Writing for The Hill, Niall Stanage wondered earlier this week whether the Obama administration’s impotent criticism of Israeli actions in Gaza could finally cause the oft-predicted, never realized shift of American Jewish voters toward the GOP. The answer, I suspect, is no. But while he and others are worrying about shifting opinions and demographic trends among potential voters, perhaps they should take a look at what is already resulting from Israel’s actions.
Evangelical Christians, especially in America, have arguably been the Republican Party’s most dependable group of supporters. There are lots of reasons for this, but the two most important are the GOP’s perceived opposition to abortion and unflinching support for the Zionist element of Israeli politics. These two factors – being pro-life and pro-Zionist – are increasingly at odds. The prevalence of a novel and unbiblical view of Bible prophecy has so far led to the Israeli government getting a pass from American evangelicals, but among younger evangelicals that is no longer a safe assumption. While Jewish voters in the next decade or so aren’t likely to leave the Democratic Party over a bit of meaningless criticism of Israel, the loss of evangelical Christians as an assumed base of support is much more likely to result from Republican support for Israel’s wholesale slaughter of Gazan civilians.
