Obama’s fortunes among Jewish voters may face a critical test in coming months. Israel hawks warm to Obama

Surveying American Jewish public opinion is notoriously difficult, but Ed Koch relies on his own sample: the several hundred emails a week he receives from all over, printed out and laid on his desk by his assistant. The former New York City mayor answers each one, in longhand, then returns it for a digital reply.

And in recent months, Koch has been hearing fewer and fewer complaints about Barack Obama.


“Nobody is writing me,” he said in an interview this week. “I would tell you that there are very few, a handful, in any month, that excoriate me for my position in support of Obama or ask me to change.”

Koch led an insurgency last fall, demanding Obama bolster his support for Israel. Obama responded with intense personal diplomacy – he spent a private, secret hour with Koch on the sidelines of the United Nations General Assembly – and with an increasingly muscular approach to the top priority of Israel’s American supporters: Iran’s nuclear intentions. Facing a push from Congress for crippling sanctions, Obama has signed into law tough measures that target the Iranian economy and this week began implementing sanctions that target the Iranian central bank, as Europe moves toward a ban on Iranian oil imports.

The president’s rising fortunes among Jewish voters, at least according to Koch’s brand of polling, may face a critical test in the coming months; whether Washington stands in support if Israel decides to take military action to halt Iran’s drive for nuclear weapons. In perhaps the most important sign of Obama’s strengthened pro-Israel credentials, Koch and others have come to believe that if the Netanyahu government bombs Iranian installations, Obama will back them; and that an American strike isn’t out of the question.

“This is an existential threat to Western civilization,” said Koch. “I think that the president and others have recognized that and will do whatever is required to keep our nation safe.”

Obama said as much in a widely viewed, pre-Super Bowl interview with NBC, answering Matt Lauer’s query on Iran by responding firmly: All options, he said, are on the table, a standard reference to the threat of military action.

“We are going to be sure that we work in lockstep as we proceed to try to solve this — hopefully diplomatically,” Obama continued.

The result has been notable success in soothing his choppy relationship with pro-Israel and Jewish activists, and the relatively small but influential set of leaders like Koch who are neither yellow-dog Democrats, defending Obama at every turn, nor partisan Republicans who use the issue as a club.

Indeed, even the Republican who won his seat in part by convincing his Jewish constituents to send Obama a message on Israel, New York Rep. Bob Turner, says he’s impressed.

“I think that the president has made some forceful defenses of Israel in speeches of late, which is very important – it has diplomatic weight and credibility throughout the Muslim world,” he said, also citing the new Iran sanctions. “These things give us some comfort.”

“If I helped move this in the right direction I’d be very pleased,” Turner said.

Indeed, Turner – who will face a tough re-election challenge in a traditionally Democratic district– is no longer running against the Democratic president on Israel.

“Bob Turner was very much appreciated for helping to move the president on some of those issues,” said a campaign consultant, Bill O’Reilly. “Through Koch’s efforts and Turner’s and others’, the president is standing more firmly on Israel and Iran.”

The pro-Israel Democrats who are also a reliable thermometer of their constituents’ sentiment have also detected the shift.

“Most of the pro-Israel community is now convinced that when President Obama says he will prevent Iran from obtaining nuclear weapons capability, he means it,” said Rep. Steve Rothman (D-N.J.). He cited a litany of muscular actions, including SEAL raids on Osama bin Laden and Somali kidnappers, drone strikes around the world, and a shift of American military assets toward Iran, which he said have “for the moment given pause to those who wondered about the president’s mettle in using force against America’s and Israel’s enemies.”

The shift has had consequences through Democratic politics. Rothman, redistricted into a tough primary with Rep. Bill Pascrell, is seeking to draw a contrast based on Rothman’s hawkishly pro-Israel record.

That’s no longer a position that would put him in conflict with the popular Democratic president.

“Constituents and relatives who were otherwise regularly calling to inquire whether the president really felt the need to protect Israel in his guts are not now calling me so much with those kinds of questions,” he said.

Indeed, the targeted actions against Iran – and in particular the assassinations of civilian scientists, for which the U.S. has not taken credit – have made it difficult to make the case that Obama is being insufficiently ruthless in his approach. (Difficult, but not impossible: Former U.N. Ambassador John Bolton recently described assassinations as “half-measures.”)

Republican presidential candidates continue to accuse Obama of weakness toward Iran, and to suggest that they’d be swifter to call in the bombing strikes. But even some of his Republican critics have concluded that foreign policy is no longer an appealing target.

“It’s important that we show some national unity, and the president’s steps of late have been well-received,” said Turner. “If he’s on the same page as we are on, the right side of these issues – all the better.

“We’ve got plenty to work on – we’ve got jobs, the economy, he just came out against the First Amendment on religious freedom. We’ve got so much to work with that I needn’t worry about that,” he said.