The Wisdom of Jewish Crowds

JTA's Eric Fingerhut reports:

A new survey shows that a majority of American Jews would support a U.S. military strike on Iran to prevent it from developing nuclear weapons -- a significant increase from a year ago.

Fifty-six percent of American Jews would support the "United States taking military action against Iran to prevent it from developing nuclear weapons," according to the American Jewish Committee's 2009 Annual Survey of Jewish Opinion. That's an increase of 14 percentage points from the AJC survey taken in the fall of 2008. In addition, 66 percent of those surveyed said they would back an Israeli strike on Iran.

The survey of 800 self-identifying Jewish respondents, interviewed between Aug. 30 and Sept. 17, comes as a wide swath of Jewish organizations are rallying support in the Jewish community and elsewhere for increased economic and diplomatic pressure on Iran -- in particular tough sanctions targeting Iran's importation and production of refined petroleum. With a margin of error of plus or minus three percent, the poll would appear to undercut the claims of some who charge that Jewish organizations are out of step with the Jewish public in pushing for pressure on Iran.

Geez, I wonder which organization has been claiming that Jewish organizations are out of step with the Jewish public based on polling data that said organization failed to report had been compiled by one of their own board members. It turns out that for all the screeching from Joe Klein and Stephen Walt, American Jews are not quite so deluded as they are about the threat posed by Iran. American Jews will support a U.S. military strike against Iran by a fairly significant margin, and they will support an Israeli strike by an overwhelming margin. Still, I won't be surprised if J Street comes out with a poll later this week showing strong support in the Jewish community for a "reverse Liberty" -- because really, mainstream Jewish organizations will be out of step with members of the Jewish community like Salam Al-Marayati if they don't call for U.S. aircraft to defend Iran's nuclear facilities from an Israeli strike.