Will the Democrats ever turn against Israel?

Can the Democrats find many rich, generous donors who aren't pro-Israel?

Will the Democrats ever turn against Israel?

Probably if you surveyed Democratic-voting Starbucks baristas in 2024, a larger fraction than before October 7, 2023 would define themselves as being hostile to the Jewish State. As white gentiles, with their highly pro-Israel views, become an ever-smaller fraction of Democratic voters, it’s inevitable that increasing numbers of Democratic politicians will have second thoughts about Democratic Administrations’ traditional support for Israel.

Per capita, though, baristas don’t swing as much weight in American politics as billionaires.

An interesting question is whether there will ever be enough anti-Zionist rich Democratic donors for Democratic politicians to turn anti-Israel.

Back in 2019, I looked up the ethnic roots of the top 50 donors in the 2018 midterm elections. My findings:

Of the $675 million the top 50 contributors gave according to OpenSecrets, 53 percent of the money went to Democratic candidates or to liberal causes, 44 percent to Republicans or conservatives, and 3 percent to independent or bipartisan concerns.

Of the top 50 political donors to either party at the federal level in 2018, 52 percent were Jewish and 48 percent were gentile. Individuals who identify as Jewish are usually estimated to make up perhaps 2.2 percent of the population. …

Of the $675 million given by the top 50 donors, 66 percent of the money came from Jews and 34 percent from gentiles.

Of the $297 million that GOP candidates and conservative causes received from the top 50 donors, 56 percent was from Jewish individuals.

Of the $361 million Democratic politicians and liberal causes received, 76 percent came from Jewish givers.

So, the Democrats would have been nuts back then to take a hard line against Israel’s foreign policy because 76% of the money they got from their few dozen biggest donors came from Jews.

Not all big Jewish Democratic donors are fervent Zionists, of course, but big donors tend to have the kind of personality that goes along with American Jews being pro-Israel. Big Democratic donors really want their team to win, which is why they are giving so much money to the Democrats: so they can win.

If they are Jewish, and most top Democratic donors are, they tend to see Israel as also their team, and once again they want their team to win.

Similarly, rich guys in America often love to give colossal amounts of money to their college football team so it can win. Rich Jews, however, tend to be concentrated in the one part of the country, the Northeast, where college football isn’t huge. So the kind of personalities who’d be shelling out for the best linebackers if they had grown up in Alabama shell out instead for Israel as their version of their favorite college football team.

Has anything much changed over the last six years?

Here’s a very quick and dirty New York Times article on the biggest donors to the 2024 presidential campaigns, profiling 5 major donors to each.

Who Are the Biggest Donors to Trump and Harris?

In presidential politics, campaigns are powered by billionaires. Here is a look at the most influential givers.

By Theodore Schleifer

Sept. 1, 2024

Here’s the NYT’s top ten list and my quick estimates of their ethnicity by nature and nurture (but not by religious belief):

Big Trump Donors:

Tim Mellon: 0% Jewish
Elon Musk: 0%
Miriam Adelson: 100%
Dick and Liz Uihlein: 0%
Linda McMahon: 0%

Big Harris Donors

Reid Hoffman: 0%
George and Alex Soros: 100%
Mike Bloomberg: 100%
Dustin Moskovitz: 100%
Jeffrey Katzenberg: 100%

Tech tycoon Reid Hoffman is often assumed to be at least partly Jewish on the common presumption that in America all famous people with German surnames are Jewish. But EthnicCelebs.com makes an exhaustive genealogical case for its contention that:

Various web sites and lists of names claim that Reid is Jewish, presumably because of his surname. This is not accurate.

But in any case, once again a lot of the Democrats biggest donors are more or less Jewish.

This doesn’t mean that rich Jewish Democratic donors will automatically stay loyal to Israel, especially as it continues to drift to the right and as Netanyahu aligns with American Republicans.

But, I suspect, that for most big Jewish Democratic donors, most of their qualms about Israel becoming a far right country could be assuaged by the coming back to power of an Israeli leader aligned with American Democrats, such as Benny Ganz. If Netanyahu finally goes to prison on bribery charges and a Friend of the U.S. Democrats takes power in Jerusalem, that would seem likely to be enough to assuage rich American Jewish donors: Benny Ganz’s Israel would still be highly rightwing by global standards, but at least their kind of Israeli would be winning.

And to big donors, winning counts.