US: Why Are They Courting the Jewish Vote?

To attract the votes of Jews, an electorate that usually votes for Democrats, Mitt Romney multiplies outrageously pro-Israeli positions. But Barack Obama is no exception. The verdict will come in November 2012.

Remember this name: Sheldon Adelson. Before the U.S. presidential election in November 2012, the wealthy Jewish businessman — he owns several casinos in Las Vegas, his fortune is estimated at $25 billion (20 billion euros) — has vowed to spend $100 million to beat Barack Obama. This is one of the largest sums ever invested by an individual in the United States for electoral purposes. During Mitt Romney’s recent visit to Israel, Adelson, who also has Israeli citizenship, held a breakfast to raise funds for the Republican candidate at Jerusalem’s King David Hotel. Some 80 American Jewish donors attended. In a single morning, $1 million was collected. Participants left with pins that included Mitt Romney’s name in Hebrew…

Adelson, who in the Republican primary supported Newt Gingrich, is very representative of this cast of Jewish businessmen — the brothers David and Charles Koch, barons of the petrochemical industry and third largest American fortune, are another example — ready to do anything to elect the candidate most favorable to Israel. In exchange, the candidate has no other choice but to support their extremist views on the Middle East: rejection of the 1967 borders as the basis for Israeli-Palestinian negotiations, refusal of the two-state solution, support for possible preemptive strikes against Iran, etc. But also, a more symbolic commitment to free spy Jonathan Pollard, sentenced in 1987 to life in prison by U.S. courts, and transfer of the U.S. embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem, “inalienable capital of Israel.”

No Jewish American is farther to the right than Adelson. Not even the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, the powerful pro-Israel lobby whose annual conference in Washington, D.C., is a must for any candidate in the field (Obama and Romney spoke at one of their events in March 2012). As an indication, Adelson broke with AIPAC in 2007, when it declared itself in favor of granting U.S. economic aid to the Palestinians…

Obama has shown pretty strong support for Israel and does not miss an opportunity to highlight the “unshakable bond” between the two countries, but it is Romney who receives the favors of Adelson and consorts. He has the favors of evangelical Christians, other supporters of Greater Israel. Personally, he is certainly a supporter of the two-state solution, which is not good in the eyes of extremists, but his relationship with Netanyahu is not least substantially better than the one the Israeli prime minister has with Obama. On Iran, however, the Republican candidate has made the bid on his trip to Israel: He now openly supports a strike against Iran.

Going to War

Dan Senor, contributor to the Wall Street Journal and ultraconservative Fox News channel and one of Romney’s foreign policy advisers, is the notorious pro-war author of the book “Start-Up Nation: The Story of Israel’s Economic Miracle.” [It was this book] that directly inspired Romney’s disastrous comments on the alleged cultural superiority of the Israelis to the Palestinians — superiority which would explain the differences in economic development between the two peoples. Senor’s sister directs the AIPAC office in Jerusalem.

On the domestic front, businesspeople and Jewish lobbies spare no efforts to convince their co-religionists to vote for Romney in November 2012. The Republican Jewish Coalition, a group backed by Adelson, has launched an expensive advertising campaign (several million dollars) in the strategic states of Ohio, Pennsylvania and Florida. In an election that looks tight, the 600,000 Jews living in Florida could make the difference. There is a precedent: in September 2011, Bob Turner, the Republican candidate in a historically Democratic district of New York City (Queens, Brooklyn) with a large Jewish population, won over David Weprin to general surprise. He is Catholic while his Democratic opponent is a practicing Jew — but he is more intransigent on the Palestinian issue.

Convincing 5 million American Jews to vote Romney nevertheless appears to be a challenge. Because of its predominantly liberal views on abortion rights, gay marriage and immigration, the American Jewish community remains a Democratic bastion. The last time it voted for a Republican president was for Ronald Reagan in 1980. Democrats also remember that the New York Jews who brought their votes to a Republican in September 2011 are in their majority extremely conservative — and a minority in the community at large.

No “Jewish Problem” for Obama

To believe Jeremy Ben-Ami, founder of J Street, the great rival of AIPAC (the finance lobby candidates favor a balanced solution in the Middle East), American Jews do not recognize themselves in the extreme positions advocated by Adelson. “Barack Obama,” he acknowledged, “will not have a problem with the Jews for a possible re-election.”* Same story from Mik Moore, founder of the Jewish Council for Education and Research, who estimates that between 10 and 15 percent of Jews who voted for Obama in 2008 could vote Romney in 2012, and no more. But do not underestimate the impact that may have on the campaign given the colossal sums that are spent.

Smarting from the failure in New York, the Democrats are multiplying gestures toward the community. David Axelrod, Obama’s chief adviser, and Joe Biden, his vice president, run television shows and conferences planned by religious organizations and insist heavily on the president’s commitment in favor of Israel. For those who still doubt, they recall his opposition in September 2011 to the admission of a Palestinian state to the United Nations and his decision to increase U.S. military aid to Israel to $3 billion, including $250 million for the Iron Dome, a sort of shield meant to protect the people of southern Israel from Hamas bombs.

In truth, the key is the slow separation of the two Jewish experiences: the U.S. and Israel. Some politicians and lobbyists in both countries share the same fear. For the next presidential election, for example, according to a recent survey American Jews have exactly the same concerns as their non-Jewish countrymen: first the economy, then the widening gap between rich and poor. The future of Israel comes in last.

We saw this last year, when the Israeli government launched a major advertising campaign in the United States to encourage Jews to immigrate to Israel. Over the spots, the message became clear: Taking root in America leads to the erasure of Jewish heritage. Due to the indignation of the American Jewish community, Netanyahu himself had to stop the campaign.

Even Adelson’s commitment is more ambiguous than it seems. According to The New York Times, the future of Israel is actually secondary in his support to Romney. 85 percent of the income of the Las Vegas Sands Corp. comes from institutions headquartered in Macau and Singapore. As such, Adelson is subject to a tax rate of 9.8 percent, far from the usual rate of 35 percent — an anomaly that Obama wants to put an end to, which is not the case, one imagines, for Romney. And if all that was ultimately a story of big money?

*Editor’s note: the original quotation, accurately translated, could not be verified.