Where the Jews Vote Republican
STERN, WILLY
Where the Jews Vote Republican One thing Israelis and Palestinians can agree on is that Obama is bad news. BY WILLY STERN My Palestinian driver insists we stop by Arafat’s tomb to pay our...
...Why not...
...The children’s indoor play space upstairs has a bumper-car arena...
...Obama would have happily lost the Iraq war...
...Sofhi and Eli Cohen reside at the quiet end of a street named Derech HaAliyah on the northwest edge of Sderot...
...is a dandy place to solve diffi cult problems...
...This fact, it is widely assumed here, pushes Palestinian voters towards Obama, whilst driving Jews to line up solidly behind McCain...
...On the morning of May 10, a Qassam rocket sailed through their back wall, blowing up a good portion of their twostory house...
...We respect war heroes in Israel, especially those like McCain who were POWs,” notes Mitchell Barak, managing director of the Jerusalem-based Keevoon Research, Strategy & Communications...
...At a Democratic primary debate, Obama said “nobody has suffered more than the Palestinian people,” and he told the Atlantic the Israeli-Palestinian confl ict was a “constant wound” and “constant sore” that “infect[s] all our foreign policy” and “provides an excuse for anti-American Jihadists...
...Because Bush was too “friendly” towards Israel and didn’t push Israelis towards the “objective thinking” that would have helped them realize that they, too, are a superpower and can afford to reach settlements with the Palestinians and the Syrians...
...Shikaki runs the Palestinian Center for Policy and Survey Research out of his offi ce in a well-appointed building atop a Subaru dealership...
...And so on...
...Everybody in Sderot prefers McCain to Obama,” explains the soft-spoken Sofhi, as she bakes in her kitchen on a Friday afternoon...
...The late Milton Himmelfarb famously said that Jews “earn like Episcopalians and vote like Puerto Ricans...
...And that contrast helps explain the Israeli preference for McCain...
...Obama, and we hope he will win the election...
...He comes off as unrealistic and insensitive to the existential challenges facing the Jewish state, and as na?ve...
...Obama doesn’t understand how to deal with terrorists in general, and radical Islamic terrorists in particular...
...Obama would cede regional hegemony to the Iranians...
...Crisis avoided...
...Obama thinks the U.N...
...Mayoral aide Shalom Halevi points out that Hamas aims the rockets at Sderot’s schools and shoots them over just before the school day with the intent of killing or terrorizing children walking to school...
...Even though the endorsement was later rescinded, it’s not the type of backing Obama is seeking as he tries to woo the Goldsteins of Boca Raton and the Ginsbergs of Shaker Heights...
...The building wouldn’t be out of place in downtown Tulsa...
...The leaders of all three of Israel’s major political parties—Labor, Kadima, and Likud—prefer McCain but they don’t dare say so publicly, reports chain-smoking political consultant Eyal Arad...
...we are back on the road...
...It’s a security success story, despite the way the fence and the checkpoints have been portrayed by some in the Western media...
...Obama thinks a court of law is the right forum for dealing with terrorists...
...Apparently, the “audacity of hope” mantra doesn’t fl y in Arabic...
...The theory is that even if Israel remains an overwhelming red state, at least the Palestinians may have some sympathy for the junior senator from Illinois...
...Siniora predicts that 80 percent of adults in the West Bank support Obama, and 99 percent in the more radicalized Gaza Strip...
...It turns out that there is a stock market in Nablus (it’s called the AlQuds Index), and it’s outperforming the Dow...
...Obama supporters turn up in Israel in all the usual places—the media, the universities, etc...
...Because, explains Arad, they know they might have to deal with Obama for the next four years...
...As luck would have it, nobody was killed, though two of the Cohens’ four children were injured...
...Obama lacks experience...
...Such is the thinking of Obama supporters in Israel...
...Such positions didn’t go down well with American Jewry, and Obama backed off them in his well-publicized AIPAC speech in early June...
...And it is not as though security is lax...
...To test the theory, I go to see Ramallah’s top pollster, Khalil Shikaki...
...As a humanitarian, I am delighted that Obama has become America’s fi rst black presidential candidate,” says Israel Harel, founder of the Council of Jewish Communities in Judea, Samaria and Gaza...
...The fence-andcheckpoint combination has done its job...
...The latest Gallup Poll gives Obama 66 percent of the Jewish vote: not great, but comparable to Mondale’s and Dukakis’s tallies...
...It’s a theme that popped up frequently when I mentioned Obama’s name...
...Because of the new security fence, which separates the Jews from their Palestinian neighbors, everybody must pass through one of these checkpoints when moving in or out of the West Bank...
...Prices are cheaper for most items in the West Bank than in Israel...
...Shikaki is aware of comments from Obama that appear to paint the Democratic candidate as being more sympathetic to the Palestinian cause than is McCain...
...We stopped outside the city so the driver could buy a small table...
...We waited at the checkpoint for less than a minute before being waved through...
...No one should be surprised that Obama trailed McCain 38 percent to 31 percent in a late July poll of Jewish Israelis...
...The driver stuffed the table in the car’s trunk, which was not opened by the Israeli guards though it could easily have contained a bomb...
...And if my main concern wasn’t Israel’s existence, I would vote for Obama...
...Plus if your middle name is Hussein, well that’s not a negative in this neighborhood...
...He has recent polling data on Obama...
...After all, the one thing that Israelis and Palestinians can agree on is that George W. Bush has been the most pro-Israel U.S...
...Last year, there were no successful attacks...
...The deep piles of fresh fruit—mostly imported from Israel with Hebrew lettering on the boxes—are impressive, as is the array of fresh fi sh...
...I’m just another American scribe on a day-trip to the West Bank, wondering how to deal with the late PLO leader...
...But, because Obama is closer emotionally to the Third World—also the Arab world—I would vote for McCain because that would be a vote for a secure Israel and therefore, a vote for securing the existence of the Jewish people...
...He wants it to have an impact, too...
...Next stop in downtown Ramallah is the hoity-toity Plaza Mall...
...Fifteen Israelis have died in these attacks and more than 600 have been wounded...
...Ben-Simon believes that, despite their military superiority, many Israelis suffer from what he terms the “Warsaw ghetto mentality” and fear that their destruction could be imminent...
...Because Obama is black, Siniora adds, many Palestinians feel that he will sympathize with their plight, as fellow oppressed people...
...He believes that George W. Bush did Israel a “great disservice” by his unwavering support of the Middle East’s only true democracy...
...Then there’s Dani Ben-Simon, a longtime lefty columnist at Haaretz, who is leaving journalism for politics...
...So much for the supposed inhumane queues which the anti-Israel media enjoy touting...
...We see Obama fantasizing about how he wants to sit down and talk to the terrorists, and he loses a lot of Israelis right there...
...Kennedy, Johnson, Humphrey, and Clinton broke the 80 percent barrier...
...Danny Ayalon, the Israeli ambassador to the United States from 2002 to 2006, elaborates, “We all know McCain...
...Since 2001, 7,000-8,000 rockets have rained down on Sderot from Gaza...
...The Palestinians are nauseated with Bush,” he reports...
...Typical among Israeli leftists is the delightful Colette Avital, a Labor member of the Knesset who speaks seven languages, has a Harvard degree, and spends her days sincerely worried about feeding poor Israeli kids who may go to bed hungry...
...She’s “quite surprised” and “disappointed” to hear that American Jews prefer Obama...
...On my way back from Ramallah to Jerusalem, my driver had to take us through one of the controversial checkpoints that Israel set up to keep suicide bombers and snipers from murdering Israeli citizens...
...Obama is young, charismatic, and smart,” says Eli Moyal, the straight-talking mayor of Sderot, who has met with both candidates...
...My driver and I were a profi ler’s nightmare...
...from Columbia University, writes op-eds for the New York Times and Washington Post, and has taught at Brandeis...
...McCain is widely seen as an extension of Bush by the Israeli electorate...
...On the 45-minute drive north to Ramallah from Jerusalem, he had referenced the “f—ing Jews” so quickly and often that I fi gured there was no upside to disclosing my own Jewish heritage...
...Democratic candidates typically pull at least 65 percent of the Jewish vote in any presidential race...
...A late August survey indicated that a scant 9.9 percent of Palestinians thought an Obama presidency would have a “positive effect” on the Palestinian question...
...Bardash is specifi cally targeting absentee voters who are registered back home in the swing states of Ohio, Florida, Michigan, Pennsylvania, and New Jersey...
...When the Abu Ghraib prison scandal broke, he called me and said, ‘Danny, what’s Israel’s policy on torture?’ We don’t have those relationships with Obama, yet...
...There are oodles of decency and much intellectualism...
...This hypothesis is certainly espoused by Hanna Siniora, a soft-spoken and refl ective Palestinian who is co-CEO of the Israel/Palestine Center for Research and Information, a left-tilting think tank in Jerusalem...
...He explains the etiquette: Visitors can either say a prayer or salute...
...New, chic apartment buildings with commanding views are being thrown up on the hillsides...
...Nonetheless, many of their fellow Israelis think they are daft...
...McCain understands terrorists and how to deal with them,” she says...
...We left Ramallah in a Palestinian taxi with Palestinian plates...
...Despite the fact that her house has been blown to bits and her husband is outside working on the repairs, she has graciously invited me to join her family for the Sabbath meal...
...In 2002, there were 234 terrorist attacks launched from the West Bank, claiming 62 lives...
...Kory Bardash, a former Goldman Sachs analyst who is now chairman of Republicans Abroad in Israel, predicts that McCain will get more than 75 percent of the vote among Americans living in Israel...
...In April, Hamas political adviser Ahmed Yousef told WABC Radio, “We like Mr...
...Shikaki said he hadn’t expected “such a large percentage of negative results” for Obama...
...There are signs of poverty around but clearly not everyone in the West Bank fi ts neatly under the umbrella of “oppressed...
...The mayor’s message to American Jews: If you care about Israel’s security, vote for McCain...
...president ever...
...Israel is the only place on the globe in which the public genuinely likes the Bush administration,” notes Shlomo Brom, a retired Israeli brigadier general who studies national security issues at Tel Aviv University’s Jaffe Center for Strategic Studies...
...He has a Ph.D...
...I’m in Ramallah to try to fi nd someone—anybody will do—who’s supporting Barack Obama for president...
...Most Israelis, who live daily with the threat of terrorism, simply don’t trust Obama...
...In May, McCain was up 43 percent to 20 percent over Obama...
...And for those who live with terrorists just down the road, a child clearly won’t do in the White House...
...BY WILLY STERN My Palestinian driver insists we stop by Arafat’s tomb to pay our respects...
...My driver takes me up a steep hill to view what he calls a “million-dollar home” under construction at the top...
...But McCain’s a more serious guy...
...Bush, the greatest friend Israel has ever had in the White House, grabbed a meager 19 percent (2000) and 24 percent (2004) of Jewish voters...
...Obama seems nice, but he’s like a child...
...Na?ve, indeed...
...Bush has screwed up the Middle East and has lost America what little clout it had in the Arab countries,” she explains...
...Inside is a fabulous supermarket that rivals the Kroger where I shop in my hometown of Nashville...
...Israelis fear the unknown and Obama represents the unknown,” explains Saul Singer, longtime editorial page editor of the Jerusalem Post, now on book leave...
...There’s no Bush hatred...
...Take the residents of Sderot, a smallish Israeli city perched half a mile from the Gaza Strip...
...He supposes that Palestinians—whether they are Fatah supporters in the West Bank or Hamas supporters in Gaza—think both American candidates are heavily biased in favor of Israel and therefore equally bad...
...In Israel, though, it’s an entirely different matter...
...Expat Americans in Israel are also largely right-leaning...
...At the tomb, I quietly mutter under my breath a Jewish prayer in Hebrew—the “Sh’ma” for you chosen people keeping score at home...
...He was fairly young, male, and Palestinian...
...When your back is to the wall, sweet-sounding platitudes ring just a little empty.Willy Stern, a Nashville-based writer, has reported from six continents...
...Maybe Obama would bring more imaginative thinking to the peace process, towards dealing with Iran and the other issues which matter to us...
Vol. 14 • October 2008 • No. 5
