Commentary Magazine points out that according to a Investors Business Daily/Christian Science Monitor/TIPP Poll poll, Barack Obama is receiving the lowest amount of Jewish voter support for a Democrat, since Jimmy Carter.
.....Obama leading among Jews by a margin of 59 to 35 percent with six percent undecided. While that is still a majority it is a dramatic decline from the 78 percent of the Jewish vote he got four years ago.
Obama has a 46-44 percent lead over Romney in the TIPP poll. That means Obama is suffering from a decline in support throughout the electorate from his 2008 victory when he won 53 percent of the vote. But the president’s loss of approximately 25 percent of Jewish voters this year is not matched by a similar decline in any other demographic group. Indeed even in the unlikely event that Obama was to win almost all of the undecided voters in the survey, that would barely match Michael Dukakis’ 64 percent of Jewish votes in 1988. Far more likely is a result that would leave the president with the lowest total of Jewish votes since 1980 when Jimmy Carter received 45 percent in a three-way race with Ronald Reagan and John Anderson. While some losses in Jewish support could be put down to disillusionment with his economic policies that is shared across the board, the only conceivable explanation for this far greater than average loss of Jewish votes is the administration’s difficult relationship with Israel.
This comes as Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu declared that the Jewish state will not wait for the Obama administration to sign off on a possible strike against Iran.
In his comments PM Netanyahu also inherently implies that when Barack Obama spoke to the 2012 American Israel Public Affairs Conference (AIPAC), he was being disingenuous. Obama said that Israel has a “sovereign right to make its own decisions about what is required to meet its security needs."
Bibi's comments today:
With new evidence that Iran is on the cusp of finalizing a nuclear weapon, a pointed war of words between the U.S. and Israel escalated Tuesday, as Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu declared that the Jewish state will not wait for the Obama administration to sign off on a possible strike against Iran.Israel does have the sovereign right to make its own decisions about what is required to meet its security needs, but Obama mouthed the words because he needs the Jewish vote in November but his actions, via Clinton who is part of his administration, do not match his rhetoric.
“The world tells Israel ‘wait, there’s still time.’ And I say, ‘Wait for what? Wait until when?’ Those in the international community who refuse to put red lines before Iran don’t have a moral right to place a red light before Israel,” Netanyahu declared at a press conference in what is being viewed as a direct rebuke to Secretary of State Hillary Clinton.
Clinton stoked Israeli fears earlier this week when stated that the U.S. is “not setting deadlines” regarding Iran’s nuclear program. “Good-faith” talks with the genocidal regime, she added, are the best solution to the nuclear impasse.
“We’re convinced that we have more time to focus on these sanctions, to do everything we can to bring Iran to a good-faith negotiation,” Clinton reportedly said.
Israeli officials quickly seized on Clinton’s comments, arguing that her soft approach would only encourage Iran to continue working on its clandestine nuclear weapons program.
“Without a clear red line, Iran won’t stop its race towards a nuclear weapon,” one Israeli official told the Israeli news site Ynet.
Rep. Mike Rogers, the chairman of the House Committee of Intelligence, who recently participated in a meeting in Israel where Netanyahu and the U.S. Ambassador to Israel exchanged sharp words over the Obama administration’s handling of Iran, said Israeli leaders are at “wits end” with the Obama administration.
PM Netanyahu has drawn his red line.
Does the Obama administration stand on the side of that line with one of our closest allies, Israel, or does he stand on Iran's side of that line?
This American Jewish writer's inquiring mind would like to know.
[Update] Jeffrey Goldberg over at The Atlantic in a piece snarkily titled "Iran Continues Its Peaceful Work on Atomic Warheads":
And finally, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, the Holocaust-denying president of Iran, will be addressing the United Nations General Assembly on Yom Kippur.