The 2014 midterms and the Jews: We showed up

The midterm elections was a huge victory for the Republican Party, which won at least 52 seats in the Senate (they will likely end up with 54, after Alaska and Louisiana are decided), up to 250 seats in the House, GOP governors in Massachusetts and Maryland — it was beyond everyone’s expectations. 

I would love to be able to say that this election was won because the people picked good old conservative values over progressive policy, but I won’t because it’s not true. Certainly many GOP voters cast their ballots on that basis, but the polls make it clear that voters weren’t crazy about either party.

Turnout was key to the election. As with most midterm elections, traditional Republican voting blocs showed up, while many traditional Democratic blocs stayed home. Except for the Jews. Exit polls show that while Jews represent only 2 percent of the population they were 3 percent of the voting electorate, meaning that Jews turned out in bigger numbers than other groups.

Exit polls from the midterms indicate the GOP is increasing its support among Jewish voters. The polls report that 33 percent of Jewish voters backed Republican candidates while 66 percent went to the Democrats. In 2006 (the last midterm exit polls that sampled enough Jewish voters to be analyzed) only 12 percent of Jewish voters selected Republican candidates (with the low vote largely motivated by opposition to the Iraq war). 

Since 1982, the historical average for the GOP in mid-term elections among Jewish voters was 26%. The range has a low of 18 percent in 1982 and a high of 33 percent this year. In the last two presidential elections Jews went 22 percent (2008) and 30 percent (2012) to the Republican candidate.

One reason for the increases in the past three elections is that Republicans are more supportive of Israel than Democrats (remember the “catcalls” from those at the DNC in Charlotte when they tried to restore one of four pro-Israel provisions to the Democratic platform?).

A Pew study conducted during the first week of Operation Protective Edge (July 8-14) reported support for Israel among Americans remains strong. What has changed is that the gap between Republican supporters (73 percent) and Democratic supporters (44 percent) is wider than ever.

Another motivation for the switch may be the president’s anti-Israel policies. The Jewish vote in presidential elections has seen three major shifts in the past 40 years. The first occurred during the reelection campaign of Jimmy Carter, the second Bush 41 race, and most recently Barack Obama’s reelection. Those three Presidents were the most anti-Israel in the modern history of the Jewish State.

Carter received less than half the Jewish vote when he ran for reelection in 1980 (45 percent), Reagan received 39 percent and independent candidate John Anderson received about 15 percent. The elder Bush caused a downturn in the GOP Jewish vote which lasted until his son’s administration. During Bush 41’s tenure, relations with Israel got so bad Secretary of State James Baker was reported as saying “ F**k the Jews, they wont vote for us anyway.” In his failed reelection bid, Bush 41 generated only 11 percent of the Jewish vote (down from 35 percent in his first run).

President Obama is the only one of the three anti-Israel presidents to have won reelection, but his policies have driven down his support from Jews. After earning 78 percent of the Jewish vote in 2008, Obama’s share fell to 69 percent — and now 66 percent in the 2014 midterm, which was largely seen as a referendum on Obama’s policies.

Obama’s second term has been more anti-Israel than his first, and based on recent signals it is sure to get worse (and that is no “chickensh*t”).

An example of the administration’s worsening attitude occurred two days after the election. At a Thursday evening event at the Carnegie Council, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff General Martin Dempsey, the highest ranking military official in the United States, said that Israel went to “extraordinary lengths” to limit civilian casualties in the recent war in Gaza and that the Pentagon had sent a team to see what lessons could be learned from the operation.

“I actually do think that Israel went to extraordinary lengths to limit collateral damage and civilian casualties. In fact, about 3 months ago we asked [IDF Chief of Staff] Benny [Gantz] if we could send a lessons learned team — one of the things we do better than anybody I think is learn — and we sent a team of senior officers and non-commissioned officers over to work with the IDF to get the lessons from that particular operation in Gaza. To include the measures they took to prevent civilian casualties and what they did with tunneling, because Hamas had become very nearly a subterranean society. And so, that caused the IDF some significant challenges. But they did some extraordinary things to try to limit civilian casualties to include calling out, making it known that they were going to destroy a particular structure. Even developed some techniques, they call it roof knocking, to have something knock on the roof, they would display leaflets to warn citizens and population to move away from where these tunnels.”

The next day, Jen Psaki the spokesperson for the State Department, did what she could to shoot down General Dempsey.

“It remains the broad view of the entire administration that they could have done more,” Psaki said during a press briefing Friday when asked about the Dempsey comments. “And they should have taken more feasible precautions to prevent civilian casualties.”

AP reporter Matt Lee pointed out that, according to Dempsey, Israel had lived up to the “high standards” to which the Obama administration holds Israel. Still, Psaki said, Israel’s efforts were not enough.

Despite the opinion of the general who should know, the most senior military figure in the United States, Obama’s State Department says Israel could have done more. Notice they never say what more Israel could have done, because they don’t know — after all, the U.S. is sending its people to Israel to learn how they protected civilians.

The truth is that Obama, Kerry and their team of Israel-haters simply want to demonize the Jewish State. The other truth is if the demonization continues, the Jewish vote may move a bit more toward the GOP, five to seven percent at the most. 

Despite the anti-Israel policies of this administration, the Democrats in Congress will continue to keep their heads in the sand. Not one of the supposedly pro-Israel Democrats including like local politicians such as Brooklyn’s Chuck Schumer, Long Island’s Steve Israel, and Manhattan’s Jerrold Nadler — has the guts to stand up and criticize Obama’s policies toward Israel. 

In Vayikra, G-d says, “You shall not stand idly by [the shedding of] your fellow’s blood. I am the L-rd.”

In 2014 we see that Jewish voters are starting to creep away from an anti-Israel president and an anti-Israel party. But “pro-Israel” Jewish politicians are ignoring what we were commanded in Vayikra; they continue to “stand idly by,” to protect their careers as the President of the United States continues do demonize the Jewish State.