Eldar and the Statistics of Worried American Jews

myrightword


Not satisfied with besmirching Israel and falsifying data from Israel, Akiva Eldar is in the United States and is suggesting "...American Jews seem to have lost interest in Israel."

That's the sub-headline of his op-ed, American Jews are giving up on Israel, today where he claims as "worrying" the "news" that:

Just 10 percent of American-Jewish voters said Israel was their highest priority when they went to the polls, according to a recent exit poll conducted by the pro-peace Israel lobby J Street. Nine out of 10 said domestic issues like job rates and health care were their top concerns...These statistics support the analysis of political commentator Peter Beinart, an associate professor at the City University of New York's Graduate School of Journalism, who argues that the ongoing occupation and the revelations of Israeli racism have distanced American Jews from Israel and from the Zionist idea.

But if you don't bring figures from previous years, how can we know the voting pattern and reasons for such a claim are valid this year and actually to bolster that assertion?

And when he adds

J Street leaders are encouraged by the finding that 73 percent of U.S. Jewish voters approve of Obama's conduct regarding the Israeli-Arab conflict and note that 81 percent want active U.S. involvement in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

he does not note that that 73% was maybe 69% and that it represents a drop from the last election which, I think, would mean that US Jews are worried about Israel being smashed by a second Obama presidency and therefore went to the other party.  They are very worried.



Eldar is playing with statistics, again.

And then he bemoans the...media:

After all, a single edition of casino mogul Sheldon Adelson's right-wing free newspaper Israel Hayom reaches more readers, and potential voters, than do dozens of columns in Haaretz.

J Street leaders may be feeling a bit of schadenfreude now that it has become clear that Adelson, who invested heavily in Romney's campaign in an effort to advance his right-wing worldview, put his money on the wrong candidate. But Adelson isn't giving up. He is putting his money - and his newspaper, whose name means "Israel Today" - on the wrong candidate here too, to perpetuate the Israel of today: an occupying, belligerent and racist country. It's too bad that the American Jews who had hoped for an Israel of tomorrow - a democratic, upright and secure country - are giving up on us.

Aren't we lucky that despite Eldar, Levy, Shavit, Haaretz, Galatz, Channel One TV, Channel Two TV, Channel 10 TV, Kol Yisrael Reshet Bet, Yedioth Ahronot, et. al., we have one newspaper in Israel that presents an alternative view of reality.  And that, with the purchase of Maariv (and possible merger with Makor Rishon) we are gaining back the ground the cultural, literary and entertainment elites have been dominating with full assistance from the media?