Obama Has Been Frosty Cold Toward Israel. So Why Do American Jews Still Wuv Him to Pieces?

Caroline Glick takes a stab at explaining it:

After the fiasco at the Democratic National Convention when the widespread antipathy for Israel raging in the Democratic Party was broadcast on primetime television, the Obama administration has stopped even trying to hide its contempt for the Jewish state and its American Jewish supporters.  

Whereas the US refused to walk out of Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's obscene address to the UN General Assembly last month, US Ambassador Susan Rice chose to absent herself entirely from Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu's address before the body.  

Adding insult to injury, last week Obama appointed Salam al-Marayati to represent the US at the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe's annual ten-day human rights conference. Marayati is the founder and executive director of the Muslim Public Affairs Committee. As Robert Spencer recalled this week, on Sept. 11, 2001 Marayati gave an interview to a Los Angeles radio station accusing Israel of being responsible for the jihadist attacks on the US. He is an outspoken supporter of Hamas and Hezbollah. And Obama appointed him to represent America at a major human rights conference.  

So what is it that drives over two thirds of American Jews to support Obama? The only issues that come easily to mind are social issues -- particularly the two flagship causes of American Jews these days - abortion and homosexual marriage. While it is true that Obama shares their positions on these issues, it is hard to believe that these two issues have become the cri du coeur of more than two thirds of American Jews.

With all due respect to Ms. Glick, I don't think those are the key issues. Rather, I believe it's about American Jewry's allegiance to universalism and rejection of particularism, and in particular, their discomfort with the particularity of Jewish nationalism.