Terrorism Jars Jewish, Arab Party Loyalties

[IndianaGreen]

Terrorism Jars Jewish, Arab Party Loyalties

By Laura Blumenfeld
Washington Post Staff Writer
Sunday, December 7, 2003; Page A01

President Bush has her vote, said Dina Shapiro, standing in line at Bagel Power, a Jewish bakery in Scarsdale, N.Y. She applauds his war on terrorism.

Bush won't get her vote, said Alia Charara, standing in line at New Yasmin Arabic bakery in Dearborn, Mich. She fears his war on terrorism.

Shapiro, who comes from a family of liberal Jewish Democrats, sees Bush as a man who is looking after her kin. Her nephew lives in Israel: "Just as I feel Bush is taking care of me, he's taking care of my sister's son."

Charara, whose Muslim family voted for Bush in 2000, sees the president as a man who is persecuting her kin. Her uncle was arrested recently in New York, she said: "They said he was giving secrets to Lebanon when all he was doing was calling his wife."

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A41204-2003Dec6.html

[pistoff democrat]

1. and now for the final 4 paragraphs of your article:

To be sure, neither the Arab community nor the Jewish community is a monolith. Committed Republican Arab leaders such as Yahya Basha remain loyal to Bush despite "a great deal of stress on the mind and body," Basha said. "I keep gaining weight, and losing hair and teeth." Many Iraqi Americans are pro-Bush because he ousted Saddam Hussein. Dearborn resident Sahib Al-Hathaf, an Iraqi American who fought with a U.S. infantry regiment in Baghdad, described Bush as "second only to Allah" and said, "I'd vote for him 20 times if I could."

Moreover, claims of defections among Jews are exaggerated, Democratic operatives said. Steve Rabinowitz, a Jewish media strategist, dismissed them as Republican spin. "Every two years, our Republican Jewish friends -- both of them, I like to joke -- say this is going to be the year Jews trend Republican," he said. "In November, it proves not to be true."

Jews have been a mainstay of the Democratic Party ever since Franklin Delano Roosevelt was president. That is changing, say Republicans, especially among younger, suburban voters. As one senior Bush administration official put it: "I don't get the eye-rolls at bar mitzvahs anymore."

Matt Brooks, executive director of the Republican Jewish Coalition, said that when he campaigned for Bush in 2000, "everyone was suspicious" of Bush's intentions. As governor of Texas, Bush had questioned whether Jews could enter heaven. His father had a strained relationship with the community. In 2000, Bush scraped together 19 percent of the Jewish vote. Since taking office, however, he has cried during a visit to Auschwitz, cold-shouldered Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat, and embraced Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon as "a man of peace."