Jonathan Chait, on a roll:
Netanyahu thinks a lot like a Jewish-American Republican. Jewish Republicans, for one thing, see the Israel issue in highly partisan terms — Israel's interest may lie in preserving the bi-partisan character of the alliance, but the Republican Party's interest lies in defining support for Israel as something that only Republicans can have.What's more, Republican Jews tend to have an overdeveloped sense of black anti-Semitism. Indeed, they generally regard traditional (i.e., white) anti-Semitism as having disappeared long ago, replaced by black anti-Semitism, which they consider largely pervasive. Their unstated assumption is that any left-of-center black politician is an anti-Semite unless proven otherwise — and proving otherwise is essentially impossible, as any statement or action will be considered a facade hiding a militant anti-Zionist interior. I have no basis for this characterization other than every conversation about anti-Semitism and Israel I've had with any Jewish Republican over my entire life.