Special to WorldTribune.com

“Israel can no longer claim to have the bipartisan support of America,” pollster Frank Luntz said after a new survey showed three quarters of U.S. Democrats think Israel has too much influence on U.S. foreign policy and nearly half believe Israel is a racist country.

In detailing the poll results to The Times of Israel on July 5, Luntz said the results were “a disaster” for Israel. He said he “knew there was a shift” in attitudes toward Israel among Democrats “and I have been seeing it get worse. I didn’t expect it to become this blatant and this deep.”

Luntz’s poll found that 76 percent of Democrats, but only 20 percent of Republicans, thought Israel had “too much influence” on U.S. policy. It found 47 percent of Democrats agreed Israel is a racist country, compared with only 13 percent of Republicans.

Republicans overwhelmingly (88 percent) said Israel wants peace with its neighbors while only 48 percent of Democrats agreed. A mere 18 percent of Democrats said they would vote for a candidate who supported Israel and its right to exist, compared to 76 percent of Republicans.

“Israel has won the hearts and minds of Republicans in America, while at the same time it is losing the Democrats,” Luntz said. “The Israeli government and U.S. Jews have to focus on repairing relations with the Democrats.”

Many observers see hypocrisy in Democrats’ criticism of Israel and support for Palestinians, particularly as Luntz found the statements “women in Israel have exactly the same rights as men” and “no other Middle Eastern country offers women fully equal rights” was well received among Democrats in the poll.

Democrats “don’t care about the ‘Start-Up Nation,’ ” Luntz said. “It’s tragic that so much effort has been devoted to selling an image of Israel that many aren’t interested in buying.”

Luntz went on to say that there must be an “end to the [use of the] word Zionism. You can’t make the case if you use that word. If you are at Berkeley or Brown and start outlining a Zionist vision, you don’t get to make a case for Israel because they’ve already switched off.”

  Frank Luntz, poll, Poll: 47 percent of U.S. Democrats now see Israel as a racist country, WorldTribune.com