Israel Matzav: The Democrats' wedge issue

Friday, September 07, 2012

The Democrats' wedge issue

It should be obvious to anyone who watched the video of the Democratic party's platform session on Wednesday that it's not that Israel is a 'wedge issue' for the United States. It's that Israel is a wedge issue within the Democratic party. They are a party divided on Israel, but one that is rapidly - thanks to Obama and friends - moving away from Israel. This is from Rick Richman:

Initially approving a platform that omitted the prior provisions, and then demonstrating in the process of restoring one of them that the omissions were not inadvertent, is the culmination of a longer process: (1) administration spokespersons who repeatedly refused to identify the capital of Israel; (2) a formal warning to the Supreme Court against even symbolically recognizing Jerusalem as being in Israel on the passports of Americans born there; (c) doctoring pictures on the White House website regarding Vice President Biden’s 2010 visit to “Jerusalem, Israel” (and similar references in State Department documents); and (4) failing to visit Jerusalem despite requests by liberal Israeli columnists, every Jewish Democrat in Congress, friendly rabbis, and the Israeli prime minister.

Back in 2008, Barack Obama had four different positions on Jerusalem, disingenuously denying the changes as he made them. Ironically, yesterday he found it necessary to intervene to restore a portion of the 2008 platform that had been omitted this year because of a process he had initiated himself.

This is Seth Mandel:

So what does it mean when multiple party officials, liberal pundits, and even television “reporters” start making that accusation all at once? Panic. That’s what set in last night after the Democratic Party’s convention delegates angrily voted down adding pro-Israel language back into the party’s platform yesterday—though the language was added anyway over their objections—after party officials were left trying to explain why they and President Obama wanted such language deleted in the first place. Politico notes that Obama approved the deletion, though there wasn’t much doubt of that, and then adds this delightful anecdote:
The division over Israel also flies in the face of a prediction Obama strategist David Axelrod made days earlier on “Fox News Sunday,” when he crowed that Obama’s convention would be free of the sideshows that plagued the Republican National Convention last week in Tampa.

“We don’t have the problems that the other party has,” Axelrod said then. “We’re not divided. We don’t have to worry about, you know, what people are saying on the side or about their affection for the president or — we don’t have those problems.”
In fact, not only is the Democratic Party divided on Israel, but as Ari Fleischer pointed out on CNN right after the debacle, the Democrats are practically split down the middle on this. He cited a Gallup poll from earlier this year showing that only 53 percent of Democrats—versus 78 percent of Republicans—side with Israel in the Middle East conflict.

Which leads to a larger point about the issue and the reason the Democrats went into damage control last night: the Democratic Party’s base is pulling it away from Israel. It’s disturbing that only half of Democrats sympathize with Israel, but as yesterday’s events showed, among the base sympathy for Israel is not nearly that high.

I look at what happened at the convention as a good thing. For several years now, we lone wolves have been crying out that Israel has lost the Democratic party, but despite that, the Democratic party has maintained most of the Jewish, pro-Israel vote. Maybe now that will change. If the Jewish vote cannot be taken for granted by either party, support for Jewish causes can only increase.

Labels: Barack Hussein Obama, Campaign 2012, Jerusalem is the capital of Israel, National Democratic Party, pro-Israel, pro-Israel Left