Bush, Kerry and the Jewish Vote as seen from Israel

A report on the wooing of the Jewish vote by the Bush campaign and why its having limited success from a leading Israeli newspaper - Haaretz - Israel News - Ogling the Jewish voter - contains this interesting observation:
"A member of AIPAC, the American Israel Public Affairs Committee lobbying organization, asked this week to resolve the discrepancy, explains that there is no real contradiction between what Troy [Bush's liaison with the Jewish community] says and what Kerry's brother [Cameron Forbes Kerry who recently visited Israel to speak of John Kerry's pro-Israel voting record] says. Kerry does indeed have a history of support for Israel, but he has never been much of an activist in this regard. Quite a few Israelis have met Kerry in recent years, and some of them - including several who are still in office today - had an uncomfortable feeling about him. 'It wasn't anything he said,' one of them tried to explain. 'It was something he projected.' Somehow, Kerry's outstretched hand never felt very warm."

The author of this story dismisses the idea that a lack of Jewish voting support at the polls would ever result in the GOP fielding a presidential candidate less enthusiastic in support for Israel:
"An interesting argument, but flawed: An educated guess is that 40 percent of the contributions to the Republican party come from Jews. That being the case, it is hard to imagine a candidate ignoring the political clout of the Jews, even if the number of voters is not large." I suspect that figure of 40% is a substantial exaggeration and he gives no consideration to the very strong and vocal support for Israel among Evangelical Christians who are key part of the GOP base vote.

Another story in the same edition of the paper notes a survey showing two-thirds of US Jewish voters oppose the war in Iraq. That's a number I had not seen before, and it goes a long way toward explaining why Bush can't seem to reach his goal of getting 40% of the Jewish vote as Ronald Reagan once did.