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Caroline Glick analyzes whether Obama is the reason for the loss of Democrat support for Israel, in the Jerusalem Post.
Bipartisan support for Israel has been one of the greatest casualties of US President Barack Obama’s assault on the Jewish state. Today, as Republican support for Israel reaches new heights, support for Israel has become a minority position among Democrats.
Consider the numbers. During Operation Cast Lead – 11 days before Obama’s inauguration – the House of Representatives passed Resolution 34 siding with Israel against Hamas. The resolution received 390 yea votes, five nay votes and 37 abstentions. Democrats cast four of the nay votes and 29 of the abstentions.
In November 2009, Congress passed House Resolution 867 condemning the Goldstone Report. The resolution urged Obama to disregard its findings, which falsely accused Israel of committing war crimes in Cast Lead. A total of 344 congressman voted for the resolution. Thirty-six voted against it. Fifty-two abstained. Among those voting against, Thirty-three were Democrats. Forty-four Democrats abstained.
In February 2010, Fifty-four congressmen sent a letter to Obama urging him to pressure Israel to open Hamas-ruled Gaza’s international borders and accusing Israel of engaging in collective punishment. All of them were Democrats.
In the midst of the Obama administration’s assault on Israel over construction for Jews in Jerusalem, 327 congressmen signed a letter to Secretary of State Hillary Clinton calling for an end to the public attacks on the Israeli government. Of the 102 members who refused to sign the letter, 94 were Democrats.
These numbers show two things. First, since Obama entered office there has been a 13-point decline in the number of congressmen willing to support Israel. Second, the decrease comes entirely from the Democratic side of the aisle. There the number of members willing to attack Israel has tripled. …
…To date, both the Israeli government and AIPAC have denied the existence of a partisan divide. This has been due in part to their unwillingness to contend with the new situation. One of Israel’s greatest assets in the US has been the fact that support for the Jewish state has always been bipartisan. It is hard to accept that the Democrats are jumping ship. …
… Like the Israeli government itself, Republican House members express deep concern that blowing the lid off the Democrats will weaken Israel. As one member put it, “I don’t want to encourage the likes of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad to attack Israel by exposing that the Democrats don’t support Israel.” …
We have a couple of blog posts on Gordon Brown’s faux pas.
In the Corner, John O’Sullivan gives an update on British election campaigning.
… Then, with eight days to go before the election, the second game-changer occurred. Yesterday, Prime Minister Gordon Brown — unaware that he was speaking on a still-open neck-microphone, described a Labour-voting woman who had ventured mild criticism of high immigration levels in an otherwise friendly chat as “bigoted.” This was played out in full on television — even the horribly embarrassing moment when Brown buried his head in his hands as he heard his own words played back to him. Brown apologized, but to little avail. Today’s headlines run as follows: “She went out to get bread and came back with BROWN TOAST!” …
In Contentions, Ted Bromund discusses the British immigration issue and the British election.
Shades of Frank Drebin: Gordon Brown may have sunk his chances in Britain’s general election with an unguarded comment into a microphone he didn’t realize he was still wearing. After campaigning in Rochdale in northern England, he muttered, amid a stream of invective directed at his aides, that 61-year-old Labour supporter Gillian Duffy was a “bigoted woman” for questioning him about the impact on the British job market of immigration from Eastern Europe.
Brown’s since made an in-person apology and e-mailed a fulsome “personal” letter to all Labour activists, but the damage seems to have been done. As one commentator put it, showing a nice grasp of British understatement, “I don’t think it’s a good idea to call voters bigots.”
On one level, of course, it’s possible to have some sympathy for Brown. This is the kind of thing that happens when you’re around microphones so much: few of us would want our every comment recorded and aired in prime time. On another level, as Andrew Rawnsley points out, this is just another example of one of Brown’s more unattractive attributes: his volcanic temper and his eagerness to pour vitriol on his aides and anyone else who gets in his way. …
Three of our favorites write on immigration.
Mark Steyn writes about some of the ironies that the governing class have created.
…The same day … I saw a phalanx of police officers doing the full Robocop – black body armor, helmets and visors – as they marched down the street. Naturally I assumed they were Arizona State Troopers performing a routine traffic stop. In fact, they were the police department of Quincy, Ill, facing down a group of genial Tea Party grandmas in sun hats and American-flag T-shirts.
If I were a member of the Quincy PD I’d wear a full-face visor, too, because I wouldn’t be able to look myself in the mirror.
And yet the coastal frothers denouncing Arizona as the Third Reich or, at best, apartheid South Africa, seem entirely relaxed about the ludicrous and embarrassing sight of peaceful protesters being menaced by camp storm troopers …
David Harsanyi believes that immigration isn’t the issue.
…Very few Americans, on the other hand, are inherently opposed to immigration. For the most part, the controversy we face isn’t about immigration at all. It’s about the systematic failure of federal government to enforce the law or offer rational policy. There’s a difference.
…The uplifting tale of the hard-boiled immigrant, dipping his or her sweaty hands into the well of the American Dream, is one thing. Today, we find ourselves is an unsustainable and rapidly growing welfare state. Can we afford to allow millions more to partake?
When the Nobel Prize-winning libertarian economist Milton Friedman was asked about unlimited immigration in 1999, he stated that “it is one thing to have free immigration to jobs. It is another thing to have free immigration to welfare. And you cannot have both. …
Debra Saunders looks at several immigration issues, in the San Francisco Chronicle.
…It’s easy for San Franciscans, from 700 miles away, to sneer at Arizonans. Folks here don’t live in a state where cross-border drug violence has led to highway gun battles.
The Arizona Republic editorialized Wednesday that the bill was “ugly and indefensible.” The paper also noted, “The feds did nothing while Phoenix became the kidnapping capital of the country. The feds did nothing as rancher Robert Krentz was murdered on his border-area ranch.” …