt its reputation among Democratic voters, particularly young Democratic voters. Almost 70% of Democratic voters, who know where their local lawmakers stand on the issue, now say that their congressional representatives support Israel more than they do.

3,379 American adults were surveyed on the conflict between  June 22 to July 21. The post-attack shift becomes immediately evident when the new numbers are compared against a similar poll that the group carried out in August of 2020.

The 2020 poll found that 13.1% of Democrats wanted the United States government to favor the Palestinians and 10.4% wanted Israel to be favored. In the new poll 17.9% want the U.S. to back the Palestinians and just 9.5% want the government to learn toward Israel.

Among Democrats between the ages of 18-34, 34.5% want Palestinians to be favored and just 9.1% want U.S. support to tip toward Israel.

These numbers become even more striking among Democrats between the ages of 18-34. The 2020 poll found that 18.3% of them wanted the U.S. to back Palestine and 11.4% wanted them to favor Israel. Now 34.5% want Palestinians to be favored and just 9.1% want support to tip toward Israel.

Shibley Telhami, a nonresident senior fellow with the Center for Middle East Policy, in the Foreign Policy program at Brookings, summarized the findings. “One striking finding in this poll is the large shift in Democratic attitudes toward Israel that’s too big to be explained simply by long-term trends, putting the spotlight on May’s Gaza conflict,” he wrote. “The poll certainly shows a continued, now-familiar trend of robust support for Israel among Republicans, coupled with a reduction of backing for Israel among Democrats. It also highlights a contrast between the highly supportive public posture that the Biden administration has taken on Israel and Democratic public opinion, which overwhelmingly wants the U.S. to be even-handed, with those who want to take a side increasingly backing the Palestinians.”

“There is evidence that the recent Gaza fighting further diminished support for Israel among Democrats, especially young Democrats.”

Shibley Telhami

He continues, “There is evidence that the recent Gaza fighting further diminished support for Israel among Democrats, especially young Democrats. In particular, the change from just 11 months earlier is too substantial to be a function of long-term demographic trends, or a further outcome of political polarization in Washington…”

The new poll also shows that majority of Americans opposed President Joe Biden’s handling of the recent crisis in Gaza. 52.6% disapproved of Biden’s moves and 47.4% approved. 27.7% of Democrats opposed Biden’s moves but, as Telhami points, these numbers are even more notable when one considers how low Biden’s disapproval rating is among Democratic voters. Again, these numbers go way up when younger Democrats are isolated. Almost half the Democrats between 18-34 said they disapproved of the President’s efforts.

Although Republican support for Israel remains somewhat solid, the new poll also indicates that Republican lawmakers are to the right of their voters on this issue. Of those polled who knew where their elected officials stand on the issue, 67.7% of Democrats and 44.4% of Republicans said their congress members support Israel more than they do.

These new findings couldn’t come at a worse time for Israel. The country’s leaders and its supporters began waging a vociferous PR battle shortly after Ben & Jerry’s announced it would stop selling its ice cream in illegal settlements.

In a recent piece in The Conversation St. Lawrence University Government Professor Ronnie Olesker said she expects more companies to follow Ben & Jerry’s lead. She cites a Gallup poll from May that found Israel has a net favorability of just 3% among Democrats and voters who lean Democratic. That’s down from 31% in the early 2000s.

“While I don’t doubt the company’s values were behind the decision, I also believe something else was at work: Israel is losing the battle for public opinion,” writes Olesker.

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This time Israel’s massacre of civilians was different. You could see it in the media, when even the New York Times and others, dared for the first time, to put up pictures of the poor little babies, killed by Israel’s bombs, the response from around the world, and the condemnation from academia, and international agencies. I agree with the majority that Joe Biden FAILED to do the right thing, and like all other presidents, justified Israel’s violence, and whispered the usual caution to Israel.
Does it mean that the Palestinian people have to endure violent attacks, precision bombs into their homes, shelters, hospitals, have their doctors and medical official killed, to make the American people convinced that Israel is a vicious nation and NOT the victim in all this?
Israel can keep playing the victim and lie to the world, but we as a nation have to stop pretending we believe in those lies, and stop being complicit in these crimes we would have condemned without hesitation had this been Iran.

Perhaps those politicians who support israel more than the folks who elected them should pack and move to israel.

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I agree with Michael, Israel is losing the battle for public opinion. But how could it be otherwise? Consider that Israel doesn’t actually do anything to deepen Main Street America’s “support” or appreciation for Israel. What’s to love really about Israel? All the news from there is bad, every day it gets worse and more people around the world are voicing up their support for Palestine and contempt for Israel. Little to nothing is done by organized Zionism to explain to ordinary Americans why, exactly, they should support Israel. Just crickets.

For Zionism, the state of privileged political imperium it has crafted for itself on Capitol Hill, as seen daily in the cringeworthy over-familiarity it flaunts regarding Congressional processes and officials, is just the natural order of things and will continue on unchanged in perpetuity. They do nothing to garner and nurture authentic solidarity – a sense of deep caring about a place and its people – past the repetitious blathering that Israel is a “democracy” and bafflingly, an “ally”. Chuck Schumer and Nancy Pelosi’s obsequious kowtowing notwithstanding, there is daylight between the US and Israel and it grows brighter by the day.

Perhaps Zionists actually do know that emotionally convicted support from Main Street America is not really possible given that Zionism does not the welcome, beyond random, tactical involvement, those who cannot become genuine sons and daughters of Trumpeldor and Jabotinsky. Couple this with the fact that most Jewish people do not choose to live in Israel, and many are in open revolt against organized Zionism, and the data in the University of Maryland’s Critical Issues Poll makes perfect sense.

Couple Zionism’s assumed, inherited exceptionalism and entitlement with the fact that Zionism, an ethno-religious special interest group, has single-handedly created an international perception of the US as a white hot cauldron of anti-Jewish bias, or “antisemitism”, the rational definition of which still eludes the greatest Zionist minds.

Even as it works assiduously to harm the US reputationally (something Americans can do perfectly well themselves, thank you) political Zionism demands more foreign “aid” (actually tribute), protection at the UN, “understanding”, slavish Congressional behavior, the right to interfere in domestic politics (anti-BDS laws as one example) and so on.

(cont)

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Do Zionists comprehend, even just a little bit, how every time an American citizen is accused unjustly of “antisemitism”, perhaps even only by another ordinary citizen in the absence of evidence or an opportunity to discuss the particulars and importantly, a chance for those involved to explain their point of view, learn and even (dare I say it?) grow from the encounter, they alienate not just the people directly involved, but many in the woke society. Do they even care that this charge, even a provably unjust charge, carries a near-radioactive effect that is (still) near-impossible to expunge. Do they even think about that? Do they ever consider the “hidden costs” (to themselves) of say, Canary Mission?

There is a direct political price to be paid for bullying, smearing, intimidating and harming innocent people and the Critical Issues Poll is prima facie evidence of that.

Might it be the case that if one truly loves Israel and the Jewish people that the best way to show that affection is to work to abolish political Zionism?

Q: Is it antisemitic according to IHRA to raise these points or to fail to raise them?

View 354 Palestine posters on the subject of aliya (emigration to Israel – an option reserved for Jewish people only)

https://www.palestineposterproject.org/special-collection/aliyahaliyah-betemigrationimmigrationtransfercolonizationinternal

This misleading headline is an example of propaganda. The actual numbers on the question: “Compared with your view on this issue, how would you describe the positions of your elected congressional representative on it?” for Democrats was: 33.2% leaning more towards Israel, versus 6.3% Leaning more toward the Palestinians, versus 9.6% Matching my position. and it is upon this group of answers that the 70% of the headline was arrived at. Whereas in fact 50.9% of those who answered the poll answered, “Don’t know.”

This fact, that most people answered, “Don’t know” is not to be found in the Mondoweiss article but only in the original statistics. In fact it is not that the representatives do not represent their constituents, but that an insufficient number of the constituents follow the issue and care enough about the issue in order to formulate an opinion that might push their representatives in their direction.

Such a dose of reality is not found in this article, because it is not useful for the purpose of blaming the representatives and their “kowtowing” to The Lobby to include the fact that the public at large is not up on the issue or care enough about the issue. Omitting this dose of reality places this headline squarely in the realm of propaganda rather than real politics.