Saturday, January 10, 2009

Democrats and Israel 2

David Corn objects to my article this week on Israel and the Democrats.

My article began with this observation:

A Rasmussen poll conducted in the last week of 2008 found that while 62 percent of Republicans backed Israel’s action in Gaza, only 31 percent of Democrats did. Almost three-quarters of Republicans blamed Hamas for starting this war; only a minority of Democrats agreed. Republicans are 20 points more friendly toward Israel than Democrats.

I proceeded to offer 4 explanations, each grounded in polling data, about the likely reasons for this gap.

1) Democrats are more likely to oppose the use of force by any nation under any circumstances:

A 2005 MIT poll found that only 57 percent of Democrats would support the use of American troops even to destroy a terrorist training camp. (Compared to 95 percent of Republicans.)

2) Democrats are more likely to favor negotiations under almost any circumstances:

55 percent of Democrats believe that Israel should have tried to find a diplomatic solution to the Hamas rocket barrage.

3) Generally, high-information voters lean toward Israel in the Middle East, while low-information voters are less favorable. And low-information voters tilt strongly toward the Democrats. (This is a very well attested fact about US politics, see for example Carpini & Keeter What Americans Know About Politics and Why it Matters, p. 175. readable through Google Books here.)

4) Finally, I mentioned a fourth factor:

Democratic attitudes are poisoned by the influence of an anti-Zionist hard left, a vociferous faction whose ideology can bleed into outright anti-Semitism.

It was this point that triggered Corn's outrage.

[A]ccording to Frum, "Democratic attitudes are poisoned by the influences of an anti-Zionist hard left, a vociferous faction whose ideology can bleed into outright anti-Semitism."

Yes, the anti-Semitism card. This is the main thrust of his article.

No doubt, there are people who don't fancy Israel's attacks on Gaza due to their own anti-Semitism or anti-Zionism. But Frum is engaged in the time-honored tradition of rigging the debate (j'accuse!) on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

Corn's piece prompted a sharp and precise response by Jamie Kirchick, on the Commentary blog:

Perhaps if Frum had said that anti-Semitism was the only, or major, reason “why Democrats recoil from Gaza,” it would be fair to say he was playing “the anti-Semitism card.” Yet exploration of this factor is not “the main thrust” of Frum’s argument; it’s the last of four. And rather than engage with these other points, Corn does what so many people antipathetic to Israel do, he falsely accuses his interlocutor of carelessly throwing around charges of anti-Semitism.

To which I would add one more point. What's most surprising about Corn's piece is that he reproaches me for mentioning anti-Zionism and anti-Semitism - even as he acknowledges that I am right that these prejudices do play a role in shaping this debate. Let's go to the tape. Corn again:

No doubt, there are people who don't fancy Israel's attacks on Gaza due to their own anti-Semitism or anti-Zionism.

"No doubt there are people?" We can do better than that - we can count them, as Rasmussen did and as my article said right at the very top. About 8% of Democrats (and only 1% of Republicans) describe Israel as an "enemy" of the United States. Obviously that's a minority even within the Democratic party. But it's not an infinitesimal minority. About 1 Democrat in 12 helds vehemently anti-Israel views.

That's not a "card." That's an empirical observation. Maybe Rasmussen's poll is wrong. But it is certainly consistent with polling on US attitudes toward Israel generally.

I thought my article in The Week was very clear, but let me be clearer here: I am not contending that the leadership of the Democratic party heeds its anti-Zionist and anti-Semitic one-twelfth. I am not contending that anti-Zionism is the most important influence on rank-and-file Democrats. (I did after all place it fourth on my list of reasons, not first.)

What I did say was that these attitudes have a measureable influence on the attitudes of Democrats as a group. If this latest poll is correct, 8 times as many Democrats as Republicans express intense hostility toward Israel. That's not an accusation. It's arithmetic.

David Corn may feel that such facts should not be mentioned in polite society. Perhaps he shares PJ O'Rourke's view: "Just as some things are too strange for fiction, others are too true for journalism."

01/10 09:55 AM