Gallup poll reveals Democrats ignorance

This Gallup poll absolutely disgusts me, it is part of the reason I am a disloyal Democrat, and it reflects misplaced sympathies based on an ignorance of the history of Israel and the Middle East.

Asked in March about which side Democrats side with, 38% were with Israel, 49% with the Palestinians, 13% neither. This is the first time Israel did not win the most support from Democrats, who have lost their moral compass.

And even as I write that, it is not quite as bad as it seems.

While it shows, disastrously, more Democrats side with the Palestinians — the spawning pit of terror, anti-democratic practice, not to mention homophobia — rather than our democratic, pluralistic ally, Israel, there is a ray of hope.

The Democrats who count, those who have lived long enough to understand, such as President Joe Biden, and much of Congress, side with Israel during this moment of peril.

Another bright spot was that Americans overall support Israel with 54%, which is a majority, but less than in decades past. I think a lot of this comes from false bumper stickers — Occupation! Blockade! Apartheid! Colonizers! — rather than knowledge.

In the interest of disclosure — and because some geniuses will divine that it shapes my opinion — I am Jewish. This, they reason, is why I side with Israel.

The reason I side with Israel is the same I side with Ukraine — it is a democracy under attack by an unspeakable foe.

Israel celebrated its 75th anniversary earlier this year, and Israel has lived under the threat of extinction every single day of its existence. There has not been one day when Israelis could take an easy breath.

Back in 1948, when it declared its independence, the birth of a Jewish state, for the third time, Democrats were solidly behind the new democracy. Republicans were the ones holding back, then. 

The United States, under Democratic President Harry S Truman, was the first nation to recognize the infant nation.

And that state was immediately attacked by five Arab nations sworn to throwing the Jews into the sea.

This was followed by wars in 1956 (the Suez war), 1967 (the six-day war), 1973 (the Yom Kippur war), 2006 (the Lebanon war), plus various insurgencies and uprisings (intifada).

Back in the beginning, sympathy painted Israel as the David fighting Goliath. Americans love an underdog. Think the 2018 Eagles.

Over the decades, as Israel transformed itself from an agrarian, socialist nation to a high-tech powerhouse, it developed a mighty military, out of necessity.

Those coming to the party late seem to think Israel has become Goliath.

This map shows the contrary — Israel is a small island of  democracy in a boiling sea of hatred. 

Props to Presidents Jimmy Carter and Anwar Sadat for joining Israeli Prime Minister Menachem Begin in the 1978 peace treaty. Props to Jordan for signing a peace treaty in 1994, and to President Donald J. Trump for his Abrahamic accords.

But that leaves a lot of state actors, plus a wide array of terrorists, such as the PLO, Islmaic Jihad, Hezbollah, Hamas, to name a few.

And that can be deadly, as we can see.

Among the lies and propaganda that have convinced some Americans who don’t know better, is the narrative that Jews are colonizers who arrived in Palestine after World War II. Many did, after the Holocaust, but there has been a Jewish presence there since Biblical times.

Want proof?

Jesus was Jewish. Where did he live? In Roman occupied Israel. The victorious Romans named the area Palestine (a corruption of the native Philistines) to try to disconnect the Jews from their homeland. It did not work. As the original indigenous people, Jews can’t be colonizers.

There has never been a state called Palestine. 

I am not saying there should not be, just that there never has been.

Another huge lie is “occupied” territory. Israel proper was part of the British mandate, called Palestine. It accepted the offer of half of the land from the U.N. to launch a state. By the way, everyone in Palestine was called Palestinians — Jews and Arabs alike. Today’s Palestinians are Arabs, and there are many states with an Arab majority. Jordan actually has a Palestinian majority. They are not a people without a country.

Gaza is not occupied. It was until 2005, when Israel left, and it has been attacked across that border ever since.

Apartheid is another lie. 20% of Israel’s population is Arab, and they are the most free Arabs in the Mideast. They can live anywhere, attend schools of their choice, are treated in hospitals, attend mosques, and are members of the Knesset, Israel’s parliament.

The Arabs in the so-called West Bank are not in Israel. When creating a Jewish and Arab state, the U.N. referred to the West Bank by its historic  names — Judea and Samaria. During the 1948 war, Jordan occupied the West Bank. In the 1967 war, Israel liberated it. Yes, it is “occupied” only as it was under Jordan.

When peace comes, it will form the heart of what will be called Palestine.

But peace is elusive, because every time it has been offered by Israel, it has been rejected by Arab leaders.

So I believe the poll reveals the ignorance of most Democrats, and many Americans, about the history of the region, and, Gallup speculates, it might reflect the waning of religious affiliation on the Left.

That could be, but I think it is more the misdirected notion that the “little guy” is always right.

The “little guy” is not always right, and when he shows himself to be a murdering, torturing, raping, child-killing savage, he deserves neither sympathy nor respect.