Focus on Jews and Israel

By Andrea Barron

Jewish Vote Went for Dukakis

Despite the major effort launched by the George Bush campaign to attract Jewish votes, Jews stuck to their Democratic roots and voted for Michael Dukakis by margins of more than 2-to-1. According to exit polls conducted by ABC News, The Washington Post and the American Jewish Congress, 67 to 77 percent of Jews supported Dukakis. Hyman Bookbinder from the National Jewish Leadership Council said Dukakis may have fared even better than Walter Mondale, who won between 65 and 68 percent of the Jewish vote in 1984.

A survey conducted by Bush pollster Bob Teeter found that 24 percent of Reform Jews and 28 percent of Conservative Jews favored Bush while 75 percent of Orthodox Jews voted for the Republican candidate. (About 10 percent of American Jews are Orthodox.) A nationwide poll taken in October by News Combo Inc., a consortium of Jewish newspapers, came close to predicting these results. News Combo showed 74 percent of Jews favoring Dukakis if the undecided voters went the same way as those who had already made up their minds.

According to Larry Cohler from the Washington Jewish Week, News Combo's results indicate: "For most Jews, neither (Jesse) Jackson nor Israel appears to be a prime election concern. Instead, social and domestic issues top their election agenda." When asked which election issues were most important to them, 35.2 percent of the respondents said "minorities, women, and the poor"; 33.5 percent named "Israel"; 14.3 percent made "church/state separation" their top issue; and 12.3 percent ranked "abortion" number one.

The impression left by this poll, however—that Israel is the prime issue for only one-third of American Jews—could be misleading. Some Jewish respondents may not have named "Israel" as their top priority since they consider both Dukakis and Bush strong supporters of Israel.

Four Local Initiatives Highlight Palestinian Question for Voters

Public policy questions on the Palestinian issue appeared on the November 8 ballot in four cities throughout the United States—San Francisco, Berkeley, Cambridge and Newton, MA. Three of the questions lost, and the Cambridge initiative won. All four, however, succeeded in opening up debate on US Mideast policy in their respective communities, a major goal for each of the campaigns.

The Palestinian resolution appeared as Question 5 in Cambridge and Somerville, Massachusetts. It said the US should demand an end to Israel's occupation of the West Bank and Gaza, stop using taxpayers' money to fund the occupation, and favor the establishment of a Palestinian state next to Israel. This was the only one of the four Mideast referenda to support a cut in US aid to Israel, and the only resolution which won!

American Jews were active in all of the campaigns, especially the one in Newton, which also was listed as Question 5 on the ballot. This Question 5 said the United States should support the creation of a Palestinian state in the West Bank and Gaza Strip, with security for Israel and the Palestinian state. The Newton Committee for Israeli-Palestinian Peace, which sponsored the resolution, was founded by Jews and Palestinians. The organizers were not disappointed with the election results, which gave them 31 percent of the vote. The idea was to demonstrate grassroots support for the "two state solution" in a city like Newton, where about half the population is Jewish.

The Mideast ballot questions in California were Proposition W in San Francisco and Measure J in Berkeley. "Prop W" was similar to the Newton question—it called on the United States to recognize the Palestinians' right to self-determination in the West Bank and Gaza and to support security for Israel and a Palestinian state. Measure J would have established a sister city relationship between Berkeley and Jabaliya, the Palestinian refugee camp in Gaza where the intifadah started Dec. 9, 1987. Prop W received almost one-third of the vote (32 percent) and Measure J got 29 percent.

According to Naomi Nim, co-chair of the "Yes on W" campaign and a member of New Jewish Agenda, "We did great considering that the 'No on W' people spent over $1 million to defeat us and had the entire Democratic establishment behind them. They even sent Tony Garrett, a staffer from the Washington office of AIPAC (American Israel Public Affairs Committee) to San Francisco to fight us!"

Israelis active in Friends of Yesh Gvul worked on both the "Yes on W" and Jabaliya campaigns. "The Israelis were extremely effective in getting our message across to non-Jews," says Nim. "It's important for American Jews to tell non-Jews we need their help in changing US Mideast policy. But it's even better when an Israeli explains how hard it is for him to live in his own country because of how the Israeli government is treating the Palestinians."

Andrea Barron is a Ph.D. candidate in international relations at the American University in Washington, DC, and is a member of the Jewish Committee for Israeli-Palestinian Peace.