A very interesting survey from Bloomberg politics turns up results that are rather disturbing. I’ll quote directly from Bloomberg:
Republicans by a ratio of more than 2-to-1 say the U.S. should support Israel even when its stances diverge with American interests … Democrats, by roughly the same ratio, say the opposite is true and that the U.S. must pursue its own interests over Israel’s.
You read that right. Republicans put Israel’s interests above American interests. Can this possibly be true? Are Republicans really more loyal to a foreign country than to America? They would support Israel even if it was against our interests? And they are willing to say this out loud to a pollster?
Continuing the shocking results:
Republicans say they feel more sympathetic to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu than to their own president, 67 percent to 16 percent, while Democrats are more sympathetic to President Barack Obama than to Israel’s prime minister, 76 percent to 9 percent.
I have a simple suggestion. If they really love another country more than America, the GOP should become the multi-Millineum Old Party and move to Israel. But I have to warn them what they will find there: socialized health care, taxpayer-funded abortions, and no Christmas. Oy Vey!
8 Comments
Sunday is also a work day in Israel. I don’t see that going well with the religious right.
Just wait until Israel gets an ultra liberal PM and everything will reverse.
We’ll see. There are some deep religious roots that causes Christians to want to maintain and extend a Jewish homeland in the Holy Land.
Evangelical christians want all jews gathered in holy land so that Jesus can come back and wipe them off. There are Pro-Israel only till Jesus comes back.
Not exactly shocking. As the Bloomberg article alludes, christian conservatives and the born again set, who are overwhelmingly Republican, are obsessed with the Apocalypse, and Israel/Jerusalem is Ground Zero for this momentous event which is, curiously, frustratingly for them, always just beyond the horizon. It’s “God and Country”. In that order.
“When will Jesus bring the pork chops?” – George Carlin
Fact-checking a bit, what I read at the same poll (http://images.businessweek.com/cms/2015-04-19/150417_final.pdf, http://images.businessweek.com/cms/2015-04-14/140415_bloomberg_public_69598.pdf ) is that of self-identified Republicans and Independents, when asked, 45% say “Israel is an important ally, the only democracy in the region, and we should support it even if our interests diverge,” and 47% say “Israel is an ally but we should pursue America’s interests when we disagree with them.”
Not high enough numbers for respondents to claim to be “putting America first,” obviously, but more (47%) say we should put America’s interests above Israel’s than the other way ’round (45%).
Is Margaret Talev of Bloomberg really THAT mathematically challenged? Or, are there some results of the poll not published in the link? Because the numbers published in the links to the actual poll do not exactly support the headlines.
Perhaps we should recycle the old “America: Love It or Leave It” stickers?
Redjon, I think you read that wrong. The two PDFs you linked to were the overall response, not just those from Republicans and/or independents.
From the original study: