Gallup:Israel's Critics Are Younger, Less Educated And Informed, And Mostly Democrat

 

 Americans’ pro-Israel sentiments remain near an all-time high, according to Pew’s  numbers, and CNN measures public support for Israel’s recent actions against Hamas at a robust (57/43)..which since it's CNN, probably means the real numbers are a lot closer to Pew's.

But Gallup has an interesting new poll out that puts thing in a different light..



While America is still overwhelmingly pro-Israel, the part that skews anti-Israel has a very  interesting demographic. Hamas has very little support, but as Gallup itself revealed in their internals, what brings the pro-Israel numbers up so high is self-identifying Republicans and GOP leaners. They back Israel by a huge 44% margin over those who do not, whereas Democrats backing Israel lose out by 16 points to those who don't.

The profile of those who don't consider  Israel’s  war against  Hamas as “justified” are young people (-26), non-whites (-24), women (-11), and people with a high school education or less (-11) . This is also known as the Democratic coalition.



Another breakdown comes when you look at people following the events occurring closely as opposed to your typical low information voters whom don't and rely on soundbites from the likes of MSNBC:



None of this is exactly a surprise to me. I've written before that one important goal that President Obama,our first truly anti-Israel president worked hard on was to make support for Israel a partisan issue. He's succeeded.

Anyone who's been paying attention over the last 5 years understands that, and 2012 underlined it. That year saw President Obama, running unopposed for re-election strip out nearly all of the pro-Israel language of 2008 from the 2012 Democrat party platform.

When prominent Jews and others in the party objected and the White House realized it didn't poll well, we saw one of the most amazing moments in American politics. The Obama campaign tried to amend changes in the platform by voice vote on the floor of the national convention in Charlotte,NC, and the nation watched as at least half (and probably more) of the delegates on the floor at the Democratic national convention tried to vote down the amendment including references to G-d and Jerusalem as Israel's capital in the party platform. There was a near riot when those changes were shoved through over the obvious wishes of the assembled delegates in spite of the proposed amendment clearly not getting the required two thirds majority after three futile tries.



Will Jews and other pro-Israel Democrats get a clue from this and realize where the Democrats are moving? That remains to be seen.To my mind, the party is split right now, with much of its older, more establishment members still pro Israel. But the party’s present and future base? They're moving in a very different direction, and those Democrats who consider themselves pro-Israel had better realize it and think about what they're supporting.