Some are reporting that Jewish voters are reconsidering their support for President Obama believing that his support for Israel has been lackluster. The reports seem to imply that these voters are betraying the president, the Democratic Party and the country for this belief.
I do not want to weigh in on the merits of the Obama Administration’s relationship with Israel but do feel compelled to defend the right of Americans to vote in any way they so choose. It is not like they are passing national security secrets to foreign agents or fighting in a war against their own country. They are just voting for their own reasons as is guaranteed to them under the Constitution.
Voting in the interest of one’s ancestral homeland is nothing new. My wife’s ancestors came to this country from England in the 1700’s and even fought in the American Revolution on the side of liberty. Yet if you were to tell her that England was about to be imprisoned and destroyed by an army of sadists she would surely vote for a candidate that would support the English.
There is nothing surprising in all of this having been done in the 20th Century with FDR providing support in every way but for military intervention to England until the attack on Pearl Harbor in which case we officially entered the war against England’s enemies. And FDR was elected to the presidency four times by the voters many of whom were of English descent. As a final note it should be pointed out that many Americans joined the Canadian military in order to fight for England during the war.
The same would hold true if someone threatened Armenia in some way. My vote would not go against U.S. interests but I certainly would vote for candidates who were supportive of that country even though my people came from Turkey not Armenia. Why Armenians ask their elected officials to vote for recognition of the Armenian genocide even though it is official U.S. policy to refrain from doing so in order not to upset Turkey a nation that may or may not be of strategic importance to the U.S.
You can easily say that about every ethnic group from the Irish who sent money to the IRA to Hispanic immigrants who send U.S. dollars home to their families in Latin America and who all vote for the most part in demographic patterns according to the laws of political science. If is after all only natural and to make a scapegoat out of those that feel this way is nothing less than un-American.