Letters to the Editor
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Fantasy land.....
But this equation is not even shared by actual Israelis, nor is it shared by the majority of Americans. An overwhelming majority of Israelis -- 64% -- favor negotiations with Hamas. Two-thirds of American voters generally "believe that Israel should continue to negotiate with the Palestinian Authority, even in the face of terrorist attacks."
This reminds me of the "human shields" that went to Iraq prewar, in order to preserve hospitals and such. I remember laughing when they were stunned to find out they would be placed in front of military targets instead.
While such idealism is laudable, as foreign policy it is suicide. What part of any Palestinian accord is trustworthy? Why reward terrorism? How has giving Gaza over has worked out? Personally, I think we should let Israel off the leash and let them do whatever they want. Like the Dem primary situation, only full scale war is going to resolve the standoff.
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Watching ElectroRobot's quickening descent into psychosis....
Has actually become less entertaining and more creepy. Perhaps he/she/it has, until that last post, simply tried harder to disguise it.
Has anyone ever noticed that as a comments/letters thread gets up into the 100+ range, his/her/its posts get more deranged and less factual (if that is even possible)? Now it's occurring within the span of fewer than 25 total posts.
After the last one, I wonder why anybody would even bother to respond....EVER.
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electro robot
why do you have so blatantly brazenly lie?
Glenn never said any of those things you manufactured in your false post.
What a shame. I am sorry to have you in my tribe- the Krsitol, Krauthammer clone.
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@ Proximity Warning
"...it was basically a result of Israel being seen as a balwalk against Soviet influence in the region, which is arguably the main reason that Republicans became interested in supporting Israel to a greater extent."
Did you mean bulwark? No such word as "balwalk", although the Google search I've pasted for it below is kind of interesting in that it only turned up 8 total results (!) and that three of them are links to comments threads or opinion pieces where the "word" is used in exactly the same manner you've used it here. Perhaps even more incriminating is the context in which it was used. In the first case it is obviously meant to say "a bulwark against Islam" and in the second "a bulwark against Socialism".
I'm not usually very nit picky about little things like that, but geez, PW.
http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&safe=off&q=balwalk&btnG=Search
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Some evidence
"Do you have any evidence for this? I'll leave to the side for the moment the polling data which disproves your assertions (I will never understand why people insist on opining about what "most X believe" based on their own extremely limited, likely distorted anecdotal impressions rather than actual polling data)."
My assertion was that most American Jews support a militaristic approach toward Hamas, the Palestinians et al. This was based on my (perhaps imperfect) recollection of poll data, rather than detailed research. It is very clearly the position of a number of "mainstream" Jewish advocacy organizations (e.g., AJC, AIPAC, ADL), as I'm sure you are aware. It is also consistent with my own anecdotal observation, which I think is broad enough to be relevant, though not definitive.
However, the poll data you cited was from within Israel. I don't see a need to reconcile my assertion with that data because I wasn't talking about Israeli public opinion. Again, based on anecdote, my observation is that American Jewish public opinion is more in line with the Israeli right than with broader opinion in Israel. This is something I have often heard Israelis complain about. If you have poll data that refutes this I stand corrected.
As to the fact that Jews vote overwhelmingly for Democrats, I said that their views are affected by candidates' proclamations about Israel, not determined. In this light, my (limited) reading of data from the current election cycle is that Jews narrowly favor Clinton over Obama, and that this appears to be driven by the perception that she is more hardline on Israeli matters.
In a state like Florida (where Jews vote at a substantially higher rate than most other demographics, contribute a lot of money to campaigns, and have a disproportionate impact on election outcomes), I think what McCain is doing is trying to woo over Clinton voters under the assumption that Obama will win the nomination. Do I like the fact that a politician is pandering to a stereotype (the Israel-obsessed Jewish retiree)? Not particularly. However, in this case, I don't think he's misreading the electorate.
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Our "entangling alliance"
with Israel is precisely the kind Jefferson and Washington and the other founders hoped to avoid. We have a similar alliance with the Saudis that gets less press but they have the oil. Back in their day it was France and Britain. Today it is Israel and the rest of the Muslim world. We haven't had a statesman with the talents and gravitas to walk that walk since Clinton.
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Kneel before Zod
"I'm not usually very nit picky about little things like that, but geez, PW."
Oh, it's fine. Nit pick away. I f-cked up a word.
I kneel before you, your turbulence.
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I'm just puzzled because...
None of this seems in line with my experience as a Jewish (reform) woman living in a mid-sized Midwestern city with a large Jewish community. Hard-core Jewish republicans are a minority in my experience, and where they exist, they tend to be wealthy and voting economic interests -- not Israel.
As a group, Jews are somewhat liberal and mostly Democrats (or Independents). That is, the Jews I know. I don't claim to know the innermost thoughts of every Jewish person, obviously.
I do know when I mentioned AIPAC at my nephew's Bar Mitvah a couple years back, nobody (in an entirely Jewish crowd) had any idea what I was talking about. None of them give money to right-wing organizations, whether Jewish or Israeli or anything else -- I believe this is largely because nobody is wealthy enough to be giving money anyhow. If they were, they'd be giving it to liberal social causes, not AIPAC.
Speaking of that: just for the record, most Jews are not wealthy and few of us are "hedge fund managers" as I have read any number of times on Salon letter threads about Israel. This is no more true than to assume every black person is poor and lives in the urban ghetto.
If pretty much all major candidates seek the Jewish vote, though, I suspect this is because as a group we do tend to actually vote, whereas other racial/ethnic/religious groups may not. Christian conservatives obviously do, in great numbers and with great conviction, while inner-city African Americans tend not to so much. That might change greatly if Obama is the Democratic candidate, of course.
As a result, I think all candidates running tend to say about the same things about their future support for the State of Israel, whether true or not, because they think it will curry favor with Jewish voters. I really doubt this does a whole lot of good, because in my experience "Jewish voters" are NOT a monolith grimly pulling the lever in the polling booth while holding their noses, supporting conservative candidates they don't like because they think "this will help Israel".
I'm personally far more worried about the economy, global warming, high gas prices, the foreclosure crisis, outsourcing of jobs, abortion rights, and so on, than I am directly concerned about Israel. Which doesn't mean I have NO concerns about the Middle East, just that it is far FAR from my only concern, and I think my general attitude about this is pretty mainstream for most average American Jews.
John McCain's campaign doesn't strike me in any way as sophisticated or insightful, anyhow. If he's "pandering" to American Jewry, it's not working. If Senator McCain does indeed win in November, it will be because of the massive failure of the Democrats, the egos of Clinton and Obama and their unwillingness to compromise and settle the Democratic candidacy. On other threads, I have written extensively about the incredible will for failure that plagues the Democrats, and that is the basis for decades of failure to win or keep the White House (and Congress).
It's also worth keeping a perspective here -- if every single solitary Jewish voter voted for either McCain or a Democrat...would it even matter? Jews represent roughly 1.5% of the population of the United States -- we could probably all vote for Nader and it would hardly make a ripple.