Column: In an eye opener, most California Democrats don’t want U.S. siding with Israel

This simply appears startling to me: California Democrats assume overwhelmingly that America mustn’t take sides within the horrific warfare in Gaza. However Republicans facet strongly with Israel.

That’s based mostly on a statewide ballot performed by the nonpartisan Public Coverage Institute of California.

It’s startling as a result of for many of my life, the Democratic Celebration has emphatically backed Israel and has been solidly supported by Jewish voters and marketing campaign donors. Democrats and Israel have been intently tied.

“Democratic candidates get help from Jews due to social points and their advocacy on behalf of individuals of coloration and people struggling financially. That’s the Jewish tradition,” says longtime Democratic strategist Darry Sragow, who’s Jewish.

Bob Shrum, a former Democratic strategist who now could be director of the Middle for the Political Future at USC, factors out that “the Democratic management nonetheless firmly helps Israel. Some individuals are outliers, however they don’t signify the vast majority of elected officers.”

Sure, however there clearly is a titanic shift in voter help for Israel that has been occurring for years and burst to the floor in the course of the Israeli-Hamas bloodshed.

Extra particularly, there’s a generational divide. Youthful individuals are far much less supportive of Israel than their elders.

A PPIC survey in mid-November requested these three questions of California adults, and I’m utilizing the precise wording for context:

Have you ever heard concerning the “escalating violence in Israel and Palestine?” Virtually everybody had — 91%.

Does america have “a duty to do one thing concerning the preventing in Israel and the Palestinian territory between Israeli forces and Hamas?” Folks have been break up: Sure 37%, no 36%, undecided 27%.

Then the important thing query: “Within the Israeli-Palestinian battle, do you assume america ought to take Israel’s facet, the Palestinians’ facet or not take both facet?”

Amongst all adults surveyed in California, 61% mentioned we must always not take both facet. Solely 28% felt that the U.S. ought to facet with Israel, though America has been that nation’s sturdiest ally since its creation in 1948. 9 p.c thought the U.S. ought to help the Palestinians.

A giant eye opener was the responses of Democrats and Republicans.

Amongst Democrats, 63% mentioned the U.S. ought to keep impartial. Simply 19% backed Israel. And nearly as many, 16%, sided with the Palestinians.

Against this, 59% of Republicans mentioned America ought to again Israel. A meager 4% sided with Palestinians and 37% opted for neutrality.

“I discover these numbers jaw-dropping,” says Sacramento-based Republican advisor Rob Stutzman. He thought there’d be extra Republicans advocating neutrality, extra “non-interventionists.”

However he notes that Republican evangelical Christians lengthy have supported Israeli management of the Holy Land.

Hamas — the Gaza-based militant group that began the present warfare with a murderous, maiming and hostage-taking rampage into Israel on Oct. 7 — was not talked about within the questions. It was all about Israelis vs. Palestinians.

Folks beneath age 55 have been particularly for American neutrality.

“Because the warfare has gone on, lots of people want to see it finish — whether or not that’s wishful pondering or not,” PPIC polling director Mark Baldassare instructed me. “Typically there’s a hope that by not taking sides, they’ll discover a solution to settle the battle.”

I notably wished to listen to from Jewish legislators why they thought Democratic voter help for Israel is slipping.

“There may be an comprehensible reluctance of oldsters to get entangled in long-term conflicts,” says Assemblyman Jesse Gabriel (D-Encino), co-chair of the California Legislative Jewish Caucus.

“We’re attempting to unravel issues in different elements of the world whereas we’ve obtained a full plate within the U.S.”

However there’s much more happening than a development towards much less interventionism.

As Instances reporters David Lauter and Jaweed Kaleem wrote final week, “antisemitism has sprung again to virulence within the U.S. … The upsurge started earlier than the warfare in Gaza and has now accelerated.”

“Antisemitism is sometimes called the oldest hatred,” says state Sen. Scott Wiener (D-San Francisco), the opposite co-chair of the Legislative Jewish Caucus. “It has been with us eternally and has gotten extra overt.”

Clearly not everybody who doesn’t help Israel is an antisemite. There are many nuances.

Begin with the worldwide blowback towards Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s conduct of the warfare — the relentless bombing and floor assaults which have killed greater than 18,000 Palestinians, two-thirds of them ladies and kids.

Jewish lawmakers agreed that’s one cause Israel is shedding Democratic voter help.

State Sen. Steve Glazer (D-Orinda) is a former Democratic political advisor and is Jewish. He says there’s an issue in how the Center East turmoil has been “framed” in dialogue.

“There’s language on the floor that appeals to Democrats — definitely youthful folks — however doesn’t agree with historic reality,” he says. “Simplistic, loaded phrases like ‘colonizers’ and ‘apartheid.’ ‘Stop-fire’ is one other alluring phrase. That’s straightforward to embrace, however is so incorrect as a result of it could enable Hamas to outlive solely to repeat this once more.

“A political combat is at all times about framing.”

And issues which are relatable — such because the Holocaust.

Older of us relate way more than younger folks do to the Holocaust that occurred roughly 80 years in the past when the Nazis murdered 6 million Jews.

“Numerous us grew up with household and pals who have been survivors,” Gabriel remembers. “Folks sat across the dinner desk with [concentration camp] tattoos on their arms.”

He says “the polling that basically bothered me” was performed just lately by YouGov for the Economist. It discovered that one-fifth of People ages 18-29 imagine the Holocaust was a fable. One other 30% mentioned they didn’t know whether or not it was a fable.

In all, half of American adults beneath 30 aren’t certain whether or not the Holocaust was reality or fiction.

That’s clearly a failure of American schooling.