Obama wins election, takes Jewish vote with him

By Mairav Zonszein November 6, 2012 | Edit

With initial exit polls showing 70 percent of American Jews voted for Obama, all the efforts to swing the Jewish vote in favor of Mitt Romney by wealthy Republicans, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and the iVoteIsrael campaign appear to have failed. Even in key swing state Florida, where Romney reportedly received 34 percent of the Jewish vote, Obama still came out on top.

According to the National Jewish Democratic Council President David A. Harris:

The powerful support given to the President today by American Jews shows that the more than $15 million campaign undertaken by Republicans to woo Jewish voters with negative advertising, scare tactics, and outright lies simply did not work. Since the New Deal, the Democratic Party has been the political home for the overwhelming majority of Jewish voters — and tonight’s data affirms that the relationship between the Jewish community and the Democratic Party is as strong as ever.

Although 70 percent is a slight drop from the 2008 showing of Jewish support for Obama (78 percent), the outcome proves that American Jewish voters cannot be swayed (read: bullied) by the “pro-Israel” paradigm – and that even if they could, Obama would still be elected on domestic issues, because at the end of the day they live in the U.S., not in Israel – where the majority is extremely conservative and hawkish compared with their American counterparts.

The question, as Noam Sheizaf puts it, is whether Obama will step up during his second term when it comes to Israel , and how it will affect Israeli elections. But in the meantime, while there may still be no daylight between the American and Israeli governments, between Israeli Jewish values and American Jewish values, there is plenty of daylight to go around.

Click here for more +972 coverage on the U.S. election

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TEST TEST GAL Our team has been devastated by the horrific events of this latest war. The world is reeling from Israel’s unprecedented onslaught on Gaza, inflicting mass devastation and death upon besieged Palestinians, as well as the atrocious attack and kidnappings by Hamas in Israel on October 7. Our hearts are with all the people and communities facing this violence. We are in an extraordinarily dangerous era in Israel-Palestine. The bloodshed has reached extreme levels of brutality and threatens to engulf the entire region. Emboldened settlers in the West Bank, backed by the army, are seizing the opportunity to intensify their attacks on Palestinians. The most far-right government in Israel’s history is ramping up its policing of dissent, using the cover of war to silence Palestinian citizens and left-wing Jews who object to its policies. This escalation has a very clear context, one that +972 has spent the past 14 years covering: Israeli society’s growing racism and militarism, entrenched occupation and apartheid, and a normalized siege on Gaza. We are well positioned to cover this perilous moment – but we need your help to do it. This terrible period will challenge the humanity of all of those working for a better future in this land. Palestinians and Israelis are already organizing and strategizing to put up the fight of their lives. Can we count on your support? +972 Magazine is a leading media voice of this movement, a desperately needed platform where Palestinian and Israeli journalists, activists, and thinkers can report on and analyze what is happening, guided by humanism, equality, and justice. Join us.

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