Is Netanyahu destroying a "special relationship" to win an election?

[useful idiot]

The Democratic party's shift away from being  as pro-Israel as the GOP has little to do with an increase in Hispanics or young Jews forgetting the Holocaust.  I'm a generally pro-Palestinian quasi-Republican, so take this for what it's worth, but I think it has more to do with:

Primarily:
- A pro-Islam/anti-Islam polarization between Democrats, who have taken on a role as the defenders of Islam and Muslims, and Republicans, who run the gamut from people who oppose Islamist repression to conservative Christians who oppose Islam for religious reasons to racists who dislike people from Muslim societies.
- Israel becoming a more conservative place in the post-Rabin era, with leaders who more naturally gravitate towards Republican politicians and who are less interested in compromise. This has reached a head with Netanyahu, who is essentially a Republican and whose American friends are all Republicans, and a Democratic president with whom he personally does not get along.

Secondarily:
- The Holocaust fading into history for people generally, and having less weight in the minds of liberals who want to stand by those who have been historically wronged
- The Democrats simply falling into line with other center-left to left wing parties around the industrialized world who see the Palestinians as more deserving of their sympathy than the Israelis
- The religious divide between Republicans and Democrats. Secular or irreligious Democrats don't have the same kind of filial relationship with Judaism that older Democrats who might have been religiously conservative but politically liberal would have.

Given these factors, I don't think what we're seeing is surprising at all. Netanyahu's speech isn't creating the divide, it's merely a symptom of an already growing divide. Nevertheless, the Democratic party is still more pro-Israel than it is pro-Palestinian/Arab, and a Clinton administration will smooth over most of the current tension. All in all, I don't think what is going on is actually that unhealthy. Israel doesn't need to be our priority right now, and a moderate amount of tension with them probably benefits us in dealing with current crises.

[useful idiot]

The Democratic party's shift away from being  as pro-Israel as the GOP has little to do with an increase in Hispanics or young Jews forgetting the Holocaust.  I'm a generally pro-Palestinian quasi-Republican, so take this for what it's worth, but I think it has more to do with:

Primarily:
- A pro-Islam/anti-Islam polarization between Democrats, who have taken on a role as the defenders of Islam and Muslims, and Republicans, who run the gamut from people who oppose Islamist repression to conservative Christians who oppose Islam for religious reasons to racists who dislike people from Muslim societies.
- Israel becoming a more conservative place in the post-Rabin era, with leaders who more naturally gravitate towards Republican politicians and who are less interested in compromise. This has reached a head with Netanyahu, who is essentially a Republican and whose American friends are all Republicans, and a Democratic president with whom he personally does not get along.

Secondarily:
- The Holocaust fading into history for people generally, and having less weight in the minds of liberals who want to stand by those who have been historically wronged
- The Democrats simply falling into line with other center-left to left wing parties around the industrialized world who see the Palestinians as more deserving of their sympathy than the Israelis
- The religious divide between Republicans and Democrats. Secular or irreligious Democrats don't have the same kind of filial relationship with Judaism that older Democrats who might have been religiously conservative but politically liberal would have.

Given these factors, I don't think what we're seeing is surprising at all. Netanyahu's speech isn't creating the divide, it's merely a symptom of an already growing divide. Nevertheless, the Democratic party is still more pro-Israel than it is pro-Palestinian/Arab, and a Clinton administration will smooth over most of the current tension. All in all, I don't think what is going on is actually that unhealthy. Israel doesn't need to be our priority right now, and a moderate amount of tension with them probably benefits us in dealing with current crises.

I am tired of viewing the Israel-Palestine issue in such an Islamocentric framework, as though one has any bearing on the other. Disliking Israel does not make one pro-Islam and vice versa.

I dislike the Israeli government because they have habitually and brazenly disregarded the human rights of millions of people for no reason other than the fact that they are the wrong religion.

On the flip side, however, I go one step beyond merely disliking Islamism and will say, unapologetically, that I do not view mainstream Islam as compatible with secular, progressive Western values. I do not think one can be both a practicing Muslim and a good liberal, in the American sense of the word. If the attacks in France did not hammer that point home, I don't know what will. And I am getting tired of listening to people, including Barack Obama, serve as apologists for a religion that is so regressive.

Fine, but you're not the Democratic party, and the liberal establishment (academia, the socially liberal media, politicians including the President himself) wouldn't agree with you, hence the divide. Most of the terrorists and Islamists around the world invoke the Israel-Palestine conflict and they aren't Palestinians, many of them not even Arab; when they are Arab they're invoking Islam, not Pan-Arabism. Gaza is run by Islamic extremists, unfortunately, not Abbas and the PLO, who seem to be forgotten in all of this. Naturally the pro-Islam bent of modern liberalism is going to bring them into some kind of greater solidarity with the Muslim on the Israel question.

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I don't disagree, but I think you're agreeing with my assessment that this is at issue in the limited cooling of the Dems toward Israel. I don't think it's totally unnatural though, given that corners of the Right are irrationally anti-Muslim, that liberals would defend Muslims on some level. As usual, however, they go overboard and only fuel talk-radio and the GOP base when they present Islam as some sort of pure and undefiled thing or act like Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi is just the Muslim Rick Warren.