Among American Jews, those who identify as liberals outnumber conservatives by more than two to one. When it comes to the Presidential campaign, it is the issues of concern to all Americans - especially the nosediving economy and health care - which guide voting intentions. When it comes to the Middle East, the overwhelming majority feels a sense of closeness towards Israel - but there is general pessimism over the prospects for peace in the region as well as significant doubt over the rectitude of a military assault upon Iran’s nuclear installations.
These are just some of the results from the Annual Survey of American Jewish opinion conducted by the American Jewish Committee, which sponsors Z Word. In the US, the survey will enable the pundits, as we approach the November showdown between Barack Obama and John McCain, to predict Jewish voting patterns with some degree of confidence. But the survey should also be noted - and absorbed - in Europe, where there is a common and erroneous perception of the American Jewish community as being much larger and much more right-wing than it actually is.
Indeed, it was no accident that John Mearsheimer and Stephen Walt’s flawed tome, “The Israel Lobby,” was greeted far more generously in Europe than in the US. In the US, reviewers generally found the book to be a dubious mix of bad methodology, random anecdotes and themes which invited the charge of antisemitism. In Europe, Mearsheimer and Walt were hailed for bravely revealing the truth which, so far, had dared not speak its name.
Hostility to Israel among European intellectuals is only part of the explanation for that. A negative perception of Jews in America as warmongering conservatives completes the picture. What the AJC Survey shows is that American Jews - who make up just two per cent of the overall population - are, if anything, markedly to the left of their compatriots from many other groups. Some eyebrows might be raised, therefore, at snippets from the survey like this one (54 per cent disapprove of John McCain’s selection of Sarah Palin as his running mate) or this one (47 per cent oppose military action against Iran.)
Hi,Z-Word: I would love a discussion on this site regarding one of the points raised in the blog: the question of why many in Europe may feel that the American Jewish community is more right-wing and war-mongering than we actually are.
Because those feelings in Europe are, in my opinion, dangerous for the Jewish people, the topic is highly relevant.
Eric
Your question reminds me of an experience I had 15 or 16 years ago, when I was a young journalist covering the war in former Yugoslavia. Making my way to Bosnia once, I stopped en route at a conference organized by a coalition of European civil society groups in Bratislava, Slovakia.
When I arrived at the conference center, I needed help with some trifling matter (I’ve now forgotten what it was.) I asked this English fellow if there was anything like an information desk.
“That’s it, over there,” he said, pointing to two women sitting down at a desk. An elderly gentleman talking to them excitedly and it seemed that they couldn’t get a word in. “But you might have to wait for ages,” the English fellow continued. “That American Jewish guy is driving them crazy.”
The “American Jewish guy” turned out to be a fairly well-known German left-wing academic (and not Jewish, so far as I know.) So what made this young, clearly leftist guy describe him in innocuous tones as an “American Jew?” I ruminated over this. Was it that he was, relative to everyone else, smartly dressed? Was it his impatient, bad-tempered demeanour? I studied his nose, which was on the large side. Was it that?
It could have been any of those things or it could have been something else. But I retell this story because while we like to point to tangible reasons for why things are as they are, there are often hidden, intangible factors which explain a great deal as well.
“themes which invited the charge of antisemitism…”
Why the soft-peddling? The main thesis of “The Israel Lobby” is both similar to, and as anti-semitic as, the Protocols of the Elders of Zion. Why do you cast doubt on the charges of anti-semitism?