Israel, lies, and reality

One of the more egregious of the many Republican lies about Obama during the campaign was that he would betray and abandon Israel -- that, indeed, he had already done so.  Now, as Israel goes into action against the ongoing barrage of jihadist rocket attacks from Gaza, the truth shines through clearly.

The American people too, I'm happy to say, "get it".  According to a CNN/ORC survey on the conflict released Monday, Americans' sympathies are overwhelmingly with Israel, by 60% to 14%.  Not only that, but every sub-category of people surveyed favor Israel, including Democrats (51% to 16%) and liberals (37% to 27%).  The same held true on the question of whether Israel's current military action is justified; Americans as a whole, and every sub-category surveyed, agree that it is.

We've seen the usual outrage from those who are always quick to condemn Israel no matter how carefully it tries to avoid civilian casualties, but who were never heard from during Hamas's indiscriminate rocket attacks on Israeli towns.  We've seen the usual hand-wringing from that odd tribe of bloggers who claim to be supporters of Israel but never seem able to support any actual, specific action that Israel takes to defend itself.  We've seen the usual picking over the details of every tragic but unavoidable civilian death in Gaza from those who never said a word about the horrific atrocities of the Ayatollahs, the Taliban, etc. against their own people (unless they could somehow find an angle to blame these on the West).  But they're in the minority, no matter how you slice it.

And no liberal worthy of the name would take sides against a basically secular society in a fight with this guy.  Yes, Israel has its Jewish religious extremists with medieval attitudes about women and gays, who are a small fraction of the population with too much political influence -- but that basically parallels the situation with the Christian Right here in the US; and as here, in Israel the general culture is secular.  The Islamists make Santorum and Robertson and Akin look like liberals.

More on the overall conflict here.