WASHINGTON - If U.S. President George W. Bush thought that aligning U.S. Middle East policy behind the Likud-led government in Israel would win him substantial numbers of Jewish votes in the November election, he must be sorely disappointed.

A poll released this week by the American Jewish Committee (AJC) showed that 69 percent of Jewish voters currently intend to cast their ballots for Massachusetts Sen. John Kerry while 24 percent plan to vote for the incumbent.

Another three percent said they would vote for independent Ralph Nader, leaving just five percent undecided.

The survey, which was conducted in the latter half of August, also found that two-thirds of U.S. Jews now say they ”disapprove” of last year's war with Iraq -- a higher percentage than the general U.S. population -- and that a similar percentage believes that Washington should not act unilaterally in responding to international crises.

The survey, which is part of an annual series carried out by the AJC, suggests that the U.S. Jewish community has become increasingly disenchanted with Bush's foreign policy despite his strong support for the government of Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon and the unprecedented influence of ”neo-conservatives”, many of whom are Jewish, in key policy-making posts within his administration.

Jews make up only about two percent of the U.S. population, although their exceptionally high rate of turnout gives them a 3.5 percentage of the electorate.

In addition, funding by Jewish donors of Democratic Party candidates is traditionally highly significant, accounting, for example, for as much as one half of all campaign contributions received by Democratic candidates to the Senate in the last election cycle.

While most U.S. Jews are concentrated in states that Kerry is expected to win handily -- namely New York, California, and Illinois -- their numbers are also significant in several key ”swing” states, notably Pennsylvania, Ohio, and most, perhaps most important, Florida.

In the 2000 election, Bush won only 19 percent of the Jewish vote, which went overwhelmingly for then-Vice President Al Gore. In that respect, the new poll, which gives him 24 percent of the vote this time, suggests that the president has made some inroads into the community.

But Republican strategists, who promoted the sole Jewish Republican in the House of Representatives to a leadership position in the last Congress in hopes of wooing more Jewish support, had hoped that Bush might get at least a third of the Jewish vote this year, close to the historic Republican high of 39 percent that Ronald Reagan received in 1980.

In their view, Bush's staunch support for Sharon, his efforts at marginalising Palestine Authority (PA) leader Yasser Arafat, the Iraq invasion, and harsh rhetoric against Iran and Syria should have paid off in votes. ”Politically, speaking, this president has put his money where his mouth is when it comes to Israel,” said Bruce Prince, a prominent Jewish Republican funder.

For much the same reasons, Republicans also hoped that Jewish donors would be less generous in their campaign contributions to Democrats this year.

As recently as nine months ago, it appeared that Bush might substantially improve on his 2000 showing. An AJC poll taken last December asked Jewish voters how they intended to vote in a hypothetical race between Bush and Kerry. It found that Bush would get 31 percent of the vote and Kerry only 59 percent, with ten percent undecided. Thus, while Bush is poised to do better than in 2000, his trajectory over the last nine months has been sharply negative.

The Democrats as a whole also made gains over the last two years. Fifty-four percent of respondents identified themselves as Democrats, up from 48 percent in 2002, while Republican respondents fell from 18 percent two years ago to 16 percent in the latest poll.

On foreign-policy issues, the most important reason for his decline appears to be related to Iraq. According to the latest poll, only 30 percent of U.S. Jews said they approve of the war, while 66 percent said they disapproved.

A majority of 52 percent of Jewish respondents also voiced disapproval of Bush's conduct of the ”war on terrorism”, although this was basically the same percentage as in the annual survey taken last December. Before the Iraq invasion, 59 percent of Jewish respondents said they approved of Bush's anti-terrorist campaign.

On other foreign-policy issues, this year's survey showed relatively few changes from other AJC polls of the past two years.

This was particularly true with respect to issues related to Israel. More than four in five U.S. Jews believe that ”the goal of the Arabs is not the return of occupied territories but rather the destruction of Israel”, while almost two-thirds of U.S. Jews said they ”support” the Sharon government's policy toward the PA -- percentages that are virtually unchanged over the past two years.

Nearly two thirds of U.S. Jews (63 percent) said they supported Sharon's proposal to unilaterally withdraw from the Gaza Strip, while 69 percent said they support his decision to build a security barrier between Israelis and Palestinians, although the question did not specify what path it should take.

On the other hand, 57 percent of U.S. Jews now support the establishment of a Palestinian state -- up from 49 percent in 2002; while 53 percent said Israel should not be willing to compromise Israeli jurisdiction over Jerusalem in a final peace settlement..

At the same time, 57 percent said Israel should be willing to dismantle ”some” of the Jewish settlements in the West Bank as part of a final peace accord; and another 12 percent said it should be willing to dismantle ”all” settlements -- percentages that have remained more or less constant over the past three surveys.

On questions relating to the U.S. role in the world and its relationship with Europe, strong majorities of respondents indicated they did not agree with neo-conservative views.

Thus, 77 percent said they agreed that the U.S. and Europe should be more willing to make joint decisions even if the U.S. would have to go along with a policy that is not its first choice. Similarly only 33 percent -- down from 37 percent last year -- said the U.S. should act alone in international crises even if did not have the support of its allies. Sixty-four percent said it should not, up from 60 percent nine months ago.

Just over a quarter of respondents said they considered anti- Semitism to be a ”very serious problem” in the U.S., down from 37 percent nine months ago, just before the release of Mel Gibson's controversial film, ”The Passion of the Christ”. Asked what groups are the most anti-Semitic in the U.S., nearly two-thirds of the respondents identified said either ”most” or ”many” Muslims were anti-Semitic. About one quarter of the respondents said ”most” or ”many” evangelical Protestants were anti-Semitic.

© 2004 IPS - Inter Press Service

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