In today’s Daily Beast, Michael Tomasky laments the fact that President Obama is running far behind his 2008 numbers with American Jewish voters. Given the unwillingness of most liberals to come to grips with the fact that far fewer Jewish voters are going to vote for the president this time around, such an acknowledgement is refreshing. Realizing that Obama’s current poll numbers with Jews show him 16 points behind the 78 percent he won in 2008, Tomasky admits it will be hard for him to make up that ground even if most Jews are not in love with the Republican option.
But the answer as to why these losses are unlikely to be made up and might even get bigger can be found in Tomasky’s column. Far from being convinced by speeches like the one the president delivered at the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum, many understand that they saw the real Barack Obama earlier in his administration when he was going all out to do what left-wingers like Tomasky wanted him to do: pressure Israel to make concessions to Palestinians who don’t want peace. Even more to the point, they understand that the president’s desire to effect what Tomasky calls a “reset” of American policy toward Israel will return if he is re-elected.
Tomasky laments the fact that Obama’s speech to the AIPAC conference this year was a stark departure from the attitude demonstrated during the previous three years. That this is a far cry from the administration’s initial determination to put an end to what Tomasky calls “pro-Israel blindness,” is quite true. But the president’s cynical Jewish charm offensive isn’t likely to win back many disenchanted voters who know the difference between conviction and an election-year conversion.
Like Peter Beinart, whose foolish book he praises, Tomasky demonstrates no understanding of the real obstacle to Middle East peace. It isn’t an Israel, whose democratically elected government has accepted a two-state process; it’s the Palestinians who have shown repeatedly that they won’t recognize the legitimacy of a Jewish state no matter where its borders are drawn. The question for Jewish Democrats who care about Israel is whether they believe Obama has truly learned from his past mistakes and understands that the U.S. must stand behind Israel against Hamas and Iran or, as Tomasky hopes, a second term will bring a rerun of Obama’s previous bouts of Israel-bashing.
As I wrote in the March issue of COMMENTARY, the majority of Jewish voters are partisan liberal Democrats and are unlikely to be moved to oppose their party’s nominee no matter what he does. But there is a critical mass of Jewish swing voters — whose numbers may exceed the 16 percent difference between Obama’s current level of Jewish support and his 2008 total — who are sufficiently disgusted with his overall performance and specifically concerned about his record on Israel to possibly vote for a moderate conservative alternative this fall.
Tomasky concludes by recycling the charge that Jewish concerns about Obama’s record on Israel are mainly based on fabrications about his background. Though this president, much like his predecessor, has been the victim of a number of slanders that emanated from the margins of the political spectrum, it is a grave mistake to think Jews suspect him because of false quotes from his autobiography. The reason why so many Jews have abandoned Obama is the same reason why leftists like Tomasky support him: they think a re-elected Obama will have the “flexibility” to turn on Israel.
Guess what Jewish-Americans also think Obama will turn on the USA. He has already shown his incompetence when it comes to fixing the problems of the USA. People understand that he will only make things worse.
FDR did not deserve the admiration of that generation
Obama probably cannot be reelected if the Jewish vote falls below 65%. Jews only comprise roughly 2% of the American population. In some states their vote as a group is almost meaningless. Still, Jews offer two advantages to those politicians receiving their support: money—and intellectual talents! The value of the latter should never be underestimated.
Unfortunately, political stereotypes of 60-70 years ago are a poor guide to what's going on today. And FDR wasn't so great on anti-semitism, the Holocaust, or Zionism. A mind-clogging, sentimentalized mythology is at work here. (No disrespect intended to the far better Truman.)
Generally agree, but: 1. I am not at all sure that Truman was any better. He recognized Israel in order to get the Jewish vote in New York where Dewey would have won the state and the election. After the election, Truman did not lift a finger (maybe only the middle finger) to help Israel which was in its greatest battle for survival, the War of Independence. 2. To say that FDR 'wasn't so great', is to elevate him to a stature he doesn't deserve one bit. He was a through and through anti-Semite – as was Truman's family. Not the anti-Semitism of the Nazis, but seriously bad for Jews during the Holocaust. His only excuse may be that the country as a whole was somewhat, or more, anti-Semitic.
Please document your throw-away line, "slanders that emanated from the fringes of the political spectrum". I.e., prove the allegations are slanders. As a bonus, please show how his actions and decisions differ from those the slanderers predicted. n nGood luck with that.
It’s hard to know if he even cares. When one listens to David Axelrod you get the sense he’d rather not bother with with taking the election seriously, with elections at all, make Obama President for Life send the dissidents to a Gulag in Alaska.
It's hard to know whether Obama even cares all that much. When listening to David "Chaim Rumkowsky" Axelrod, one gets the sense that Obama isn't taking the election seriously or is even concerned with elections at all. He'd rather crown himself Emperor a-la Napoleon and send the dissidents to a gulag in Alaska.
Stepping back from the specifics of the Mid-East itself, I wonder why anybody would trust Obama about any promise or assurance he makes. He obviously says what he thinks the audience wants to hear, then acts as he perceives is expedient. nWhen one's existence is in constant jeopardy (as is Israel's), placing one's trust on Mr. Obama, that most inconstant of men, is too much of a risk. nAs a non-Jew, I fear for Israel each day this Administration is in power. I hope that more Jewish voters come to see the urgency of getting principled leadership in the United States to maintain relations with all our important allies. If that makes me "blindly pro-Israel", so be it.
These are the kind of posts that will NOT cause Jewish voters to abandon Obama because the posts are just so dumb. Obama is no worse than his predecessors from the perspective of right wing supporters of Israel. Bush, Clinton, Reagan, Nixon (a big anti-semite) all had their moments of fundamental disagreement with the Israeli Right. Give me some reason to believe Romney would be any different.
The reservations about Obama expressed in the comments here are important and even crucial ones. As some have pointed out, it is not just a matter relating to the treatment of Israel, although in these times when Israel is confronting a newly emboldened Islamist Egypt, and an equally newly emboldened and rabidly anti-Zionist Turkey, a desperate Syria and an extremist and dysfunctional Lebanon, a Jordan under existential threat by Palestinian militants, and, worst of all, a genocidally antisemitic Iran, not to mention the treacherous Palestinians, it is the very worst time to have an Obama at its back ready with sanctimonious sound-bites and a knife. n nBut no less disturbing or even more so, in fact of the very greatest importance for the future of America, is the Obama attitudes and guiding policies revealed by the private conversation between Obama and President Medvedev of Russia recently, caught inadvertently on microphone by journalists just before a news conference. Obama reassured Medvedev that he is willing to concede American and NATO defense policies to Russian demands, AFTER he gets elected when he will be able to disregard the wishes of the American electorate with impunity. It will evidently be part of the disarmament of America and stripping down the defense budget that Obama is already engaged in. That kind of underhanded policy, actually colluding with America's enemies while lying to the American people simply to retain power, should in itself be sufficient for the American people to vote him out of office as soon as possible.