Keep in mind that like Bush favorability polling, they throw every dirty trick in the book to gin up the results.
American support for Israel
Betsy's Page
The Los Angeles Times ran a poll assessing American support for Israel as it battles against Hezbollah. While I have problems with how the question was phrased, I found the partisan breakdown in responses very telling. They asked,
<<< "As you may know, Israel has responded to rocket attacks from the Lebanese group Hezbollah by bombing Beirut and other cities in Lebanon. Do you think Israel's actions are justified or not justified?" >>>
Note how those who identified their party responded.
<<<
Justified, not excessively harsh 29%D 64%R
Justified, but excessively harsh 20% D 11% R
Unjustified 36%D 17%R
Don't Know 15%D 8% R
>>>
And then, in response to this question:
<<< "Which of the following statements comes closer to your view: "The United States should continue to align itself with Israel" or "The United States should adopt a more neutral posture" or "The United States should side more with the Arab countries?" >>>
Here is how the respondents broke down by party.
<<<
Continue to align with Israel 39% D 64% R
Adopt a more neutral posture 54% D 29% R
Should side more with Arab couthries 2% D 1% R
Don't know 5% D 6% R
>>>
I find these responses remarkable in light of our traditional support for Israel. And what I fear is that those negative numbers against Israel among Democrats are growing. We've seen how the party leaders have swung around on Iraq in response to the strong feelings and loud voices among their activists. I suspect that we'll start seeing the same switch begin to play out now on support for Israel. Some of the same voices that idealize Fidel Castro because he has stood up to the U.S. will support Hezbollah for standing up to that militaristic imperialist, Israel. They were happy to see Sharon as the invader in contrast to that Nobel Peace Prize winner, Yasser Arafat. Why should things be any different now?
We're already seeing the tip of the iceberg in the House. In the vote a couple of weeks ago condemning the attack on Israel and supporting their right to defend themselves, the Democrats had 7 members who voted No and 4 members who voted present. I suspect that if that vote were held again today, you'd see those Nay votes increase a bit. After all, the going has gotten tough for the Israelis and we know what happens when the going gets tough.
You're already hearing these calls for the U.S. to be more of an "honest broker" in the Middle East and castigating Bush for swinging policy towards being a strategic ally of Israel instead of trying to negotiate somewhat neutrally between Israel and those who seek to destroy it. Congressman John Dingell has already gone on the record with stating his neutrality, although he condemns Hezbollah's violence. This, of course, ignores the fallacy of trying to broker a peace between two groups when one seeks to destroy the other.
Just imagine if there was a breakaway terrorist group in northern Mexico that sought to destroy the United States and was lobbing rockets across the border into the United States killing and endangering all the people who lived in the Southwest. Suppose Mexico was helpless to stop those renegades and so we launched attacks against them ourselves. And then you had some thoughtful people throughout the globe telling us that we needed to negotiate with those terrorists. Perhaps, the French would offer to mediate as an "honest broker" and Kofi Annan would call on us to stop and offerend the ever incompetent UN peacekeepers to send a few thousand soldiers to police the border for us but refused to give them the power to stop any of the terrorists if they started rearming and launching more attacks. Do you think we'd be so impressed with the concept of an "honest broker" then?
Watch out for more and more of these criticisms of American policy for tilting too much towards Israel. There will be calls to negotiate with Syria and sit down with Iran. Just because they support terrorists who have killed Americans is no reason why we shouldn't play the neutral broker between Israel and Hezbollah. And as those calls increase, we'll see more of a partisan breakdown over support for Israel and you'll start seeing more and more Democratic politicians, particularly those who don't have to worry about the Jewish vote (and few congressmen, after all, have that big a Jewish constituency) will start in with their criticisms of Bush for his unequivocal support of Israel. As the war goes on, this will become an issue that divides the parties almost as much as support for the war in Iraq does. And, somehow, it will all be Bush's fault.
betsyspage.blogspot.com
latimes.com
carnegieendowment.org
powerlineblog.com |
