AMERICAN JEWS AND ISRAEL

This Sunday I read three articles dealing with the attitude of American Jews toward Israel.

Ron Radosh at Pajamas Media writes about how liberal Jews in the Obama administration are reacting to Netanyahu's policies. Joining those who want Obama to primarily keep up the pressure on Israel is the mainstream of American liberal journalists, most of them Jewish, who evidently see a need to reinforce Obama (not that he needs it) in his decision to get tough on America’s most loyal ally in the Middle East.

Mark Davis wonders why he, as a Christian, is more loyal to Israel than most American Jews are. There is something fundamentally wrong when I care more about Israel than the American Jewish community.

Jacob Weisberg writes on why Israel and liberal American Jews are drifiting apart. If you want numbers, various polls document the disenchantment. The partisan gap in support for Israel has jumped dramatically of late, with 80 percent of Republicans expressing favorable view of Israel, according to Gallup, as compared with only 53 percent of Democrats. One recent study found that only 54 percent of Jews under 35 who aren't Orthodox are "comfortable with the idea of a Jewish state" (as compared to more than 80 percent of those over 65). Among younger Jews, only 20 percent rated as "highly attached" to Israel in another poll.

If you want examples of the shift in sentiment, read just about any Jewish columnist for a major newspaper. Thomas Friedman of The New York Times argued that Biden under-reacted to Israel's housing announcement. Richard Cohen of The Washington Post is writing a book arguing that the founding of Israel was a well-intentioned mistake.