{"id":76814,"date":"2015-10-12T15:32:03","date_gmt":"2015-10-12T23:32:03","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.lukeford.net\/blog\/?p=76814"},"modified":"2015-10-12T15:32:03","modified_gmt":"2015-10-12T23:32:03","slug":"voting-republican-for-israel","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lukeford.net\/blog\/?p=76814","title":{"rendered":"Voting Republican For Israel"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><A HREF=\"http:\/\/forward.com\/opinion\/israel\/322393\/things-are-hotting-up-for-pro-israel-voters-in-america\/\">J.J. Goldberg writes<\/a>: Today you\u2019re invited to join me in a thought experiment. Assume for a moment that you\u2019re the sort of American voter who puts Israel\u2019s safety and welfare first when deciding how to vote. Let\u2019s go further and assume that you don\u2019t believe the American government should be dictating Israel\u2019s policies, but should project American power to deter Israel\u2019s and America\u2019s shared enemies. (If you already feel that way you can still join the experiment with the rest of us.)<br \/>\nGot it? Now, let\u2019s take a hard look at America\u2019s two political parties. Consider the Republican Party, where forthright devotion to Israel is a prerequisite for mounting a presidential candidacy. Then consider the Democratic Party, whose last national convention in 2012 erupted in shouting on the floor when the leadership forced through a platform amendment endorsing Jerusalem as Israel\u2019s capital.<br \/>\nThose aren\u2019t random examples. Surveys over the last decade have shown a steadily widening gap between the two parties in their levels of support for Israel. The Pew Research Center in July 2014 found self-described Republicans sympathizing with Israel over the Palestinians by 77% to 6%, while Democrats\u2019 numbers were 44% and 18%. The two parties had been fairly similar until just after 2000, when Republican support began rising steadily while Democrats remained stable. The parties are similarly split on military spending , defending allies , supporting the United Nations and similar issues. Democrats are moderately in favor of projecting American power around the world, but Republicans are much more so.<br \/>\nSo if you\u2019re worried about protecting Israel, it\u2019s a no-brainer, right?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>J.J. Goldberg writes: Today you\u2019re invited to join me in a thought experiment. Assume for a moment that you\u2019re the sort of American voter who puts Israel\u2019s safety and welfare first when deciding how to vote. Let\u2019s go further and &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/lukeford.net\/blog\/?p=76814\">Continue reading <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[37,4677],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-76814","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-israel","category-republicans"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lukeford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/76814","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lukeford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lukeford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lukeford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lukeford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=76814"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/lukeford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/76814\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":76815,"href":"https:\/\/lukeford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/76814\/revisions\/76815"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lukeford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=76814"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lukeford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=76814"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lukeford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=76814"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}