Rohrs[c]hach Test
The American Jewish Committee has released a poll of American Jewish opinion on Obama and various policy areas. The poll was conducted in March this year. I have read varying interpretations of it and would be curious what commonwheelers make of it.
UPDATE 1: Whatever U.S. Jewish opinion may be, this seems to be the opinion of the U.S. Congress: “One problem Obama faces is that the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, a coordinating body for the Israel lobbies, has successfully mobilized both houses of Congress against him with regard to putting further pressure on far rightwing Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu to stop building settlements. Congress decides on how much money to give Israel annually, and how many weapons to sell it. Obama cannot effectively threaten Netanyahu with a reduction in the billions of dollars a year in aid, trade privileges, loan guarantees, and military equipment sent to Israel by the US. Those goods are in the gift of Congress, and Congress typically yields to AIPAC and its colleagues.” http://www.juancole.com/ (April 14)
UPDATE 2: If we referred to this as Kristal Nacht-like, would that be anti-Semitic? “Vandals Attack West Bank Mosque”
“Palestinians in the West Bank town of Hawara awoke on Wednesday to find a blue star of David painted on the outside of their mosque, after what a local resident described as an attack by Israeli settlers who live nearby. According to the Israeli newspaper Haaretz, the vandals also uprooted more than 300 olive trees, set two cars on fire and painted the name of the prophet Muhammad, in Hebrew letters, on a wall of the mosque.” http://thelede.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/04/14/vandals-attack-west-bank-mosque/?hp
Most answers would be in the range of what I would have gussed at. The surprising numbers I found were the 61% against any Jerusalem accomodation… the 75% who think Arab goal is distruction of Israel [how would Arabs do this.. Arabs are not stupid]
the 62% who favor military action agaist IRAN is troubling too.
The sample over represented Reform or Just Jewish (63) in comparison to Orthodox/Conservative (34).
It would be interesting to unpack those numbers on specific questions.
Also, I am not sure which segment yields more political influence versus which segment wields more moral influence.
They tend to tilt Democrat (50%) with a decidedly hawkish bent. 32% identify as Independent (most Independents are sympathetic to conservative ideas) and 15% are Republican. If you add those two numbers together you have 47% that I would classify as centre right. So you have a fairly even cross section of political ideology.
I also wonder what is defined as “anti-Semitism” or what in their mind counts as “anti-Semitism”. 91% of American Jews said that it was somewhat or a very serious problem. I do not see a lot of evidence to support that view in the US. If anything the media and press and political class fall all over themselves not to offend Jewish sensibilities when it comes to foreign policy with respect to the state of Israel.
85% said being Jewish is very important or fairly important with 51% saying that it is very important. They seem to cling very closely Jewish identity and all that implies. 74% said they felt close or fairly close to Israel.
I think that, like Catholics have experienced with the institutional Church, Jewish people might be well advised to draw a distinction between being Jewish as a religious or cultural identity and the actual state of Israel. I realize the analogy is not quite the same because there is a very deep spiritual connection with the land of Israel itself which I cannot completely relate to except by analogy. Sacraments are important for me and that kind of sacramental thinking will always be an inherent aspect of my identity and spirituality. I imagine it might be the same with them with Israel.
Still, as I recall Martin Buber, who was a Zionist, initially moved away from a conception of Zionism as a political movement and more as an ethical posture.
But again I am not sure Buber et al would be as powerful an influence on the Reform or just Jewish camp as he would on the Orthodox or Conservative who are a minority in the sample.
I thought these responses pose a challenge to a non-violent resolution of the Iran conundrum, which is the policy Obama seems to be seriously pursuing:
15. Would you support or oppose the United States taking military action against Iran to prevent it from developing nuclear weapons?
Support 53
Oppose 42
Not sure 4
16. Would you support or oppose Israel taking military action against Iran to prevent it from developing nuclear weapons?
Support 62
Oppose 33
Not sure 5
I think it’s important to look at the dates when the poll was conducted. Most of the polling was done in the heat of the dispute connected to VP Biden’s visit. So this was a period in which a president, vp and secretary of state were all criticizing Israel publicly, in a way U.S. officials had not before. Despite that, I don’t see much (or perhaps even any) backlash against the Obama administration in the American Jewish community for this. It’s hard to tell, though. Polls work best when they track trends, so it would be necessary to see how the same questions were answered at some point in the past.
Here is what the AJC site says about the poll:
“The 2010 survey was conducted for AJC by Synovate (formerly Market Facts), a leading research organization. Respondents were interviewed by telephone between March 2 – March 23, 2010; no interviews took place on the Sabbath. The sample consisted of 800 self-identifying Jewish respondents selected from the Synovate consumer mail panel. The respondents are representative of the United States adult Jewish population on a variety of measures. The margin of error for the sample as a whole is plus or minus 3 percentage points.”
Of course it would be interesting to compare these results with a survey of general US opinion on the same questions. The general approval of Obama in the first two questions probably generally reflects broader opinion (though Jewish approval of health care might be somewhat above the rest of the country).
I was struck by the 55% and 57% positive ratings given to a) Obama’s handling of US Israeli relations, and b) Netanyahu’s handling of Israel-US relations. An outsider might see a bit of a contradiction here.
P.S. Where do all these weird posts about vitamins, To Kill a Mockingbird, Student Debt, and such like come from?
Nicholas: Don’t know where they come from, but they do pile up, don’t they. I have deleted them. Could there be phantom comments wandering the ether looking for places to rest?
Poll: I too was struck by the contradiction implicit in attitudes toward Obama’s policy and Netanyahu’s. Perhaps people don’t see them as contradictory as they appear to be. News comments yesterday seemed to reflect that.
MJ Rosenberg: “Here is the the latest American Jewish Committee poll on Jewish attitudes toward Barack Obama. He is less popular than he was but, Jews approve of his Middle East policy.” http://tpmcafe.talkingpointsmemo.com/
I like Rosenberg’s comments at TPM and elsewhere; he always points out the silver lining and is always optimistic that there will be a happy outcome to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Is he too sunny?
And here’s Ha’aretz on the same AJC poll: “Despite American Jews’ positive outlook on Obama and Israel-U.S. relations, their expectations for a resolution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is less optimistic with 72 percent of respondent saying their view on an improvement in the situation has remain unchanged since the previous year. The majority of those polled agreed that the goal of Arabs is the “destruction of the state of Israel,” with 80 percent believing peace cannot be achieved with a Hamas-led Palestinian government.” http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1162733.html
The poll points in contradictory directions and the two comments reflect that.
Anyone have data on over-all U.S. views on the same questions?
I wonder if anyone has, or will make, a poll based upon Palestinian Americans and how Presidents are handling the Middle East and Israel.
See (you probably have already) the story in today’s (15 April) NYT:
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/04/15/world/middleeast/15mideast.html?ref=todayspaper
I did see it. Hints of this have appeared in a few recent stories by Helene Cooper. This is labeled “analysis,” meaning I would guess that her editors don’t think she’s clinched the “facts.” I don’t know, of course, but I suspect there’s a trial balloon being floated. Is it for the Obama Administration to actually put a plan on the table. This has been tried before, i.e., Clinton. Perhaps this time the Palestinians will grab it and run. In that event would they declare themselves a state; the U.S. and EU would recognize them along with the Arab world, etc. Perhaps. The other interesting note in the story is that Obama is linking this move with Petraeus. Could the president and the military begin to do an end-run around Congress? Bears watching.
This is very sad.
Report: Zionist group bans Goldstone from grandson’s bar mitzvah
http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1163335.html
Goldstone, you will recall, headed the UN investigation of the Gaza War. He is being black-balled by many in his own community. This seems to me to go pretty far. Dare I say, it seems very un-Jewish.