Alaska Democrat state senator thinks pro-Israel, pro-Jewish Americans are also anti-vaxxers. Turns out, he may be right

Alaska State Sen. Forrest Dunbar wondered out loud on X/Twitter if anti-vaxxers and pro-Israel Americans were one and the same. He was commenting on an Economist/YouGov poll that showed Americans’ views on Jews and Israel.

“I’d like to see cross-tabs between this and antivaxxers. I’d be willing to bet that there is a strong correlation, with a similar set of casual factors for both,” Dunbar said on X/Twitter.

Apparently, Dunbar, who is Jewish, didn’t actually look at the poll. Anchorage citizen activist Jay McDonald did, however, and noted that the Anchorage hard-Democrat lawmaker unknowingly “owns the libs with facts and logic!”

As it turns out, Democrats are not all that friendly toward Jews or Israel as a nation. Republicans are more so, and yes, Republicans lean more toward skepticism of government-forced Covid vaccines, according to other polls.

But first, the numbers on Jews and Israel, with a definitely trend of Democrats disapproving of both:

• – Some 40% of Democrat poll respondents said that Israel is deliberately trying to wipe out the Palestinian population while fewer than 15% of Republicans agreed with that statement.

• – When it comes to the Holocaust, 23% of Democrats said that Israel exploits its Holocaust victimhood for its own purposes, while under 15% of Republicans agreed with the statement.

• – Fully one quarter of Democrats said Israel has too much control over global affairs, and 22% said that the interests of Israelis are at odds with the interest of the rest of the world. 19% of Democrats said Jews have too much power in America, compared to 12% of Republicans agreeing with the statement.

• – Finally, 10% of Democrats said that the Holocaust is a myth, compared to less than 7% of Republicans.

One thing Democrats and Republicans agree on, according to the poll: When it comes to anti-Jewish hate crimes, 68% of Democrats and 68% of Republicans say hate crimes against Jewish people in the U.S. are a very serious or somewhat serious issue.

67% of Americans agreed with the statement that Holocaust denial is antisemitic, the poll shows. About one-third said boycotts of Israeli goods and universities antisemitic, and one in five said opposing Israeli treatment of Palestinians is antisemitic.

Republicans are more willing to say that boycotting Israeli products is antisemitic: 52% of Republicans say it is, compared to 24% of Democrats. One-third of Americans overall say that believing American Jews are more loyal to Israel than they are to the U.S. is antisemitic.

Read the rest of the poll summary at this link.

As for Covid vaccine skepticism (or “anti-vaxxers,” as Dunbar calls them), a Morning Consult poll revealed in September that since the Covid vaccine rollout and subsequent revelations, Republicans have become a lot more skeptical.

Before 2020, polls showed little overall difference along partisan lines on issues related to vaccination in general, such as whether students should be inoculated against measles to attend public schools.

But since Covid, Republican voters have diverged from everyone else, a report from POLITICO summarized.

“A new POLITICO | Morning Consult poll, conducted as part of POLITICO’s ongoing series about the rising anti-vax movement, shows Republican voters are less likely than Democrats or independents to say vaccines are safe for children. It also shows that as many Republicans now say they care more about the risks of vaccines than they do about the health benefits,” the publication reported here.