America’s Two Major Parties Split On Support For Israel

Note: In this post when I talk about Republicans and Democrats I don’t mean every single Democrat or every single Republican. To be sure there are some Democrat politicians and a portion of the Democrat public that support Israel, and there a few Republican politicians and a few Republicans in the  public that don’t support Israel.  This post is recognizing a new phenomena that seems to have taken place in America with a majority of Democrats vs a majority of Republicans.Jewish people in America who support Israel have always been comforted by the fact [ever since I can remember] that both major parties in the United States, Democrats and Republicans, [general population and politicians] have been equally supportive of the state of Israel. There has always been strong support for Israel and thank God for that.

There seems to have been a recent phenomena that has almost crept on us by surprise. I first had a queasy feeling in my stomach when a majority of Americans completely discounted a presidential candidate’s 20 year relationship with a virulent anti Semitic pastor and by a good margin elected that candidate as president of the United States.  When this man, Barack Obama began his first term as president he made what some of us thought were anti Israel statements and policies. What I noticed was, liberal Democrats, even Jewish Democrats never wavered in their support of president Obama. It didn’t matter what Barack Obama would say or do regarding Israel, the Democrats [general population and politicians, with a few exceptions] made excuses for every move he would make. That gave me a more queasy feeling in my stomach about Democrats support for Israel.

This recent phenomena, when looking over the polls, may have begun earlier than I thought.
This from the Gallup Poll in April of 2002: “Throughout the 1990s, Republicans consistently gave
larger margins of support to the Israelis over the Palestinians
than did the Democrats.”

In April of 2010 in Real Clear Politics, Carolyn Glick noted:  “A Gallup poll conducted in February showed that whereas 85 percent of
Republicans support Israel (up from 77% in February 2009), and 60% of
Independents support Israel (up from 49% in February 2009), only 48%
of Democrats support Israel, (down from 52% in February 2009).”

A Pew research center poll in October of 2012 noted in Breitbart.com showed an even wider gap:
“In a new Pew Research Center poll conducted this month, the study
shows that it was bad enough when members of both parties were asked
whether the United States is too supportive of Israel; twice as many
Democrats agreed; 25% to 13%.    But the real shocker was another question: “Do you think the United States is not supportive enough of Israel?”…46% of Republicans
said the U.S. was not supportive enough, while only 9% of Democrats thought so”.

Okay, those are just polls and polls aren’t always accurate, so maybe that can’t be taken as definitive on the issue.

But then we had the 2012 Democrat Convention in which a big portion if not a majority of Democrat delegates voted “no” to Jerusalem.  I am sure liberal Democrats will say that was a tiny portion of the Democrat party and doesn’t prove anything.  Well, I’ll let you look at the video to see if this was just a small portion of elected delegates to the national Democrat party convention or a big portion of delegates. Remember when you are watching, these are all democrats [representative of the Democrat public as they were voted in by their fellow Democrats].

Okay, maybe the polls weren’t accurate and maybe that video was a one time anomaly but now with what has just happened with the senate hearings and committee vote on the Hagel nomination can there be any doubt anymore that the Republican Party is much more supportive of the state of Israel than the Democrat Party?  Tales has done a couple of posts in the past to show of Hagel’s anti Israel statements and positions. Please read Tales post of  Hagel’s nomination an in your face slap at Israel.  So, with the clear anti Israel animus toward Israel well known by all US senators from the committee hearings, here is how the Senate armed forces committee voted regarding the Hagel nomination:  All 14 Democrats voted in favor of the Hagel nomination and all 11 Republicans voted against it.  If the Hagel nomination comes to a vote in the United States Senate I can almost guarantee that while a big majority of Republicans will vote against the Hagel nomination there won’t be one Democrat, Jewish or otherwise that will vote against the Hagel nomination.  That is shameful to me.

With the polls, the Democrat convention, and now the Hagel nomination there is no doubt anymore of the split of the two major parties regarding their support for Israel.

In my opinion it is now official: There is only one major party in the United States that is united in their strong support for the state of Israel, and that is the Republican Party.

I am proud to be a conservative who is in the party that was the one in favor of the abolition of slavery, and that is now the one in favor of the state of Israel.  The Republican Party.