As U.S. presidential candidates travel around the country debating the most critical issues plaguing American citizens today, there’s one issue that remains a major focus point: Israel.
A little more than a month ago, Jewish conservatives attacked U.S. President Barack Obama for treating Israel like a punching bag. According to the New York Times, the Obama campaign is so concerned about Jewish voters that they have started a special outreach program to combat any negative impressions of Obama’s Israel policies. Scarce a debate in the United States can occur without Israel being mentioned at least once. Take the Republican primary debate in Florida last week for example: among the topics most crucial for voters - taxes, healthcare and space exploration – Israel made a starring appearance.
Much of the time, discussions on Israel are attributed to the voting power of Jewish Americans. While only a minority of the U.S. population, a contingent of American Jewry places a heavy amount of emphasis on a candidate’s policies vis a vis Israel.
Those Jewish Americans whose vote only depends on the candidate’s policies on Israel are doing the whole of the Jewish community grave harm. These members of our community are organized, vocal, and well known. They block discussion of any domestic policy with a discussion first of Israeli policy. This is dangerous and ineffective. If you live in the United States, the country’s domestic policies are those that most affect your daily life. Electing someone whose views on education and taxation conflict with yours, but whose Israel policies satisfy you, is a mistake. It makes politicians automatically assume that Israel should be mentioned in practically every debate that Jewish Americans might see or hear.
Don’t get me wrong - as a child of Israeli parents, America’s policies regarding Israel is paramount to my worldview. I believe that U.S. support of Israel is crucial to the existence of the Jewish state, and I would not vote for a candidate with a staunch anti-Israel stance. But the United States has other issues that we, Jewish voters, must keep high on our list of priorities: the economy, healthcare, and the environment, just to name a few.
Many influential Jewish leaders, including Jeremy Ben-Ami, the executive director of JStreet, say that the majority of Jewish voters are not a “single-issue constituency” and vote for leaders based on their "Israel stance"; however, perception is reality. Jewish voters need to make it clear that they also care for domestic issues, and those regarding other international relations, too.
The potential damage is amplified when a minority of Jews appear to represent the majority. By painting Jews as single-issue-swing voters, presidential candidates are doing us a disservice. If we are one-issue, narrow-minded individuals, we are fulfilling a dangerous stereotype that will inevitably lead to anti-Semitism, should candidates continue to disproportionately discuss Israel as one of the major “hot-button” issues for the United States (a quick rewind to the 2000 Presidential election and “hanging chads” is ample evidence that Jews have a huge affect on the outcome). While we like to think that Jewish Americans are a constituency like any other in the United States, we must remember that it is one that’s particularly sensitive to stereotypes and misperceptions.
As a resident of Washington, D.C. for the past four years, I know that Jewish people work in all aspects of election work. It’s time to be more vocal about the importance to the Jewish community of issues other than Israel. While the answer to this might not be creating lobby groups with “Jewish Americans for X”-style names, it will be useful for the Jewish people, as a community, to be more prominent advocates of other, non-Israel causes. Without a diversity of voices, we risk being funneled into a single-issue group.
Yael Miller is a graduate student at the Johns Hopkins University School of Advanced International Studies.
