In the first week of September, Stephen Walt and John Mearsheimer's controversial book, The Israel Lobby, hit bookstores. In it, the authors argue that Israel supporters have excessive influence on U.S. foreign policy and consistently skew U.S. policies in favor of Israel. Coincidentally, in the same week, a little-noticed study found that young American Jews are less likely to support Israel than ever before. "Feelings of attachment may well be changing, as warmth gives way to indifference, and indifference may even give way to downright alienation," the study's coauthors, Steven Cohen of Hebrew Union College and Ari Y. Kelman of the University of California, Davis, wrote in their introduction.
Based on a written survey of 1,704 non-Orthodox American Jews, just 48 percent of respondents under the age of 35 would consider the destruction of Israel a "personal tragedy," as opposed to 77 percent of those 65 and older. Only 54 percent of the younger group said they were even "comfortable with the idea of a Jewish State," compared to 81 percent of the elderly respondents.
Political ideology has nothing to do with the lack of concern, according to the authors; intermarriage among faiths and the decline of a "collective view of being Jewish" explain the shift. For those who believe that U.S. foreign policy suffers for its pro-Israel positions, a wave of apathy may be on the way.Send this article to a friend.
[Photo: David Silverman/Getty Images]
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