By Baruch Pletner | February 4, 2020

Most American Jews’ support for Israel is conditioned on it being run by progressive globalists

If ever you find yourself looking for an example of a conditional love, a love that is no love at all, but rather a naked attempt at manipulation of one by party by another, look no further than the love of American Jews for Israel. This love is rare in that it is conditioned on EVERYTHING.

It is conditioned, of course, on Israel’s remaining a democracy. “THE ONLY DEMOCRACY IN THE MIDDLE EAST!” is a fantastic virtue signaling slogan for American Jews. It is conditioned on Israelis, democratically of course, electing the kind of progressive globalist government that American Jews, people who have no skin in the game, no dog in the fight, and no kids in the IDF, can support. In other words, the American Jew’s love for Israel in contingent upon Israeli electing politicians that are aligned and allied with the American Democratic party, which 70% of American Jews support.

Normally, when you love someone, you wish for them to be strong. Not so here. American Jews only love Israel if and when it is weak. A war like the Six Day War in 1967 is kosher because Israel started it from a position of extreme weakness and the brink of annihilation. Body bags were being stockpiled in Tel Aviv and the mood in the country just before that war was one of a catastrophic destruction, of a second Holocaust. That is just how American Jews love Israel.

In the First Lebanon War of 1982, Israel, now much stronger, took on the Palestine Liberation Organization, a terror group supported by Lebanese proto-Hezbollah Shia elements and the Hafez Al-Assad regime in Syria. This conflict was absolutely justified and necessary. PLO terrorists were routinely shelling Israeli towns and villages in the Galilee with Katyusha rockets. But American Jews like the New York Times writer Thomas Friedman begged to differ. To them, this was a “disproportionate use of force”. Israel that is strong enough to defend its interests without being first brought to the brink of extinction is not loved by American Jews.

The “love” and “support” that American Jews feel towards Israel (according to a recent survey, 80% of them say they do support Israel) is neither love nor support. It is manipulation and exploitation at worst and a business deal at best. American Jews get from Israel bragging and virtue signalling rights, in exchange for which they, less and less effectively, lobby the American government to support Israel on the international stage, particularly in the UN. It’s a simple business deal, a quid pro quo, to use an expression so very ubiquitous now in American politics. If Israel behaves in ways that make it more difficult for progressive globalist American Jews to obtain virtue signaling credits, do not expect them to support it.

The same survey finds that out of the 80% of American Jews that support Israel, about a half, i.e. 40% of total, say that their support for Israel is weakened by Israeli PM Netanyahu’s support for the incumbent American president, Mr. Trump. Clearly, this 40% of American Jews don’t support Israel at all. If they did, they would respect the democratically made choice of the Israeli people. Combined with the 20% of American Jews that make no claim of supporting Israel under any circumstances, we get a significant 60% majority of American Jews who do not support Israel at all.

But wait! It gets better. At least 600,000 or 10% of American Jews are Israeli expats and their children. Assuming that those belong to the camp that supports Israel, this means that out of the American Jews who have no direct ties to Israel, only about one third offer it their more or less unconditional support. This is the one third that does not vote Democratic.

And this, my dear readers, is the answer to the question “how can American Jews vote against president Trump, unquestionably the most Israel-supporting president that has ever served?” The answer is right here in front of us writ large: the 30% or so of American Jews who support Israel, support president Trump. The 70% or so of American Jews who hate president Trump also hate Israel, though some of them claim that they would love Israel “if it only just…”

This piece originally appeared on Tsionizm.com and is used by permission.

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